Page 38 of Absolution

As he recites a prayer, I watch and listen, thinking how beautiful it is in this moment, how fortunate I am to have had him here tonight. It’s as if God sent him to me as a gift, to keep me from going to Calvin’s, who surely would make tonight a nightmare.

“In Your mercy and love, forgive whatever sins she may have committed through human weakness. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen,” I echo and turn my attention back to Mamie. “Je t’aime.”

“Ivy?” Anita peeks around the curtain and stuffs her hand into the pocket of her scrubs. “Few years back, your grandma asked me to write some things down for you. She made me keep it, in the event she passed away.”

“Oh, God, I can’t.” The urge to sob tugs at my chest again, as she hands me the paper.

“I’m not gonna lie. She made me cry just writing it. So, maybe read it on your own time.”

“Thank you, ‘Nita.”

“She asked me to give this to the priest, as well.” Anita pulls out another note, handing it off to Damon. “I don’t know how that works with confessions, and all that, but I ain’t planning to tell nobody what she made me write down.”

Accepting the paper, Damon tucks it into his shirt pocket, while I watch with pointed interest. Only one thing I know for certain had always tormented her conscience, and if it’s written there, then Anita knows as much as Father Damon is about to find out.

Anita flashes me a smile, not bothering to meet my eyes, as she exits the room, and the worry blossoms inside my gut once more.

“Excuse me, Father.” I push to my feet and chase after her. Once outside the door, I grab her arm. “Anita, wait.”

“Look, I promised her I won’t say anything. And I plan to keep that promise. You should, too, Ivy. Past is past.”

“How can …. How can you know what she told you and say that?” I keep my voice low, eyes scanning down the hall and back to her. “How can you know what I did and …”

“Forgive you?”

Casting my gaze away from hers fails to shrink the shame bubbling in my gut at what surely must be written on that paper for Father Damon.

“Because that’s what we do as human beings. We forgive.”

Tears stinging my eyes, I lift my gaze to hers and shake my head. “I don’t deserve it.”

Returning to Mamie’s room, I take a seat and lift her hand, feeling something crumpled in her palm. Paper. Black and white, it’s stained her skin, and I flatten it to reveal the story she clipped years ago, kept tucked inside a scrapbook of things in her nightstand. A woman and child murdered in their home.

Rubbing my brow, I swallow back the urge to throw up right there on the floor.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Damon slips the paper from my hand, and I let him. There’s no sense keeping secrets, when every detail is undoubtedly written on the page tucked inside his pocket.

His eyes shoot toward Mamie and back to the paper, then to me, and there’s far more in them than mere curiosity. “Why did she have this?”

Ignoring his question, I dare myself to hold his stare. “There’s something I have to confess, Damon.”

“What is it?”

I reach out for the paper, flicking my fingers to make him give it back. “I’ll tell you everything in the car. Please, can I have it back?”

“I’d like to keep it, if you don’t mind.”

“Why?”

“There’s something I should confess, as well, Ivy.” His brows come together as he stares down at the clipping in his hands. “Valerie and Isabella Savio were my wife and child.”

16

Damon

The drive back to Ivy’s is somber and quiet, her gaze cast toward the passenger window beside her. The note in my pocket practically burns a hole through my chest, as her grandmother’s final words sit tucked against my heart.

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