Mara
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. And I would sin again.”
The booth was too small for a lie that size.
No screen. No kind wood between us. Father Elias sat opposite me in the dim, cassock dark, same mouth as the man I had married, same eyes, same bone in the cheek. Nathan’s twin. The holy one. The one who was supposed to wash this out of me.
He did not look washed.
“How long since your last confession?”
“Long enough that I stopped pretending the toys were about me.”
His hands were still. The rest of him was not. I watched his throat move.
“Tell me the sin.”
I looked at him when I said it. That was the first wickedness. I did not hide my face in my palms like a good wife.
“I am married. Nathan f***s me. He tries. He comes. He rolls over and sleeps like a man who did his
