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Gabriel.
You can never quite get used to the hush of a church at dusk. The air hangs heavier somehow, thick with old incense. I always sit in the confessional on Tuesdays, the little booth barely bigger than a broom closet, staring at a dull wooden cross, waiting for the shuffle of feet, a cough, a whisper, the sliding of the screen. Most people come for the same sins; small, ordinary, sometimes even boring. A lie here. A lost temper there. A few men mumbling about money, a woman angry at her sister-in-law. But tonight, the hush is alive. I sense it before I hear her.
Her footsteps are soft and are a measured rhythm on the marble, and when she sits, I know it’s her. Mara. The parish’s new obsession, and mine. She never comes to mass early, always slips in just after the bells, hair a
