Page 1 of Go Home (Kate Valentine #1)

It had been a long, full Monday, but that was how Father Thomas liked them.

A priest was obliged to spend one day each week engaged in prayer and spiritual contemplation – contractually obligated , according to Zbigniew, the earnest curate who’d been assigned to Saint Andrew’s last year.

Father Thomas couldn’t remember signing any contracts back at the seminary in Derry, but regardless of that, he preferred to fulfill his obligations while busy with other things.

This morning, he’d composed next Sunday’s sermon while cycling to the hospice center.

And later, while he and a few volunteers sifted through the frankly pitiful donations for the forthcoming Harvest Festival display, he’d certainly offered up a lot of prayers.

He offered another one – of the “Lord give me strength” variety – while listening to Mrs. Kerrigan’s confession. Typically, Mrs. K. was the only penitent of the evening. Just as typical, she arrived right as he was about to close up shop.

"Now the father’s no use to her. He can’t even drive Jenny to the store; he’s banned from driving. So that’s them, now, Father, gone from a three-car family to a no-car family in six months! That’s where the boy gets it from. For the apple never falleth far from the tree .”

Father Thomas coughed. He was certain that this particular old saw did not feature in the Book of Proverbs.

“I’ve held my tongue, Father. Never said a word to Jenny herself.

All that’s happened is, I’m standing in Market Basket in the line and there’s Jenny’s Kevin behind me.

And I just mention in passing to Jenny’s Kevin that Rae’s Kevin would never have offered the boy a start in the nets if Rae’s Kevin had known about the court date. That’s it.”

If only that was it. Tonight’s offering was a complicated tale, but at its root were simple facts.

In communities like this, up and down the Maine coast, fishing was finished.

Long-established seafaring clans like the O’Malleys and the Aguirres could no longer offer their sons – or daughters – a life “in the nets,” as locals dubbed it.

The younger generation, if not already sucked in shoals toward Boston and New York, were seeking new ways to get ahead.

In the case of the young man in Mrs. Kerrigan’s anecdote – her great-nephew – the chosen way involved selling ecstasy pills to his classmates at Verbum Dei.

This had resulted in an arrest, a court date, and a deepening family feud, in which Mrs. Kerrigan had doubtless fanned the flames.

Was Mrs. Kerrigan a gossip-monger? Did she thrive on intrigue, make snap judgments, hurt feelings with her “tell-it-as-it-is” approach?

Almost certainly. She had also nursed her mother through a cruel illness and endured twenty-two years of marriage to a man who only put the bottle down in order to thump her.

Didn’t St. Augustine say, “I am not one single man but many, good and bad?”

She recited the Act of Contrition, and he mouthed the words alongside her. “Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments…”

The Act of Contrition was, he often thought, a masterpiece, one that had undoubtedly been written by a veteran priest. Because it didn’t require Mrs. Kerrigan to name the sins she’d committed, nor did he have to wrack his brains to provide them.

The writer of this prayer had recognized exactly what Confession was all about.

People didn’t really want to discuss their wrongdoings, and they didn’t believe they could be undone with a few prayers, a dollar in the box, or a restorative good deed.

Basically, whoever they were, and wherever they were in the world, people just wanted someone to talk to.

“Now, by way of a penance, I wonder could you offer some support to the young man?”

“Oh. Oh, right. I see, Father.”

Mrs. Kerrigan seemed unhappy with the suggestion. Further proof, if it were needed, that no one ever went to Confession to confess. Nevertheless, she went on to ask, “What sort of support, Father?”

“Well… seeing as there’s a transport issue for the family, perhaps you could give him a ride to the courthouse next week? I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten the young man’s name…”

“It’s Kevin, Father.”

He was still smiling about that five minutes later as he finished his own prayers, shut the grille, took the stole from around his neck, kissed it, and folded it three times – a completion ritual from which he never veered.

He was just about to turn the handle and step out of the box when he heard footsteps, a click, and the creak of the adjoining door.

Gee thanks, Lord.

He opened the grille and saw through diamond-patterned slats a dark hood, the peak of a cap, no face.

The penitent was angled away from him, as much as that was possible in the tiny space.

They, or their outfit, or both, were bulky.

And there was a faint smell: machinery, something of the outdoors like rain or sea.

Perhaps he worked at the harbor. Some folks still did.

“Welcome, my child.”

The penitent said nothing. Father Thomas could hear them breathing, air whistling through their nostrils.

He was used to silences. Not just in the confessional.

Back in Derry, during the Troubles, he had sat with the bereaved, with the families whose loved ones had simply disappeared and, on prison visits, with the men who made them disappear.

The figure shifted, coughed. A man’s cough.

The silence stretched out.

There had to be a limit. It was late. Father Thomas had stayed way beyond the allotted hour with Mrs. Kerrigan; the church needed locking up, there was a pan of stew he was keen to eat, and a number of parish-related emails he was equally keen to get sent before he settled down with Netflix and a large Bushmills.

Like dear old St. Augustine, he was only human.

“How can I help you?” he asked.

No reply. Father Thomas glanced at his watch. Mother of God.

“Look – ”

The figure began speaking at the same time. A high, monotonous voice – like a child reading aloud from a book.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It’s been… it’s been a long time since my last confession.”

Accent? He couldn’t place it. American but not from any particular part of America.

At least he’s talking.

“What do you want to confess?”

He’d anticipated another long pause, but the man set off immediately. More animated now, off-script.

“I was in Bangor. Three months ago today. June fourteenth. I was there on business. I stayed in a hotel by the river. Just a couple nights.”

Confessions ran along fixed grooves, and after thirty years of hearing them, Father Thomas felt fairly sure which direction this particular train was headed. Downtown. The hotel bar. A girl.

“It was a nice hotel, very clean.”

“Clean” because he feels dirty…

“What’s your line of business?” Father Thomas asked. Sometimes, going back was the way to go forward.

“Auto parts,” said the man. And then, hastily, “There’s a lot of people there who are down on their luck.

You know? By the waterfront. There’s a camp under the Washington Bridge.

People with their belongings in shopping carts.

It’s ah – ” He cleared his throat. “It’s very sad, Father, how many people are living like that. ”

“Yes, it is.”

“And they’re usually not bad people, Father. They’re not there because they deserve to be. I ah – ” Another pause, a sniff. “I talked to this guy down there. He was an ex-Marine, Iraq. Got injured, IED, shrapnel in his knee. Cashiered out, started taking medication for the pain.”

Another familiar tale.

“I bought him breakfast.”

“That was kind.”

“I meant it kindly,” said the man. Then there was more silence. He seemed to have lost his thread.

“What did you buy him for breakfast?”

“He showed me his tent. All neat inside, everything rolled up tight, like in the military. He told me his name. Matthew.”

“A good Bible name,” said Father Thomas. “Do you want to give me yours?”

“My name?” echoed the man. Another silence. Then a sigh as he said, distantly, “Oh, it’s Mark.”

Father Thomas could have made a crack about Matthew, Luke, and John or said, “I’m Father Thomas,” but for some reason, he kept silent. There was something about that answer, the odd, distant way it was given, the sigh… He didn’t like it, although he didn’t understand why.

“It sounds like you showed kindness to someone,” said Father Thomas, briskly taking charge. “So I’m wondering what you really have to confess.”

“In the afternoon. I mean, it was the evening. Six or seven. Early evening, still light.”

Mother of God.

“Yes?”

“I saw him again and I said hi. And he – he recognized me but he was changed.”

“Changed?”

“Different. In his eyes. Like a screen had come down. Only I didn’t realize it.

I’d already decided I wanted to help him, see.

So I gave him fifty dollars. And I –” The man swallowed.

“I held it out to him and he took it. Two twenties and a ten; he screwed them up and threw them at me. He said, “I don’t want your pity!” He was high.

High on drugs or drunk. And he said, “Take your fifty you fucking queer and shove it up your ass.””

The words sat there in the space between them. It was not the first time he’d heard them, by a long stretch. But still.

“What did you do?”

“I’m ashamed to say, Father, but I cursed him back. The F-bomb.”

“Well – you were shocked. You hadn’t expected that reaction.”

“Don’t make excuses for me, Father. I swore at that man. He had nothing. And I cursed at him. I felt awful about that. Still do.”

Well it beats Mrs. Kerrigan and the three Kevins.

“Well, there’s always a better word than a curse word, except when you drop a hammer on your toe!” Father Thomas chuckled at his own joke, but no sound came from the man. “Look, as sins go —"

“I felt so bad, I went back to find him later. I recognized his tent, army green, he kept it a ways off from the others.”

“You went back to apologize for swearing? Or for offering the money?”

“Not to apologize. To make it right.”

“Right?”

“He was right. What good were fifty bucks? He’d still be in that tent. If I wanted to help him, I had to help him properly.”

“Properly?”

“That miserable existence. A proud man, a soldier reduced to that. He should have died in battle. Entered heaven as a hero. It wasn’t just, Father.”

“What do you mean by entering h—”

“I poured diesel all over him as he slept, Father, and I poured a trail of it along the pathway. Twelve or thirteen feet away and then I lit it.”

The priest felt hot and cold. The hard little seat seemed to shift underneath him.

“Listen –” he said hoarsely. He cleared his throat. Was this a wind-up?

“It went up like a firework. Have you ever seen such a thing, Father? The noise it makes?”

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this but I— ”

"You serve God, don’t you?"

“Yes, but if you’re telling me the truth, I can’t give you absolution, you—”

“Oh, I don’t want absolution.” The man laughed, a high squeal. “Judgment comes from someone higher than you. I want you to recognize that, Father. Know it. Know it at last and let it set you free.”

Suddenly he opened the door and slid out of the box. Anxious to get a look at the man, Father Thomas pushed his own door. He found it jammed shut.

“Feck!”

Almost in answer, the church door slammed. The priest hammered at the confession box door, barged it with his shoulder, stood stooped in that tiny space and booted it with all his might. The fecking door. Wouldn’t move.

It was locked.

He realized, just before the man had slid into the confessional, he’d heard a soft click. But there was no key in either of the doors.

There was a key. An old, four-toothed number that worked on both doors.

A couple of years back, some of the local kids had started clowning around with it during the long summer holidays.

Locked the little McCleod girl inside for a joke.

Ever since then, the key had been in the Vestry, in an old box full of odds and ends.

Hell. It was only a flimsy door. He rattled it. Elbowed it. Formed a fist and thumped it. That hurt .

He tried to stand. If he could wedge himself against the back panel of the box, he could get his right leg up against the door and boot it.

He booted it. That hurt . The door wasn’t as flimsy as it looked.

The smell now hit him full in the face. He tasted it. Garage forecourts. The loading dock at the harbor. Mother of Christ . Diesel.

A stone of dread began to form at the base of his throat. He tried to cry out, but nothing came. And in the brooding silence of the church came a soft sound, like a bed sheet flapping in the breeze; as the fuel ignited, flames began to dance at the base of the maple wood confessional.

And the man of God began to burn.