Page 164 of Beautiful Obsessions
I heard the front doors rattle as someone tried the handles.Then came the silence when they refused to give.
I knew, with a cold certainty, that they would try another door next.
I folded the stained altar cloth once and held it against my side, the red hidden against the black of my cassock.
I rose, crossed to the first candle, and pinched out the flame.
Then the next.And the rest.One by one, I killed the light.
The church sank into shadow.
Only the sanctuary lamp remained, red and flat in the dark, flickering like the last weak pulse of a night that refused to end.
I had just turned from the final candle when the side doors opened again.
Someone pushed them open carefully.
Three men stepped inside, bringing the storm with them.Rain blew across the threshold.The wind stirred the old incense trapped in the stone and carried in the scent of the night.
They stopped when they saw me.For one perfect second, shame moved across all three faces.
It was almost beautiful.
The tallest crossed himself first.Then the man beside him.The third, younger and broader through the shoulders, hesitated before dragging two fingers from forehead to chest, left shoulder to right.
His knuckles were split.
I noticed the bulge beneath the tall man’s jacket.He had a right side shoulder holster.
“Father,” the tall one said.
His voice was rough, but he tried to soften it.
I let my face settle into confusion.The harmless expression people expected from a priest disturbed at night.
“Can I help you, my sons?”
My sons.
Let God put His hand on the back of their necks for a moment.Let them remember where they were so they could feel watched by something larger than me.
The tall man glanced past me, scanning the pews, the altar and the shadows.“Forgive us for entering so late.”
“There is no hour at which a church refuses the troubled.”
The younger one looked at the floor.
My gaze followed his.
A smear of blood remained near the end of the third pew.
It was thin, dark, half-hidden in the uneven stone.
But visible to a man looking for it.
He stared.Too long.
My heart did not change pace.I had trained it better than that.
