Page 166 of Penance

I think that was it.

I kiss her again, tasting the salt of both our tears.

Salt, to cleanse us of our sins.

I pull away again, and this time I notice I’ve left the ghost of a bloody half-handprint on her cheek.

Blood for atonement.

“I hate what I’ve done to you,” I tell her, and the words scrape my throat raw.

“So don’t do it again.”

I’m stuck between the monster I have become and the man I wish I could be. The father, the husband.

Maybe I can?

I want to be.

I want to be everything that makes her happy.

I want to see her smile.

I want to smile with her.

I press my forehead against hers, and our breaths become one. Right now, at this moment, I am no longer a demon, and certainly not a savior. I am a man holding a woman who has everything that’s left of my broken heart, all the pieces she could find in the darkness. I am a monster seeking forgiveness, and in my hands, I hold the most forgiving woman in the world.

She is mine, and I am hers.

And somehow, impossibly, that is enough.

She reaches down and grabs my hand, the one that drips with blood that smears across the front of her white dress. Her fingers are soft as she inspects my knuckles.

“Well,” she says with a sigh, looking up at me. “I guess you’re not getting the deposit back.”

She turns and looks up at the wall, at the hole in the plaster, and I burst into howling laughter. It echoes around the hallway, rich and heavy.

Briefly, I wonder, when was the last time I laughed like this?

Epilogue

Mercy

The knife slices through the potato skin, and I watch them curl into the sink like ribbons. The sunlight streams in through the window over the sink, and dust floats through it. The knife moves mechanically in my hand, and I hum an old song, something stuck in my head from a long time ago.

It’s not a church song.

I think maybe it’s a children’s song from the shows Damien forces me to listen to in the background.

He crawls around under my feet, and I can hear the squeaky wheels of his favorite truck as he pushes it over the kitchen tile.

“Vrooooom,” he mumbles, and when I look down, he’s looking up at me.

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

Damien shakes his head, returning to the imaginary road inside his head. I watch him for a moment, watching the way he crawls across the floor.

He looks so much like his dad. They could be twins born years apart.

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