“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three years since my last
confession. My sin is murder.”
It was the toughest thing I had done in the three years since that awful night. But
it was time. I could no longer carry the weight of what I had done and I had made the
decision to make things right, with both myself and with God.
“Please, tell me about your sins,” the elderly and kind voice spoke to me through
the partition.
I remembered back to my childhood and to the Sunday visits to our church, to
how I couldn’t understand how my parents could sit there and listen to the preacher but
ignore what was taking place in his office. They had to have known; parents are supposed
to know when something is wrong with their child, right?
But they hadn’t, and the visits continued for many years. It wasn’t until my 14th
birthday that the visits stopped. The church said that the preacher had moved on to study
in South America. That he had wanted to thank the church members for listening and for
our devotion to God, and to apologize for leaving so quickly without goodbyes. The more
likely reason, though, was that the church had found out.
I took a deep breath.