The Book of Fate

116

A rare Italian snow sprinkled down from the dusty sky as the man crossed Via Mazzarino and lowered his chin toward the lapels of his herringbone wool coat. His hair was blond now — short and barely grown in — but he was still careful as he approached Sant’Agata dei Goti, the fifth-century church that seemed to hide on the narrow cobblestone street.

Passing the front entrance but not going inside, he glanced up at the facade. The relief above the door was an ancient carving of Saint Agatha holding her severed breast on a plate, the victim of torturers who’d attacked her when she refused to renounce her faith.

“Praise Him,” the man whispered to himself as he cut right, followed the signs to the side entrance on Via Panisperna, and quietly marched up the bumpy brick driveway that was blanketed in the light snow.

At the end of the driveway, he wiped his feet on the battered welcome mat, shoved open the brown double doors, and winced as the old hinges shrieked. Inside, the smell of damp wood and rose candles welcomed and transported him right back to the old stone church where he grew up, right back to the Wisconsin winters of his childhood, right back to when his mom passed.

The hinges shrieked again — and he winced again — as the door slammed shut behind him. Wasting no time, the man scanned the empty pews, eyed the empty altar, then glanced between the Oriental granite columns that ran down the center aisle. No one in sight. His eyes narrowed as he listened. The only thing there was a single hushed whisper. Praise Him. Just like it was supposed to be.

Feeling his heart punch inside his chest, he raced toward his destination, tracing the faded colors of the mosaic floor to the mahogany stall on the far right side of the altar.

As he got closer, he followed the faint whisper from inside. He’d never been here before, but when he saw the picture in the travel brochure — he knew to always trust fate.

Unbuttoning his coat and taking one last glance around, he kneeled in front of the mahogany stall. The whispering stopped. Through a square cutaway in the booth, a small burgundy curtain was pulled shut, and the priest inside stopped praying.

It was only then, only in the screaming silence of the empty Sant’Agata dei Goti church, that Nico lowered his head toward the confessional.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been—”

“Let’s go, Nico — make it quick!” the tall orderly with the sweet onion breath shouted.

Glancing over his shoulder, Nico looked past the industrial beige carpet, the cheap oak lectern, and the dozen or so metal folding chairs that made up the small chapel on the fourth floor of St. Elizabeths’ John Howard Pavilion, and focused hard on the two orderlies who waited for him back by the only door to the room. It’d been nearly two weeks since they found him in Wisconsin. But thanks to a new lawyer, for the first time in years, he finally had chapel privileges.

Without a word, Nico turned back toward the wooden cross attached to the otherwise bare front wall of the room. Within seconds, the carpet, the lectern, and the folding chairs once again disappeared and were replaced by the mosaic floor, the ancient pews, and the mahogany confessional. Just like the ones in the pamphlet that his counselor gave him.

“… it’s been far too long since my last confession.”

He took a deep breath of the rose candles — the sweet smell that was always on his mom — and shut both eyes. The rest came easy.

God provided an ending. And brought him back home for a new beginning.