“I have buried women who were told to trust proper channels.I have washed bruises from girls whose fathers made donations to bishops.I have hidden mothers from husbands who sat in the front pew every Sunday and wept during hymns.Do not bring me rules tonight, Father.Rules are what violent men use when they have already bought the men who enforce them.”
The room seemed to narrow around us.
I thought of the Coccico ring.
The bowed heads.
The sign of the cross made with bloody knuckles.
Sister Marina lowered her voice.
“You know this.”
I looked at her sharply.She held my gaze.
For one chilling second, I wondered what she knew.What she had guessed.What she had seen in me over the years when I thought my quiet life had become convincing.
Then the woman on the bed made a sound.A broken, frightened sound.
I turned instantly.
She was moving weakly beneath the blankets, her fingers clutching at the sheet.Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused and glassy with pain.
Sister Marina moved to one side of the bed.
I approached the other.
The woman’s gaze darted around the room, wild and disoriented.The shutters.The crucifix.The lamps.The habit at Sister Marina’s throat.My black cassock.
“No,” she rasped.
“You’re safe,” I said, lowering my voice.
Her eyes found mine.Recognition flickered.
She tried to sit up and cried out, one hand flying to her ribs.
“Don't move,” Sister Marina ordered.
The woman ignored her and reached for me.
Her fingers caught my sleeve.Weak.Desperate.Terrified.
“Please,” she whispered.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t leave me.”
The words came out so raw that something inside me recoiled from the pull of them.
I had heard people beg before.For mercy.Money.Forgiveness.For their lives.Begging had many faces.Some were ugly.Some were false.Some were nothing more than another form of manipulation.
This was none of those.This was a person standing at the edge of death and recognising the shape of the only hand near enough to reach.
I looked at where her fingers clutched my sleeve.
There was blood under her nails.Her skin was torn at the knuckles.