Secrets

The church is empty and quiet except for the occasional tweeting of birds outside as you make your way through the pews to the altar. The building is enveloped in darkness save the altar, illuminated by candlelight which flickers as you drop to your knees before the statue of the virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. Head bowed, you produce from the folds of your garments a rosary and a gun, both which you drop on the altar.

You make the sign of the crucifix and pick up the rosary with trembling hands.

"Hail Mary, full of grace..."

You begin in a whisper. The words feel stale to you now, strange even. Once you'd chanted these words with enthusiasm, cherished them, built your faith on them. Once they'd brought you hope, and comfort, and peace. Once they'd been your mantra. But now they seem empty..mere words.

Not after what you'd done. No. What you don't know can't hurt you, your mother had told you, brushing away your tears. But you do know and must pretend not to — forget that you do know. It's a secret. A secret you must forget or it would hurt you. Your hands, the very ones that clutch the rosary now, birthed that secret, and it was all you've ever wished since its conception to believe it never happened. It was easier that way. Or so mother thought.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God..."

Perhaps God would understand. Perhaps he wouldn't. Maybe He isn't as unfailing as you've believed your whole life because you wouldn't have done it if He'd answered as promised in his Book. Maybe He's mortal after all, as the mantra literally states, born of a virgin. You scoff. Maybe you were wrong to believe in the first place and let it blind you. Maybe you were wrong to not have taken things for what they really were. Virgin Mary? Mother of God? How'd you been so daft? And maybe, just maybe, it's the pent up emotions messing with your head. Or maybe not.

You draw a deep breath to settle yourself and clear your thoughts, the rosary continuing around your fingers in a series of punctuated revolutions.

"...Pray for us sinners..."

Surely you are a sinner. For blaming God. For doing it — birthing a thing that is to remain a secret because what you don't know can't hurt you. For pretending not to know. For topping the one who aided and abetted the secret because you felt better off being the only one who knows. How selfish you'd been!

But now you do know because the images come flooding your head. You know it hurts because tears now sting your eyes, blurring your vision, cascading down your cheeks unchecked. You do remember...and it hurts.

But it never really was your fault. Mother thought so too. But maybe it was. Maybe things would have turned out differently had you persevered enough. But persevering, you'd grown tired of. You needed a break — a clean slate from the suffering and you'd found a way out. Now it seemed you made one suffer so you could be free. You hate how it feels but that's just it alright.

"With the love comes the pain." Mother's voice rings in your head now.

You never should have made her suffer anymore than she already did. Sophia. You should have let her be — let fate take its toll. But you'd pinched her nose shut and deafened your ears to her screams and gasping, her arms flailing beside her in a fight for survival. For life. The life you'd stuffed out of her until she stiffened under your fingers. You were doing her a favour, you'd thought, but haunted you'd become by the memory, erasing your past because you didn't want to be hurt by not failing to forget, becoming a monster.

No one would understand that what you did, you did for love; to protect Sophia because she'd suffered enough and needed the peace; that a part of you had also died as your fingers ebbed the life out of her. No. You would be termed a murderer instead because they would be oblivious of just how much of an ordeal you've had; the many sleepless nights spent in nursing and prayers; the many different prayer grounds and crusades you'd attended; the heavy bills and accrued debts; the clutter your house had become what with the many different miracle waters and holy oils and herbal ointments; or the painful fact that she was a late baby born on the day of her fathers demise — your only link to your husband, her father.

You raise your head to gaze at the virgin Mary encircled by a holy halo, and let your eyes wander to the baby Jesus nestled in the crook of her arms. Why couldn't God have given you a not so sickly child like his son? Why'd he instead blessed you with a curse?

You push these thoughts aside. It's pointless blaming God now. You're after all a foolish mortal, a murderer, while he's all knowing and seeing. Maybe it was all a test. You'd failed. Maybe mother was God's way of consolation because He had it all planned out. There you'd failed again. You'd thrown mother down the roof, watching her bash her head against the fence, falling to the snow packed ground, dead. It felt right then. Now, it didn't. Mother had been right. What you don't know can't hurt you. Mother had known that was why you'd killed her although you didn't mean to. Well, maybe you did mean to. You'd felt mother should have called the authorities on you or have you see a shrink rather than helping create something so abhorrent.

"...Now and at the hour of our deaths."

You finish with a sniffle and rise to your feet. You ease the rosary unto the neck of the sculpted Mary and take your bows before the altar, making the sign of the crucifix.

You reach for the gun before proceeding down the aisle to the door leading out of the church, a finger curled around the trigger. The fluttering of wings of birds in flight rents the air as a loud bang disrupts the silence of the night, followed by the thudding of a body.

Sunday, the churchgoers would pale from seeing the lifeless body of Sister Marguerite by the door and make the sign of the crucifix. They would talk of how good she had been and the saint she would become, resting in Abraham's bosom.

Investigations would be made and the secret would be revealed. Sophia hadn't died of frail health; mother hadn't committed suicide, devastated from losing a granddaughter; and Sister Marguerite hadn't been murdered. But the Father would not have anyone tell the church. It was best to leave the guilt with the dead, he would say, and no one would know of Sister Marguerite killing her daughter, murdering her mother, and committing suicide afterwards.

What they don't know won't hurt them. It is better off this way, Father would say, and the secret would continue on. An endless cycle.

Picture @pexels.com [image!]