The most comfortable spot in Nana’s house is the small space between my bed and the wall. I lie facing downwards, my feet on the pillows, pressed to the headstand.  From here, the room narrows. The wall stays cool against my cheek, the carpet marks my arms if I stay too long, and nothing reaches me from behind. I know where my body ends.

I am claustrophobic, tight spaces make my chest seize. My hands itch for escape, yet I stay. I don’t know why I stay. The whole house feels like a museum of places I would rather not be. The center of my bed is a stranger, and my couch has eyes, deep-set resentful eyes. The dark presses close, and my nose is assaulted by the smell of dust and old walls. My breath hitches and then slows. My body knows the rules I do not. This should make me panic, but it does not. I am claustrophobic, tight spaces make my chest seize. My hands itch for escape, but I stay. I don’t know why I stay.

I notice the way my elbow leans on the cold paint. My knees sink into the edge of the bed. The corner fits me tightly, and I fit it too, perfectly as the last jigsaw puzzle piece would. Sometimes I imagine the world as a storm of wings, flitting and thrashing beyond reach. And I am a lone bird tucked into a narrow nook, still, unseen, and safe from the swirl.

Safe, the irony of this word.

***

“Hey, are you going to tell me the story? Or do we end the confession here?”

It’s Father Hernandez. Sleek bronze hair with balding spots, not unheard of for a man his age. Dedicating seventy-four years, all his life, to priestly woes and the way of the chaste. Catering for the Almighty’s flock and listening to the atrocities we confess to, through the tiny dotted holes of his brown, almost faded, dying, confessional box. The wood smells faintly of varnish and old incense. Varnish, as if the restoration could save this wood from the patina of age.

“I... I will talk, Father. I will talk.”

I shift in my seat. It’s a high hardwood stool with nothing to rest my back on. The discomfort is not the distraction I hope it would be. My legs brush on the rough lower side of the confessional box and it feels like I am in a tight alley with my hands tied behind my back. I can only see Father’s eyes. But I can make out his face in my head, half lit, staring intensely as this confessor takes too long to speak his sins. And the more I lean, the more the rough edges press into my knees, the more the world around closes in on me, the heavier my breath rises, and the blurrier my eyes begin to become.

“Breathe man, breathe,” a voice whispers. Three words. Three words from that voice, that’s all it takes for everything to swoop back to normal. I take heavy breaths, breaths that scrape on the back of my throat, my heart thumps into slowness as I steady myself on the seat and face the Priest with renewed bravado.

***

It was a Saturday night in February. A few weeks after winter break. I set off from the house into the thick snow. The world outside is covered in calming sheets of white. The cold nips at my ears and bites my cheeks while I wade through icy piles, half skipping, half skating around the curb after the bus stop. My boots slip occasionally on the ice, and I laugh at myself. I do this a lot. When things happen to me, I become a lone audience. I picture my body and my subconscious as entities apart, and I render myself speechless with the ruthless taunting.

By the time I reach the church, my lungs are stinging with cold and my fingers tingle. I should have worn the insulated gloves like Mom suggested. I should have done a lot of things like Mom suggested. I should have not come out at all like Mom suggested. Maybe then, I would have sat this brewing snowstorm out.

Prince of Peace Catholic Church makes everything worth it though. The tall doors, the stone steps bedazzled by snow, the faint glow of the orange lights inside. I inhale deeply, drinking in the emptiness of the sanctuary with gratification as a smile on my lips. I am here at this church most days of the week, yet somehow I’m always awed anew. The workmanship is so captivating that I never get used to seeing it. I notice with relief that the other mass-servers are not here yet. The quiet is mine. I dash for the piano down the hall, far left to the altar, and even while making a run for it, I pause briefly right on the white colored footprints, in the center of the space before the altar to genuflect to the crucifix hanging high above my head, before continuing my run to the piano.

“God of mercy and compassion…” I murmur, pressing down the first notes. The hymn echoes into the empty church, reverberating off the pillars, climbing the high ceilings, dancing on the pews, and spilling through the aisles. It’s warm, familiar, sacred, and still completely mine. The melody is almost tactile in my mind: do‑mi‑so‑la‑so‑mi‑re—God of mercy and compassion; do‑mi‑so‑la‑so‑mi‑re—look with pity upon me.

Key: G major

d m s l s m r — God of mer‑cy and com‑pas‑sion

d m s l s m r — Look with pit‑y up‑on me

m r d’ t’ d’ t’ l’ — Fa‑ther, let me call Thee Fa‑ther

m r d’ t’ d’ t’ l’ — ’Tis Thy child re‑turns to Thee

m m f m s m m s — Je‑sus, Lord, I ask for mer‑cy

l l s m r d — Let me not im‑plore in vain

m r d’ t’ d’ t’ l’ — All my sins I now de‑test them

m r d’ t’ d’ t’ l’ — Ne‑ver will I sin a‑gain

I hum while I play, my fingers lingering on the keys as I coax the chords, and the serene parish carries the echo of my soft voice through its crevices. The big church hall feels shadowy and I am basking in the transcendence I illuminate. It’s as if the emptiness morphs into a choir with every stroke on the keys, there’s a ringing in my head from so much imagination. I am lost in a world where thousands are singing so loud after my tune, so loud, it shakes the stone floors and rumbles the roof.

“That’s a beautiful voice,” he says.

“tii-lahhh—” making me halt on a wrong, unnecessary note at the sound of his voice, and I chastise myself for lowering my head too long to notice that I had an audience.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he says..

Then he turns around, walks into the Sacristy in the back and returns a few minutes later with folded altar clothes, a purificator, a corporal and an antependium. All in shades of green. The light casts a candescence on the  edge of his white surplice and the dark collar of his cassock. He moves smoothly as a gazelle performing a ritual it has memorized a thousand times, every step exact, every gesture intentional. I notice his hands tremble slightly when he places a candle, or maybe it was the chill of the stone floor. The dim light catches the side of his face and a pale smear of sweat shines at his temple. I am still seated, on the soft cushioned stool reserved for the church pianist, my hands resting on the table while I stare. Completely oblivious to the fact that this is my duty as a mass server, to help prepare for evening mass. Completely lost.

“If your intention is to help, anytime now sounds about good,” he said, while an accusing smile danced on the corners of his lips.

This is all the goading I need to reshuffle back into church helper mode. I dust the pews, light the candles beneath each station of the cross, set some charcoal into red blue flames for the thurible later, and bring the missal stand to the drawer on the other side of the altar. It is  6:48pm when we finish setting up. No one is in yet, and it is probably because of the crazy storm outside. We both go into the sacristy to change. I, into my white alb and cincture, and him, wearing the same, with a stole and a chasuble in darker shades of green, over them.

He looks up at me, a subtle nod of acknowledgment passing between us, and we begin the procession in silence. I have the cool and heavy chains of the thurible in my hands, swinging gently to nudge the charcoal into a faint, steady glow. The incense curls upward in slow, spiraling clouds, and the scent fills the space with something ancient and hallowed. I can hear my own breath, the soft resounding of my footsteps and the tiny clink of the censer as it moves. He follows, carrying the crucifix with measured reverence. His cassock drags on the stone floor, and his chasuble flows like a river of green fabric with every careful step. We circle the altar slowly while the empty pews stand as silent witnesses. “O God, our help in ages past…”, soft under our lips as we warble, filling the vast quiet. To my right, through the stained glass, the world outside, white and storm-tossed, feels impossibly far away. This is the sanctuary, unnaturally ours alone, like a private ceremony carved out of snow and shadow and emptiness.

He gestures for me to approach the altar with the missal, and I obey, moving on the polished stone floor, careful not to let the chains of the thurible swing too wildly.  I climb up and pick it from the wooden stool in front of the altar and I can smell faint whiffs of ink and old leather. I place it reverently on the stand, straightening the folds of the altar cloth. And then, we both pause in prayer, our robes swaying to the rhythm, incense, candlelight, and the low hum of my own voice carrying the hymn.

We begin the Mass. He lifts the missal and reads the opening prayer aloud. Kyrie is next. I continue to hum softly under my breath, filling the space with the familiar cadence of “Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy.” Even without the congregation, the responses from us both are still sacred. When it is  time for the Gloria, I sit behind the piano and play the chords while the melody intertwines with his voice. During the Liturgy of the Word, I carry the book for him, stepping lightly to place it on the stand for the Gospel reading. His voice carries the story of faith, filling the air to me, a one-man congregation. I move upwards again for the offertory, preparing the chalice and the bread, folding the purificator with care. He signals his instructions, and I follow without hesitation. We have done this many times before, albeit to a church with pews all filled, and so very little is different. The thurible sways again, the thick incense smoke rising like a delicate veil between us and the high ceiling, carrying the fragrance of wintered wood. Then the evening Mass passes, and the final blessing comes with his lifted hands. Even without the congregation, the Mass celebrations is complete and heavy with ritual. Somehow, remaining alive despite its solitude.

***

“You keep beating about the bush. Is there a point to all this endless recounting?”

Father Hernandez was starting to show frustration at the lack of a named sin to my confession. I can understand. I am getting confused too. What is my story again? What is my sin again? What is the way again?

My knees are still biting into the rough edges of the confessional box, and when I continue my story, my breath feels sharper in my nostrils and lungs.

“Okay Father, I’ll say everything.”

***

After the evening mass alone, he invites me into the rectory and we make French toast with green tea and talk about everything and anything while idling the evening away. Mom calls twice to check in, and calms down after she hears I’m at the rectory with him.

We talk about St. Francis of Assisi and the controversy of St Jerome and St. Catherine of Siena. I argue that devotion is no excuse for how much She asked her body to bear. She glorified extreme asceticism which causes harm to a body that should be the temple of God. And don’t the scriptures say we should keep it holy? He laughed off some of my defenses and chastised me where I spoke loosely, saying something about sacrifice in different shapes and forms and advising that I do not criticize heavenly journeys I know nothing of. It is amusing, that the Good Book implores us to seek knowledge and ask questions, yet it’s seemingly every religious leader’s least favorite activity to be subjected to the curiosity of our minds.

“How sweet the name of Jesus sounds, in a believer’s ears…”

This is one hymn I will never find the same again. This is one hymn that has sent me to the darkest places where only few have been. This is one hymn that taught me that trust was never a man in a flowing robe. This is one hymn that taught me, albeit, the hard way, that when your parents tell you to run upon sighting suspicious people inching close, they don’t only mean men with scars on their faces, or dirty men, or uneducated men, or men with monstrous looks. This is one hymn that opened my eyes to the demons in my fathers house. This is one hymn that played on loop in my ears in a stone slab rectory while I was bent over in the tight space between the bed and the wall of a holy man, and diminished to every shade of violation, undoing and sick sick breaking.

There’s a way you give up when reality hits. A way you fold into your own body when your predator is a 6 foot 2 man who once was enlisted in the US Army. There’s a way breathing becomes alien to your body in times of confusion, a way you lose your voice and simply curl your toes as a lone act of aggression, as a measly attempt to fight back. There’s a way you smile amid endless tears when all you can see is a dark carpet and the farthest you can move your arms is 0.2 inches to the right. There’s a way your insides turn into poisonous acid, eroding the lining of your stomach, gradually bubbling up with volcanic intensity, creeping up your pharynx in unguarded, big slides, tearing apart all in its way and erupting through your mouth onto dark wool carpet in the shape of black blood, mucus, and the green tea and French toast you had for dinner.

There’s a way you punch a confessional box open when it’s the only security for your assailant. There’s a way you pull wood apart from wood, ignoring the nail marks in your palms when it’s the only thing standing between you and justice. There’s a way you exact rage, after you have made it sit with you, in patience, in painful restraint, for thirty long years, unsung and unspoken. There’s a way you say goodbye to pain, a slow, torturous way the books are yet to record.

“Forgive me father, for I have sinned. Thirty years later, I killed the holy man who killed the holy boy.”

***

The most comfortable spot in Nana’s house is the small space between my bed and the wall. I lie facing downwards, my feet on the pillows, pressed to the headstand.  From here, the room narrows. The wall stays cool against my cheek, the carpet marking my arms if I stay too long, and nothing reaches me from behind. I know where my body ends.

I am claustrophobic, tight spaces make my chest seize. My hands itch for escape, but I stay. I don’t know why I stay.