He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Easter
On Holy Saturday, Cathal went to confession for the first time in six years.
I sat in the fourth pew and watched the confessional door shut behind him.
The church was empty and smelled of lilies, and the candles on the side altar burned in their red glass.
He was inside a long time.
When he came out his eyes were red, and he sat down beside me and took my hand.
"What did he give you?" I asked.
"Three Hail Marys," said Cathal.
"And a Sunday dinner at a table with the people I've hurt."
"That's not a penance, that's a menu," I said.
He laughed, shakily, and I held his hand all the way home.
That night I made the Easter bread in my mother's kitchen.
It was the owner's recipe, an egg dough with butter and saffron, and it wanted kneading.
Cathal stood across from me at the table with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.
He punched the dough hard, twice, and scowled at it.
"You're hurting it," I said.
"It needs hurting."
"It needs patience."
"I've learned patience," he said.
"I sat on a stoop for a week."
"Four nights," I said.
"Felt like a week."
Flour covered his forearms to the elbows and speckled the dark red stubble on his jaw.
I wiped my hands, came around the table and stood behind him.
I laid my palms over his on the dough, and I pushed, slowly, the heel of the hand away and the fingers back.
"Like that," I said, into his shoulder blade.
"Feel it?"
"I feel something," said Cathal.
I slid my floury hand down the front of his jeans.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Took Me to Catch the Rat, But the Rat Was Him are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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