Page 57 of The Invisible Roommate

When he’d arrived at the church early and saw folks kneeling in the front pews whispering their penance under their breaths, he realized Father Daniels was hearing confession. His feet moved before his mind had made itself up—that’s how he found himself fumbling for his script.

“It’s okay to guess, my child,” Father Daniels said.

It had to have been before We the Wells took off, so he estimated. “Seven years.”

“Seven is a holy number. God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Rest now, my child, by laying down your sins.”

Confession would’ve been much easier if it were more like an ATM where you deposited your sins and out popped your penance. He didn’t even know if he had the words to unpack his sins, let alone lay them all down, but he started where he thought he ought to. “I’ve disobeyed my family by running away and disappearing from work.”

Father Daniels made a sound that indicated he was listening.

“Since then, I’ve been helping out a criminal,” he said, stumbling over the word criminal. Was everybody who committed a crime a criminal? In the eyes of God, probably, but Gerard couldn’t link sweet Emory with his soft, unseen lips and a word as harsh as that. “Sorry, somebody who committed a crime.”

“Were you an accomplice to the crimes committed?” Father Daniels asked.

“Oh God! No.” Gerard could’ve banged his head against the hard, thick door over his flub. “Sorry, now I’ve also taken the Lord’s name in vain. You can add it to the list.”

“I’m not keeping a list,” he said in a calm voice. “Go on.”

“I’ve been giving him a place to stay, food to eat—that sort of thing—until he gets back on his feet, or I have to leave. Whatever comes first.”

Father Daniels cleared his throat. “That sounds like the opposite of a sin to me. You are giving to someone in need. It is not your job to repent for someone else’s misdeeds.”

“Sure, right.” Outside the Ten Commandments, which he’d been required to memorize in childhood, he was fuzzy on what counted as a sin and what didn’t. Most times, it seemed entirely subjective. What was sinful to some was innocent to others, and vice versa.

“Anything else?” Father Daniels asked.

Gerard was certain in some churches if he brought up his kisses with Emory—another man—he’d be forced into a twenty-four-hour prayer lockdown to earn God’s forgiveness, but in other more progressive churches, it would be of little consequence. Because everyone on Iping seemed accepting, and he believed he had nothing to feel guilty about, he held on to the kissing, kept it private.

“No, Father,” he said, then second-guessed himself when he feared he sounded too noncommittal. His palms itched. And because Father Daniels was bound by the seal of confession, which, as a child, Gerard imagined as a slippery maritime mammal that priests had to visit every so often or be excommunicated, he added, “Actually, I’ve been lying about who I am since I got here. My real name is Gerard. Sorry it’s not a good Christian name like James the Great.”

A hush fell in the confessional for a moment. Heat cranked through the sanctuary, making this wooden box sauna-like. “True, Saint Gerard was not an apostle, nor does he have his own feast, but he was a saint all the same.”

“What was he a saint of?” Gerard asked.

“Expectant mothers. I say a prayer to him each time one of the women in our parish is having complications with their pregnancy. Saint Gerard always comes through. He was patient and obedient to God’s will.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that. Thank you.”

After that, Father Daniels bestowed his penance, had him say the Act of Contrition, which was helpfully printed on a piece of yellowing paper tacked to the wall, and sent him on his way. But before Gerard weaseled out of the confessional, Father Daniels added, “As part of your penance, I’d also like you to look up Saint Gerard. See if you can learn anything that will inspire you on your journey of faith.”

“You got it.” Worried that sounded way too casual to a clergyman, Gerard added a quiet amen.

During his solo audition, feeling lighter post confession, Gerard’s voice came out clearer than it ever had before.

His tone was bright, his pitch was perfect, and he suffered not a single wobbly note.

Regina’s mountain dulcimer proved the perfect aural complement to his honeyed tenor.

Without blazing stage lights in his eyes, he could see his audience made up of his fellow choir members, who sat at attention, smiling. He had no need for a click track funneled through an in-ear monitor, because his pure heart became the metronome to which he kept time.

At verse three, he closed his eyes against the room and centered himself inside the song.

While the hymn was an ode to God, he sang it as if it were dedicated to Emory.

Their kisses held a salience in his subconscious that he couldn’t shake.

He didn’t want to shake.