BLESS ME, FATHER(3)

CHAPTER 3

Tuesday arrives like a held breath. The convent wakes the same way it always does bell at dawn, feet on cold stone, murmured prayers—but everything feels sharper now, edged. Colors brighter. Sounds closer. My skin too aware of the wool brushing against it.

I spend the morning in the garden again, kneeling among the roses. The thorns catch at my sleeves more than usual today, as if the plants themselves are restless. I clip dead blooms with careful snips, each cut precise, deliberate. My mind keeps drifting to yesterday—to the way his voice wrapped around my name, the brush of fingers when he handed me the rosary, the quiet command: Bring your rosary tomorrow.

I have it in my pocket now. The beads press against my thigh through the fabric, a small, constant reminder.

After midday prayer I report to the chapel as instructed. The doors are already open. Father Rossi is there, arranging the missal on the lectern for the afternoon confessions. He doesn’t look up immediately when I enter, but I know he senses me. The air changes when I cross the threshold.

“Sister Celeste,” he says without turning. His voice is calm, almost casual. “You’re punctual.”

“I try to be,” I reply, moving to my usual corner stool. I smooth my habit unnecessarily, needing something to do with my hands.

He finishes with the book, then walks toward the confessional. As he passes me, his cassock brushes my arm—just the lightest graze. I feel it like a spark. My breath catches, audible in the quiet.

He pauses. Looks down at me.

“You brought it?” he asks softly.

I nod once, not trusting my voice.

“Good.” A small pause. “Light the candles along the side wall. The penitents like the warmth.”

I rise, grateful for the task. The matches are in a small brass box near the votives. I strike one, the flare bright against my fingers. One by one the flames bloom—steady, golden. I feel his eyes on me the entire time. Not staring. Watching. Measured. Like he’s memorizing the way my hands move, the slight tremble when the match trembles too.

When the last candle is lit I return to my stool. He’s already inside the screen, settled. The first villager arrives soon after an elderly woman with a cane. I help her to the kneeler, offer her a prayer card. She thanks me with a toothless smile.

Confessions begin.

I sit in my corner, half-hidden, listening to the rhythm of it all. Voices low, broken by pauses. His responses—gentle, firm, never hurried. Every so often he shifts, and I catch the outline of his shoulder through the lattice. Broad. Steady.

Midway through the hour a young mother comes in with her toddler. The child fusses, reaching for her skirt. She apologizes in whispers. Father Rossi’s voice softens further.

“Let him stay,” he says. “God hears the impatient ones too.”

The mother laughs quietly, relieved. The child quiets almost instantly, as if soothed by the voice alone.

I watch from my stool, fingers twisting in my lap. Something tightens in my chest envy, perhaps, or longing. He makes it look effortless. The listening. The holding of secrets.

When the last penitent leaves, the chapel empties. Silence returns, thicker now.

I expect him to dismiss me. Instead he steps out, closes the heavy door behind the last villager, then turns the key in the lock. The click echoes.

My heart stutters.

He walks toward me slowly. Stops a few paces away.

“You were quiet today,” he observes.

“I was… listening,” I say.

“To them? Or to me?”

Heat floods my face. I look down at my hands. “Both, Father.”

A soft sound not quite a laugh, more like exhaled breath. “Honest.”

He moves closer. Not touching. Never touching. But close enough that I feel the warmth radiating from him.

“Stand up, Celeste.”

The command is quiet. Almost gentle. I obey before I can think.

He studies me eyes tracing the line of my veil, the curve of my cheek, the rise and fall of my chest beneath the habit. My breathing shallows under his gaze.

“Read for me,” he says.

I blink. “Read?”

He nods toward the open Bible on the lectern. “Psalm 51. The Miserere. Aloud.”

I hesitate only a second, then cross to the lectern. My fingers tremble as I turn the pages. The text swims for a moment before steadying.

“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love…”

My voice is soft, unsteady at first. I feel him behind me—close now, just at my shoulder. Not touching, but near enough that the air between us hums.

“According to your great compassion blot out my transgressions…”

I falter on the word transgressions. He doesn’t speak, but I feel his breath stir the air near my ear.

“Wash away all my iniquity,” I continue, quieter now, “and cleanse me from my sin.”

The words feel heavier when spoken in this empty chapel, with him listening. My pulse throbs in my throat.

He interrupts gently. “Slower.”

I swallow. Obey.

“For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me…”

Each syllable drags, deliberate. The psalm becomes something intimate, almost confessional. My own voice sounds foreign lower, breathier.

When I reach the line “Create in me a pure heart, O God,” my voice cracks.

He speaks then, very low. “Do you believe that’s possible?”

I stop reading. My fingers grip the edge of the lectern.

“Believe what?” I whisper.

“That purity can be remade.”

I don’t answer right away. My chest rises and falls too quickly.

“I want to,” I say finally.

He steps even closer. I feel the heat of him at my back.

“Then say it again,” he murmurs. “The line about the pure heart.”

I close my eyes for a second, steadying.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God,” I repeat, softer, “and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

A long silence.

His voice, when it comes, is barely above a breath. “Do you feel it renewing?”

“No,” I admit, the word slipping out like a confession.

Another pause.

“Then perhaps it needs… encouragement.”

I turn my head just enough to see him in profile. His jaw is tight, eyes fixed on my mouth.

He lifts a hand slowly, deliberately and tucks a stray wisp of hair beneath my veil. His thumb grazes my cheekbone. The touch is feather-light, gone in an instant, but it burns.

I inhale sharply.

He doesn’t move away.

“You tremble,” he observes.

“I’m… cold,” I lie.

His mouth curves just the barest hint. “No. You’re not.”

My breath hitches again. Tension coils low in my belly, insistent.

He steps back then, breaking the nearness. But his eyes never leave mine.

“Tomorrow,” he says quietly. “After compline. The sacristy. Bring your rosary.”

I nod, unable to speak.

He turns toward the door, unlocks it, pauses with his hand on the latch.

“And Celeste?”

“Yes, Father?”

“When you pray tonight…” He looks back, gaze dark, unreadable. “Think of me.”

He leaves.

I stand alone in the chapel for a long minute, fingers pressed to the spot on my cheek where his thumb had been. My skin still tingles. My body feels alive in ways it never has restless, aching, awake.

I finish snuffing the candles with shaking hands. The last flame gutters out, leaving only the red sanctuary lamp.

Outside, the cloister is dim. I walk back to my cell slowly, rosary heavy in my pocket.

In the dark, under the thin blanket, I try to pray.

Hail Mary…

But the words dissolve.

Instead I whisper his name…once, barely audible.

“Luca.”

The sound of it in my own voice sends heat rushing through me.

I press my thighs together, seeking pressure, friction, anything to ease the building ache.

It only makes it worse.

Sleep comes in fragments, haunted by green eyes and a voice that asks for things I shouldn’t give.

Tomorrow, the sacristy.

Tomorrow, more.