“I love them. Wonderful choices,” I comment and hold out the little cup for her.
Her smile fades and she gathers the covers before climbing back into bed and finally accepting the cup.
“What do you think of Officer Walsh?” she asks me and then lets out a small chuckle. “The good officer, as I like to call him.”
The small hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “What do I think of him?” I repeat her question, giving myself time to think of how to reply while she accepts the cup of water and downs the medicine.
“If you want to talk to him, you should. If you don’t, you shouldn’t.”
“That’s not quite an answer to my question, is it?” she asks as she crumples the little cup.
“The thing is, I have to tell someone. I used to have Father John,” she says and her tone turns remorseful and longing. The cold comes back, clinging to my skin. Walsh said she was the last to see him. I just can’t imagine this girl killing anyone. Conspiring to do so or otherwise.
“The priest who… passed away.” I don’t say murder. I don’t want her mind to move back to the crime and go quiet. Some piece of me has to know the truth.
Walsh’s words echo in my mind but they’re quickly silenced by Melody. “I didn’t know he’d go.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, pressing her for more as I pull the corner chair closer to her bed.
She readjusts under the sheets, lying down as I take my seat.
“I told him everything. He knew what that man did to me and my thoughts. I told him all about the others too. He knew and he never approached any of them. He never did anything but absolve me of my sins.”
“Father John?” I ask to clarify.
“Yes.” She turns to look me in the eyes as she adds, “It’s a sin to think these things, you know? When you want others to hurt… it’s a sin.
“So when I told him… I helped…” she trails off as her throat goes tight and Melody closes her eyes. My pulse races and I can barely hear her over the pounding of my heart. Is she really confessing?
“When I told Father John in church that they were going to die, I told him where, I told him how and he asked me when.” Melody doesn’t cry. She merely stares at the ceiling, as if watching, not remembering, not a part of it. Only watching the scene unfold.
“I told him I wanted to be in the church when it happened and that it was happening now.” She turns her head to the side, her wide eyes piercing through me. “I didn’t know he’d go. I didn’t know once he left, he’d never come back. I stayed there in the confessional waiting for him. I stayed there all night.”
A numbing prickle dances over my skin. To be involved in something like that… and she’s only twenty. Watching the remorse, the confusion, the guilt, but also the anger play in her eyes is frightening. A part of me is terrified that she did go through with a plan to murder. Even if she wasn’t there. Even if they deserved it.
She heaves in a breath and the emotional pull of it all drags her down to the hells of her own mind. Her bottom lip quivers and her voice shakes. “He left me to stop it from happening. He said he had to save them.”
“It’s okay,” I console her, feeling her pain, but also my shock, my own horror.
“Why did he go?” she questions me as if I have answers. “Why would he go to them?” Her voice breaks and the tears fall fast and furiously. Unable to stop. Her elbow props her up as the small girl asks me again, “Why would he leave the church, leave me there, to go to them?”
The way she says them resonates with anger, with disgust. It’s the hint of a side to the young woman that sends a chill down my spine.
“I can’t say,” I answer her, keeping my voice even. I’m silent, she’s silent. No one speaks as the air is permeated with an influx of anger and betrayal, finally ending with sorrow when Melody’s face crumples and she lies back down on her back.
“Do you want to tell Officer Walsh?” I ask her and she shakes her head violently, wiping at the tears.
“He already knows,” she confesses. “I didn’t have to say it for him to know,” she adds in a whisper.
I wait a moment longer and it’s then the meds begin to kick in, her eyelids turning heavy. When I stand though, my heart leaps from the quick grab of her hand onto mine.
“He didn’t absolve me of my sins.” She rushes the words out as if she’s being strangled. Pain from her grip rips up my arm and I struggle not to show it, my back teeth clenching.