Free The Confessions by Tiffany Reisz

him. But…”
    “But.” She squeezed his hands in hers. The girl had a strong grip. Lots of hidden strengths in this lady. No wonder she’d survived so long with Marcus. “Once upon a time I said something breathtakingly cruel to Søren.”
    “What did you say?”
    “We were standing in his church and we…we’d been broken up for a few years by then. There were children everywhere, all around us. They were doing something—practicing for the Easter pageant, I think. Anyway, here we were, broken up and he wanted me back, a very vulnerable, horrible, hard place for anyone to be in. And while we were there surrounded by dozens of kids, I said, ‘I wanted to have your children once.’ ”
    “That was cruel, wasn’t it?”
    “Unconscionably cruel and the worst part is that I knew it. I said it to hurt him, and I knew it would hurt. And he responded…not very well.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “When I was 17, I decided what sort of life I wanted and that life didn’t include having children. But if that’s what he wanted, if what’s in that photograph was something he dreamed of, something he desired, he should have told me. He had a thousand chances to tell me, to ask me, to share his heart with me. You know what it is? It’s not jealousy right here.” She tapped her breast again. “It’s anger. I am angry at him for not telling me how much he wanted that. He should have told me. Even if it meant putting our relationship through another trial, he should have told me. I’m furious at him for not trusting that our love was strong enough to go through that together. That’s what hurts. That’s why it stings. Because I wanted to know that. Because that’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? That there’s this part of him that desires fatherhood and to sit in a chair in front of the mother of his child and watch while she nurses their son? That’s nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be embarrassed about. That’s something special, something beautiful. It’s a diamond in his heart, and he kept that diamond hidden from me. And he shouldn’t have kept it hidden. He didn’t have to give me that diamond. He just had to show it to me. Because it’s so…fucking…sweet. Isn’t it?”
    Her tears came then, big ones to wet the shoulder of his cassock all the way to his skin. Stuart held her against him, her arms around his neck and her head on his arm. And she cried like a baby and he rocked her like a baby because she was a baby. God’s child, right here in his arms. God’s little girl. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.” Psalm 38. And here was a brokenhearted child of God right in his arms. What a blessing to be a priest with tenderhearted sinners like this in the world.
    “It’s very sweet,” he whispered. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t tell you about it. He’s not a very sweet man, is he? A real arsehole most of the time.”
    She shuddered in his arms with tears and laughter.
    “Can’t stand him myself,” Stuart continued. “Big blond brute strutting around with all his height and his massive brain and his handsome face—and he’s getting too old to still be that handsome. You better believe I resent the hell out of it.”
    “Tell me about it,” she groaned. “He’s prettier now than he was twenty years ago. I hate him.”
    “Oh, and there’s that look he gives you. You know the look. The magnifying glass in the sunlight look, and you’re there on the sidewalk like an ant burnt to a crisp.”
    “I know that look,” she said between ragged breaths. “I’ve been that toasted ant more than once.”
    “He gets off on it, you know,” Ballard said. “Gets off on seeming scary and tough. And all this time he had a gooey secret marshmallow in his heart. He was probably too embarrassed to tell you about it. You might think he’d gone soft. No man wants to go soft in front of his lover.”
    “Oh no, not soft. Anything but that.”
    “You’re allowed to be hurt that he kept a