run out, but I’ve been hearing things. I know why you’re here. Don’t worry about Martin. We’ll get him some help and then see if we can find him some work on the docks. Working for me.” His son, Martin, was hooked, and his old man was struggling.
Mr. Gerald nodded. “Your old man would be proud.”
I squeezed his shoulder and then told him I’d be in touch with details.
I stepped outside. Raff stopped me as I was setting my Fedora on my head.
“Cash. You’re being serious.”
“While you’re out.” I dug in my pocket and handed him a card. “Pick up a ring I ordered at that jeweler. You’ll need your ID.”
Stone’s ring was cliché and not meant for a woman like her. If I was going to do this, I was going to get it right, to show the both of them that I knew her better than he did. Another little nick to his heart.
I was halfway down the street when Raff screamed out my name. I stopped but didn’t turn.
“This is not the way it works. You only confess your sins after you’ve committed them—premeditated wrongs are a gray area, Kelly!”
I grinned. “Can’t blame a man for trying.” Then I figured I’d talk to Father Flanagan about them again when I got there. Gray areas were not my specialty; dark ones were.
“Cashel Fallon Kelly. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Father Flanagan held his hand up. “Why do I even ask? It’s been a while since our last visit. I forgot.” He tapped his temple twice. “Follow me.”
“It hasn’t been that long,” I said, following him through the church. It brought back memories of when I was a boy: my father taking us to church to confess our sins. The newsboy hat he made me wear to be respectful. The bitter and potent smell of incense thick in the air. The light coming in through the stained-glass windows, falling on my face. Father Flanagan welcoming me into the room where he’d absolve me of sin. “You came to see me once a week in prison. Four times a month for ten years.”
“December,” he said.
“That’s right. You came five times a month in December.”
“A fella should have a friendly face to see around the holidays.” He stopped at what I called the “confession booth,” but I never called it that in front of Father Flanagan. It was the confessional in front of him. He had old-school ways, like my old man, and he’d take a ruler to my fingers in a heartbeat. “Go ahead.”
I entered on my side, and a second later, his voice came through from the other side. “Do you finally have sins that were already committed to rid yourself of today, Cashel Kelly?”
“I’m sure I do, Father,” I said, attempting to get comfortable. “But the ones I came to talk about today haven’t been committed yet.”
“Your moral compass still hasn’t come in yet.” He sighed, and I imagined him closing his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did. “What is it that you need my ear on?”
I grinned. Moral compass. Father Flanagan liked to say that I was a late bloomer when it came to getting one of those. I told him to save his hope for someone who could benefit from it. I wasn’t born with one, and I doubted this late in life that mine would come through.
“I’m going to steal a heart. Or a bride. Either one works.” I’d said a lot of insane things over the years to this man, but this was a first.
He cleared his throat a few seconds later. “Explain in more detail.”
I reminded him of years ago. My father. Stone’s father. Me. Stone’s son. Then I went forward from that point. How it was going to go down.
“The pain ends once the soul does,” I explained in a little more depth. “‘There are three things that amaze me—no, four things I do not understand: how an eagle glides through the sky, how a snake slithers on a rock, how a ship navigates the ocean, how a man loves a woman.’” I quoted the Bible, because we were taught to know it. That was how my father operated, as a man who feared God but no man on this earth. “I don’t understand how a man loves a woman, but I do understand this: when the soul gets attached, it’ll hurt until the day it dies when it’s separated from the one it loves.”