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me clearly manifesting itself in some outward show of distress more obvious that I want. If a vague acquaintance from my sister’s past could sense it, it should not surprise me that my father does.
    I look to him, the concern on his face almost too much to bear. In that look I see my own selfishness reflected, having come here with no intent to tell my father the truth of what transpired in the hospital, but with the simmering possibility that I might not be able to contain the revelations of Katie’s killer.
    We…
    One of her killers.
    My father is burdened enough with the realities of my mother’s existence. If I am not to tell him, then I cannot cause him worry by my inability to do so. It is my secret, bound so by my calling. He deserves no anguish by proxy.
    “Just a rough night,” I assure him. “Do give Dave a call.”
    “I will,” he tells me, and I open the car door. I start the engine and focus on the mirror as I back down the driveway, glancing back to the house as I reach the street and drop it into drive. My father is still standing there. Watching me. His gaze tracking me as I drive away.

Chapter Eight
    The Scales Of Self
    The sanctuary is quiet and cold as I enter. Moonglow trickles weakly through the windows of stained glass high on the walls, muting the vivid depiction in each. They are darkened glimpses of my faith’s lore. Hovering over me.
    Rows of pews that are so often filled with the faithful are empty, each wooden bench facing the larger than life cross high upon the wall beyond the altar, the dying figure of Christ pinned to it. I pause while passing before this symbol of my religion’s ultimate faith and lower to one knee, crossing myself in the process—father, son, holy spirit. Just one example of the Catholic calisthenics those unfamiliar with my religion find odd, even silly. And if those same individuals were to witness a Sunday mass, with its choreographed repetition of kneeling and sitting and standing while singing and praying and filing in procession to the altar to accept a small wafer of bread on one’s tongue in homage to the last supper of Jesus, well, I might not fault them for conferring cultish commentary on what they have seen.
    But to the faithful such as myself, just as to the believer of any religion which nourishes them, the act of worship is secondary to what one receives from it. A sense of community. A feeling of joy. A confirmation that something good and wondrous awaits us beyond this life.
    But I am no fool. When looking look out at the congregation during one of the half dozen masses I conduct each week, I know there are those in attendance out of a sense of obligation, or habit. Some for reasons of guilt. Faith has little, if anything, to do with it for these people.
    But they come. Not to me, but to this place. God’s house. Maybe five hours out of every twenty four it echoes with sermon and song, and the remaining time it is as it is now. A shell.
    Masons laid the stone, and carpenters raised the roof. Artisans crafted the hued panes of glass set high into the long side walls. But hearts within those few hours of each day make it a house of God.
    I take a seat four rows from the front, my gaze cast up at Christ on the cross. Reverence should fill my heart at the sight, but it does not. It is not the opposite, either, that I feel looking upon the image of my Savior. No disdain or disgust. The events of the previous twenty four hours are no doing of my God, or my church. The feeling about me, or lack thereof, is borne entirely of doubt.
    In myself.
    I led one mass today. In the language of my vocation, I was the celebrant. The one who guides others through the celebration of our faith. Leading all through the prayer and ritual which brings us closer to God.
    And throughout the hour which encompassed this very usual act on my part, there was not a moment in which I did not think myself a complete fraud.
    So I sit here, feeling nothing, understanding less,