Confessional - James N. Markels
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“How long has it been since your last confession, my son?”
“Shit, Hank, it’s me, man.”
“Terry?”
“Yup.”
“You could have just come to my office, you know.”
“I’ve got to keep it quiet. Linda doesn’t know I’m here.”
“Isn’t it a bit early for you to be hiding out from her?”
“Yeh, I guess.”
“How’s it going over there?”
“Alright. Nah, not alright. She’s got a wicked temper going.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Listen, man, I’ve got a little problem.”
Terry wasn’t known to have “little” problems. Getting Linda pregnant by accident two years ago was a “little” problem. At that point they had only been dating for two months.
“Yeah?”
“Yeh. Like I got this girl Molly pregnant.”
Pause. “You what?”
“I’m serious. I met her over at Mike’s about a month ago.”
“Does she know you’re married?”
“Yeh.”
“Does Linda know about this?”
“Hell no! Are you nuts? She’d kill me.”
“Well, yeah. Can’t say I’d blame her.”
“Come on, Hank. I need some help, man.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I just need some advice. What am I supposed to do?”
“How in the world did you let this happen?”
“Let this happen? Man, Linda makes me miserable. She’s a real beast on wheels. And the kid! You know I love the little tiger to death, but it’s so hard sometimes.”
“Life is hard sometimes. And that’s when you’re supposed to pull it together and push through, not roll over and screw things up—pardon my language.”
“Oh, that’s easy for you to say. You don’t have to go home to her. You’re not even married.”
“I’ve counseled couples before.”
“Bully. Look, when I got Linda pregnant, I asked you what I was supposed to do, because I know that you’re a holy person and all and you’re good at helping guide people to do the right things—“
“Yes, I try my best to encourage the right path.”
“—and you’ve always been a good friend to me, and you said that the right thing to do was to marry Linda and be a father to Timmy.”
“That’s right.”
“Okay. So I do that, you know, except then I found out that Linda is a goddamn beast of a wife, man.”
“Hey, watch your language. You know where you are, right?”
“Yeh, okay, I’m sorry. Look, she’s really impossible. Just last week she started screaming at me in a crowded restaurant—Lucky’s, you know that place on 8th?”
“Yeah.”
“Right there, in front of everyone. Throwing forks at me and stuff. And over what? Because I forgot to take the god—ah, stupid friggin’ VCR in to the repair shop to have it fixed. I mean, she just goes ballistic over this useless crap.”
“Sounds to me like there’s a history behind all of this. Past stuff is setting things off.”
“We’ve always had it rough. When we were dating, it was easy in the sack and we had a good time and all, but I never once thought about marrying her. She’s just not my type, and I’m not hers, you know? She was really happy at first when I told her I’d do the marriage thing after we found out, but then she just got all demanding, everything had to be perfect, and I felt like I was spending all my time just trying to keep my head above water and—“
“Maybe you two should come in and see me for some counseling.”
“Oh no. And I don’t want you breathing a word of this to her, either.”
“Why don’t you want counseling?”
“Listen, I can’t change her, and I’m not about to remold myself into her little friggin’ slave, either. That’s what she wants.”
“Counseling doesn’t necessarily mean changing who you are.”
“And I also don’t want her finding out about Molly.”
“You think you can just hide that forever?”
“We’ll see. But as far as you’re concerned, we’re in this confession place. You can’t talk about this to anyone.”
“You’re not Catholic.”
“So?”
“Look, this is all besides the point.”
“Right. What should I do about Molly?”
“No, even that’s besides the point. It sounds to me like you have some real problems with your marriage and you need to work them out.”
“We can worry about Linda after we’ve figured out the Molly problem.”
“No, we can’t. They are the same problem.”
“No they aren’t.”
“Yes, they are. Your problems with Linda drove you to cheat with Molly. Until you deal with Linda, there will always be another Molly.”
“And your telling me to marry Linda drove me into a bad marriage that led me to cheat with Molly.”
“No. The right thing for you to do was to marry the mother of your child and provide a nurturing and loving home to your new child.”
“Did you ever consider whether Linda and I were a compatible couple?”
Pause. “Well, you know that Linda has never liked me or my faith—“
“So you never really knew her well.”
“No, I guess not.”
“So you told me to marry a woman without having a clue as to whether we’d be a good couple together.”
“I do remember asking you what you thought of her.”
“I had only been with her, what, two or three months? What the hell did I know?”
Silence.
“Look, Hank, I just want to do what’s right. I have a hard time figuring that out sometimes.”
“You shouldn’t have cheated on your wife.”
“Maybe I should divorce her?”
“That’s a last-ditch option. We have many others to try first.”
“If Linda finds out about Molly, she’ll choose for me.”
Pause. “Has Molly decided to keep the baby?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure her mind is made up. I told her that I’d pay for the abortion and everything if she wanted one.”
“An abortion is not a good option.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not the right thing to take the life of a child.”
“Yeh, but it’s a bad situation.”
“So you’re saying it’s alright if I decided to kill you to avoid the bad situation of your marriage?”
“You bet! You’d be doing me a favor.”
“She could raise the child or give it up for adoption. Don’t encourage abortion.”
“It’s her call, anyway.”
“Don’t encourage it.”
“Okay.”
“So where are we?”
“Hell if I know. This whole thing has been keeping me up nights.”
“If Molly decides to have the baby, how are you going to explain child support payments?”
“I’ll have to work something out with her.”
“Why shouldn’t she stick you to all she can get? After all, it’s your back against the wall.”
“What?”
“You’re the one with everything to lose. Unless you somehow get Molly to leave you out completely—and I don’t think she’ll do that—it’s all coming down one way or the other. Linda’s going to find out eventually.”
“So maybe I should try to get Molly to let me off the hook, then?”
“Well, ah, no, that’s not the best thing. That child is half yours and you have an obligation to it. You shouldn’t punish the child for your deeds.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“You have an obligation.”
“We’ll see.”
“Don’t sweep someone under the carpet just because they inconvenience you.”
“I won’t sweep anyone. I just don’t want to fuck things up for everyone.”
“You already have.”
“Yeh, I guess so. Shit.”
“Be respectful.”
“Yeh, sorry. It’s just that I’ve been so angry about this. I know I’m to blame, but I think that I took all the precautions, wore a condom and everything, and still everything gets messed up.”
“There’s always a chance things go wrong. God keeps us on our toes.”
“But now I could lose everything. All I wanted was some space. I just wanted to get away from Linda for a bit. I never intended for this to happen.”
“I know, Terry.”
“Do you think this is punishment? From God?”
“I can’t speak for God, but it doesn’t seem right to me for us to see a new child as a punishment in any context. Every child holds the promise of redemption. Even yours. Perhaps we should look at this as a test instead.”
A long sigh. “I don’t know, man. I just don’t know.”
“Are you thinking about cheating on Linda again?”
“What are you talking about?”
“After all of this, would you consider cheating on Linda again?”
“Not on your life!”
“See? You’ve learned something here. You have turned away from the sin that first tempted you. That’s a change for the better, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“Of course it is. There is more for you to do, but you have hope. You can come out of this situation a stronger person, a wiser person. A better person in the eyes of God.”
“Yeh, maybe the stronger, wiser thing to do is for me to ditch Linda and Molly and crawl into a hole somewhere.”
“I don’t think so. That’s not facing your problems.”
“No, I think it is facing my problems, Hank. My problem is that I am married to someone I shouldn’t be married to, and that’s making me fool around with someone I shouldn’t be fooling around with.”
“The marriage doesn’t control you. You control you. You made the choice to be with Molly.”
“Fine. But Linda is the bottom-line problem here.”
“In my years of marriage counseling I’ve never met or heard of a couple where only one side was all to blame.”
“Alright, I’m messed up too. Happy? Haven’t you seen examples of marriages that were better off ending than sticking together?”
“Well…”
“Like the Louises. They hardly spoke to each other for three years and then they divorced and remarried and now they’re both happy. I even saw them talking at the fair last week. You can’t tell me they were better off together.”
“The Louises could have made it work between them if they had wanted to. And don’t think that everything is wine and roses for them now. I’ve talked with Buddy about his marriage recently. I’m not saying there’s a divorce in his future or anything, but no marriage is simply happily ever after. It takes work, and it has its up-spots and down-spots. In sickness and in health.”
“Oh come on. Do you really think that every marriage can, or should, work?”
“In God’s eyes, yes.”
“So even if Linda was trying to kill me or something, you’d tell me to stick with it.”
“I would tell you to get Linda therapy or committed if necessary and then be there for her until things are better.”
“Are you kidding? It’s like you’re saying that everyone should just get along and be friends when in reality there are always going to be people that hate each other, either because they’ve been taught not to like certain people or ideas they have, or they have experiences that confirm it.”
“And that’s why we have to separate ourselves from our biases and accept faith as our guide.”
“That only works when the other guy does it too.”
“Maybe your doing it first will inspire others to follow.”
“Or maybe they won’t because it’s easier to take advantage of my being dumb enough to ignore reality.”
“So turn the other cheek.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“Look, I admit it; it is easier for me to tell you what the right thing to do is than it is for you to do the right thing.”
“Damn right.”
“But that only means that the ball is in your court now. You now know what the right thing to do is. It is up to you to choose. All I get is the satisfaction from knowing that I’ve done what I could to help you, while you have the chance to reap far more by facing your problems and fixing them the right way.”
“But if doing the right thing as you describe it only makes things worse, you just shrug and tell the next schmuck the same thing, while I’m the one paying for it.”
“The principle might not change, but as your friend you know that the last thing I’d want is for you to be hurt or miserable. Maybe the whole Molly thing could have been avoided if you talked to me sooner.”
“Yeah, probably. You won’t hate me if I divorce Linda, would you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Okay. That’s good.”
“Give it a chance first, Terry. You might be surprised.”
“Yeh, she might hit me with a plate instead of a frying pan. I’ll keep an eye out for that. But hey, thanks. I feel a little more sorted out.”
“Sure. I’m here to help.”
“Still on for poker next Tuesday?”
“You bet.”
* * *
“I must confess,” said Pastor Hank Benjamin two weeks later, “Terry Bowers confided to me the troubles in his marriage. Many of you knew Terry, and he was a good friend of mine. I tried to guide him according to the principles of the Lord, as we all should do, but—well, I’m sure you’ve all heard. It’s just that…I can’t help but feel that I failed him. He was a good father, a loving son, and my friend. If there was ever a time we should call upon the Lord’s teaching and strength, it is now. There is a passage from the Book of Job that has comforted me since the tragedy, and I wanted to share it with you all today.”
A single tear slipped down the Pastor’s cheek, cutting a path for another to follow. For a moment a drop beaded on his chin, a guilty gem shining in the church’s altar lighting, before gracefully falling to the open page the Pastor had commenced reading from at an uneven pace. Years later, the stain yet remains.