The Penitent One
Brian Shea
THE PENITENT ONE
Copyright © 2020 by Brian Shea.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Severn River Publishing
www.SevernRiverPublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-64875-018-2 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-64875-019-9 (Hardback)
Contents
Also By Brian Shea
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
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Unkillable: A Nick Lawrence Short Story
This one goes out to my father-in-law, Burt, or better known to my girls who absolutely adore him, Pop Pop. Your newfound love of reading is contagious! Thank you for being you and all the tireless support you've shown for all of my endeavors.
1
Donovan O’Brien, or Father Donny as he was known to his parishioners, looked out on the congregation spread out amidst the pews. He remembered a time when the bench seats were packed with people. His Masses seemed to fill the rows more than the much older Father Winslow’s services. Father Tomlin, who was closer in age, had not been with the parish long and wasn’t from the neighborhood. His support was growing but he hadn’t garnered much of a following yet. Not that O’Brien was keeping track. More obvious was the disparity in age for the ones he presided over. This morning, the crowd was a good two decades younger than those who attended Father Winslow’s Masses.
Debbie Shoemaker sat in the front row. He’d known Deb for years. And in a very personal way. That was before his calling. But there she was next to Joslyn Roswell. The two couldn’t have been more different in outward appearances.
Even though it was only twenty-seven degrees outside, Deb felt the compulsion to wear a low-cut silk blouse accentuating her ample cleavage. She intentionally leaned forward to read her missalette, allowing the soft curvature of her flesh to push against her shirt, testing the strength of the light pink bra. Any onlooker trying to avoid temptation best look elsewhere. Even for a man of the cloth, it was a test of willpower.
O’Brien had seen old man Haggerty take a beating from his wife when caught ogling the voluptuous woman more than fifty years younger than him. But even with his wife’s mean swing of a purse, he still spent most of every service working to angle himself for one more glimpse of Deb’s partially exposed body.
Joslyn, on the other hand, was much more reserved in her appearance. But what she held in reserve by dress, she made up for in action. She was a toucher. More than once during her departure from the church, the tight-bodied blonde had made a point of hugging him. The things she whispered in his ears were enough to make a sailor blush and forced him to immediately make an Act of Contrition. If the hugs and whispering weren’t enough, Joslyn, on three separate occasions, had grabbed his crotch. Now, when possible, he avoided her like the plague.
The two temptresses sat side by side, directly in Father Donny’s line of sight, as he stepped to the podium to deliver his homily. The outside of his left eye, along his upper cheek, was still slightly discolored in a subtle yellowish-purple hue from a punch Mike Kelly had landed during last Thursday’s session at Pops’s gym. It had been a heck of an overhand right delivered by his lifelong friend. He brushed it absentmindedly, the tenderness of the three-day-old bruise temporarily distracting him from Deb’s cleavage.
He cleared his throat and adjusted his collar as he looked outward.
“With Thanksgiving around the corner, I wanted to take a moment and talk about cleaning the plate. And I don’t mean after your third trip to the dessert table.”
A ripple of laughter circulated through the congregation.
“I’m talking about your spiritual plate. It becomes burdensome to carry the heavy load of sin. Imagine piling on the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, and going back for seconds before eating your first. The weight of your dinner plate would eventually slip from your hands and likely shatter on the floor. I know I’ve got your stomachs rumbling at all this talk of food. Don’t worry, you’ll be getting your Eucharist soon enough.”
The reference to the small, light-as-air wafer earned another chuckle from the group.
“But in all seriousness, your spiritual health is important to me. Without clearing away buildup on your soul, you run the risk of shattering your faith. I think you can see the number of churchgoers has dropped in recent years. Much is due to the weight of sin. Hard to walk through those three arched doors behind you when you feel unworthy of God’s grace.”
The group seemed to sense the seriousness in his normally uplifting tone and grew solemn. Even Deb adjusted her shirt, partially shielding her breasts from view.
“There is a simple way to wipe clean your plate. To start fresh in the eyes of God. And that’s through the Sacrament of Penance. I haven’t seen many of you lining up at the confessional lately. But not to worry, I have faith
