Chapter 6 - The Confession In The Chapel
Three months passed, and winter arrived with freezing rain and bitter winds that stripped the coastal hills bare.
Damian Moretti sat alone in the back pew of St. Jude's Chapel in downtown Los Angeles, a place he hadn't stepped foot inside since his mother's funeral eight years ago. The cavernous stone church was dark, lit only by dozens of small red votive candles flickering near the altar.
An elderly priest in black vestments walked down the aisle, stopping near the pew where Damian sat with his face buried in his calloused hands.
"The church closed an hour ago, my son," the priest said gently.
"I need to buy a cemetery plot," Damian whispered without looking up, his voice cracked and hollow. "A private plot in the infant section."
The priest sat down beside him, looking at the hollow cheeks and dark circles that carved deep shadows into the younger man's face.
"Plots are for those who have passed, sir," the priest replied. "Do you have someone to lay to rest?"
"My son," Damian choked out, tears spilling freely onto his designer coat. "He died three months ago. He was smaller than my two hands, Father. And I wasn't there because I was drinking wine with a woman I didn't even care about."
"And where is the child now?"
"I don't know," Damian wept openly, his shoulders shaking with the raw, agonizing grief he had kept bottled behind boardrooms and private jets. "His mother buried him somewhere in this state, and she won't tell me where. She won't let me leave a single flower on his grave."
"Perhaps she is protecting him from the man who chose to be absent," the priest said softly, offering neither easy comfort nor false absolution. "A grave is not an asset you can acquire to soothe your conscience, young man. Forgiveness does not begin with claiming the dead; it begins with releasing the living."
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Damian stared at the flickering candle flames, the harsh truth piercing through his soul like an arrow.
He had spent three months hunting Claire not because he wanted to comfort her, but because his pride couldn't endure being rejected, discarded, and judged guilty by the woman he had vowed to protect.
