Confession — pet murmur

The Act of Contrition

As a child, I learned there are some things you must never say, certain sins you can never confess. Some things so forbidden, you will never be forgiven. After that, living is just an act of contrition.

1. No Other Gods

I am the Lord thy God... Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Something happened the summer I was eleven years old. Something bad happened. I can’t say it out loud, but when I close my eyes I can still see the paint, chipped like crushed robin’s eggs, framing the edges of nothing. I hear the key working the bolts into place in the door, smell the dilapidation. Stained plywood walls. Pink-yellow linens. His face. Look what you did. Look what you made me do. The muffled sounds of a struggle. Then infinite silence and a darkness where love cannot go.

Afterward, they took me to Disney World, but I was no longer a child of God.

2. Graven Images

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.

I had to go forward but part of me got stuck back. I wanted so badly to be pretty but there was something ugly inside me—a desperate child, and she wouldn’t stop screaming. I did everything I could to deny her—strangle her, drown her, deprive her—but no matter how skinny I got, the belly was just a hollow bowl she could hide in. She peered out from inside me as I fashioned idols and arranged them on the mantle: Madonna, Medusa, the Snow Queen, the Magdalene. Statuesuqe and starved for attention. Angular and empty as an angel. I bronzed my hair and braided it into coppery snakes. Make me an object—an offering—but don’t look at my face.

The truth can turn men into stone.

3. The Lord's Name in Vain

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

What did you do last summer? I went to Disney World but can’t show you the pictures. They all came out blurred. On TV, there’s a motorboat and a man with a shovel, double exposed. Change the channel. Let’s watch a movie, something funny, not the one where you look in the mirror and say something three times. In the bathroom, there’s blood in the toilet. A face in the mirror. Something down in the water. Hail Mary. Jesus Christ. Oh my God. I stepped in something wet and now I can’t move. I don’t like scary movies, don’t want to sleepover, don’t want to go home. But I’m not crying. Everything’s fine. Swear to God.

4. The Holy Sabbath Day

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

I open my eyes. I’m on the floor, my wings crumbled under me like a moth. I blink and I’m bleeding in the choir room. There’s no rest for the weary, and the body is a temple of shame. In Sunday School, I win contests for my Catechism, but I don’t want to live forever and can’t bear to step foot in the house of the Lord. Every time I close my eyes I see—a child buried in the water, moving sculptures in a wax museum, and a rattlesnake—writhing in a closed metal can on the edge of a dock.

5. Honor Thy Father

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Long summers at the lake house. No TV. No phone. Just board games, cold lapping water, the police scanner—and him, listening. He teaches me to play and never lets me win. Gin. Hearts. It’s always a gamble. I play hide-and-go-seek and follow a lost child down to the docks. I swim until my skin turns blue. Eventually, I learn to win, but then he stops playing and goes out back with a spade. Life is sweet. Donuts for breakfast. Cold cuts and soda for lunch. Shopping at the outlets. Ice cream after dinner. When summer ends, we’ll go back home where there’s just one game to play. I’ll turn on the TV, and he’ll turn on the attic fan, so loud the whole house rumbles. It doesn’t matter if I scream. No one can hear anything.

6. Thou Shalt Not Kill

Thou shalt not kill.

I read lots of books and watched Murder She Wrote and I figured it out: I could do it with the iron skillet when he’s asleep on the couch after dinner. I imagine all the ways it could go—a human scarecrow—his eyes flashing open to break my wrist as I bring down the sledge—or a cracked skull and a body as big as a bear. Still, there is a child buried in the water, and nothing has changed except me. Now I see his face when I look in the mirror. I’ve memorized Hamlet’s soliloquy, but the lines are stuck in a loop, and I never can get to the end. I crawled out onto the roof but couldn’t throw my other leg over the edge. That’s when I knew—there’s no way out of the world alive—and being alive doesn’t mean anything.

7. To Commit Adultery

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

I’m not a little girl anymore but I still like to paint and make pictures. I want to dance but my shoes are too tight. Life is not like in books, but I’ve learned how to survive. Do you want to see a magic trick? When you hear him coming, just close your eyes. In the back of your mind, you’ll find a hidden door. Open it. Go all the way inside. When you turn around, you find—you’re locked in time. It’s like radio static, the way the spirit crawls out of the flesh. Just a flash of blue light and a secret lodged in your throat. Cold feet. Clammy hands. Chicken skin. You’re smart but not smart enough. Now you’re alone in a room at the center of everything—with nothing—but the smell of cut grass and a box of dull crayons.

8. Thou Shalt Not Steal

Thou shalt not steal.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I tried to steal past the captain’s quarters to get to the phone, but the door was locked, and I didn’t know who to call. So I went back to bed and did what I was told. I tied the boat to the dock. I walked home through the battlegrounds, watched him drive away down Bloody Pond Road. Every evening at dusk, we play pirates. We fire the cannons when the calliope plays. These are not laughing waters; this is the lake that shuts itself in. Daddy long-legs. Diamond Island. Silvermine. To survive you must face the facts and steel yourself—it’s easy enough to give and take a life—like buying a child ice cream with sprinkles.

9. False Witness

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

I see without looking. I look without seeing. I know—what’s in the bag. Someone is locked in the bedroom. He’s out back burning trash in the barrel. I don’t have the key. At night, I get very small and retreat into myself. Something bad happened. I want to tell but there’s no phone and no one to call. I want to tell but I don’t know the words. There are no words for this. God. At dawn, I follow him down to the docks. The morning is still and reflective as glass. I sit on the bow. He takes the wheel. We knife through the waters to visit a grave.

10. Thy Neighbor's House

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

You never know what goes on behind closed doors. I’ll tell you a secret: I know how to be in two places at once. No one can even tell. It looks like I’m here at my desk, writing a poem, but I’m also sorting through a chest of pine drawers filled with toys. Here’s a howler monkey in a striped nightcap. Here’s a doll with a red-checkered dress. Here’s a little pink horse with a horn. I’m not allowed to leave the house, so I hide in the back of the closet and wait. Sometimes he finds me. Some nights he doesn’t even come looking. There’s no telling and no one to tell.