Midnight Mass

Prologue Sometimes I think I’m haunted by the ghosts of my former selves. There’s the small boy who used to run into his sister’s room after having a nightmare. There’s the teenager who pulled that same sister from a rafter in his parents’ garage. There’s the college student who drowned his pain in aggressive s*x and whiskey. And then there’s the parish priest who couldn’t stop himself from falling in love. I feel them crowding behind me as I walk across Princeton’s tree-filled campus. I hear them whispering as I make love to my wife. I see them behind my eyelids when I kneel to pray. Of all the ghosts that haunt me, it is the priest who stays the closest, who dogs my steps from dawn until dusk. It’s the priest who reminds me of my sins, of everything I’ve left behind, of every part of secular life that is flat and colorless and petty. It is the priest who tells me to be afraid of being punished. Like I’m not already afraid. But I never expected my punishment to come so soon.