Is this really the way You want us to think of You?

She looked down the nave at a brooding wedge of stained glass and the clumsy images imprisoned in it: a knife-wielding Abraham was getting ready to stab his son Isaac. Just like God was willing to sacrifice Jesus. What a bloody-minded bunch of Aztecs they were.

Angel stared down the aisle of pews to the vaulted chancel, the organ, the choir stalls, and the altar. She could not imagine a place more removed from trees and clouds and fresh air. Her skin crawled. The old cramped stone and tired wood closed in on her. Cold rigid angles. Tortured figures imprisoned in the fractured windows. In all this heat, goose bumps prickled on her arms. Being here was like standing inside the replica of a man’s mind.

Father Moros heard the scuff of rubber soles. The bell on the door to the private confessional booth jingled as the door opened. The confessional was one room with two doors and was divided by a wooden partition. He placed a bookmark in the Liturgy of Hours. He had been reading Psalm 144.

Lord, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! Or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!

Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.

He adjusted the purple stole around his neck and faced the grille. Cheap perfume, Ponds facial cream, and hairspray seeped through the partition.

The dime-store essence reminded him of the trailer-park Anglo girls he’d grown up with in El Paso. In Albuquerque the confessional had reeked of Estee Lauder. He allowed himself a smile. He had come full circle.

Nothing happened. Some squirming from the other side; perhaps the penitent was having difficulty with the kneeling rest.

So Father Moros offered a prompt in his habitual avuncular tone. “May the Lord be in your heart and help you confess your sins with true sorrow.”