There was a fragment of him that’d splintered off; no longer needed, or perhaps simply no longer appropriate, left to rest and rot and fall dormant. Only it hadn’t truly severed itself – it found life in every curse he spat, every greedy mouth he ever kissed, every surrender, every complaint, every perversion of the gospel he shared and every shattering of once-solid vows. It scratched incessantly at the confines of his skull and begged, no- demanded, to be given a choice of its own.

To be selfish.

To be allowed to not be okay, without worrying all the more for what his own condition did to someone else.

To be his own person, for once, to not be a priest of, the son of, the orphan of, the ‘father’ of.

Malachi nodded and stepped back to walk at her side, though the answer left him dissatisfied. He looked over the handkerchief again, thumbing over the initials she’d stitched onto it. And how selfish it was of him, he thought, to feel this way and to make her suffer for it. To distance himself from the only person that still lived that loved him.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” he agreed distantly. “It’s always fine.”

He slipped the handkerchief into his pocket. Lifted his head, and with an embarrassed smile, said, “I didn’t mean to press. I just want to know that you’re doing well here, that you’re…”

Still alive. Still happy. That she hadn’t woken up one day to find that she shared the sentiments of the rest of the family and that he was beneath her.

“…It just makes me feel better to hear about you. What you’re doing, how your friends are. Your letters were always the highlight of my days,” he admitted, and tried not to sound too ashamed of it.