I heard my sister sigh,

then heard a deeper muffled sigh,

felt a hot breath against my cheek,

a chuckle and a voice whispering, “Don’t peek.”

I didn’t dare.

“I don’t need to,” I almost cried,

but realized I’d be lost too,

if I didn’t play dead,

so I lay still until dawn,

when I turned over and looked at the empty bed,

then fell into a deep sleep

and dreamed I understood the words

my sister had mumbled the night before

to wake finally to my mother’s screams.

“It was the boogeyman,” I told her,

but she didn’t listen

and I chose to keep silent,

although I knew he’d taken my sister

and buried her alive in his backyard.

I’d even gasped for breath that morning

over breakfast alone at the table,

while the police asked my mother

whether I were able to tell her anything.

I tried, but I couldn’t breathe,

so she put me in her bed

and I lay there until darkness covered me

like a baby blanket.

Now as I kneel without praying,

I am looking for a different boogeyman,

but he won’t come inside.

He’ll just stand with his hand

suspended above the holy water,

which he will not touch,

a slight smile playing about his lips,

because he thinks he’s clever.

He thinks it’s all clear now,

that he can go back to how it was,

before he decided to go for broke

and let out the monster

who had urged him to choke his sister years ago.

He thinks he’s safe from discovery,

because he stands beyond

the outstretched arms of the statue of Christ

upon the altar where I kneel,

but he’s wrong.

I gave up hiding long ago

to seek absolution for not saving my sister

and with each case I take,

I hope I’ll reach some closure of my own.

I’d known the boogeyman would come,

but I was only twelve.

I saved myself, but I couldn’t save her,

or could I? That question haunts me

as I ruminate on my past actions, on my fate,

which is to wait for my sister’s abductor

again and again

to say, “Take me too,”

and pray, “Hail Mary, full of grace,”

before I suffocate.

Bob taps my shoulder and whispers,

“We got him.”

I only nod and return to my rumination,

but he doesn’t leave.

He kneels beside me

and I feel something emanating from him.

It coils and uncoils around my heart

like a snake.

I stare at him

and he asks, “What’s the matter?

What’s going on with you?”

I say nothing, but I’m lying.

I have “seen” something

in between Bob’s conscious and unconscious

and it’s mean and hard as a black diamond

as anything I’ve ever encountered

on my latest quest for forgiveness.

“What do you see?” he asks again.

“Nothing. . . . Nothing,” I lie once more,

then I say, “What happened to you

when you were a child?”

“I was never a child,” he answers cryptically.