While Mom muddled the raspberries for the dressing, her dad sliced the roast beef and laid juicy pink slabs on their plates. Kathy watched her parents. They were a perfect match. High school sweethearts who’d never said a cross word to each other. At least, as far as Kathy knew.

Mom and Dad were the ideal parents, and for most people, that would be a comforting thing. Yet for Kathy, it was a source of anxiety. She couldn’t fathom how she could ever be as happy or as fulfilled as they were.

Grabbing Kathy’s plate, Mom asked, “Honey, you’re going to have a full bowl of salad, right?”

Kathy nodded as Mom piled the dressed salad onto her plate and set it in front of her.

Her father cleared his throat as he always did before saying grace. They all made the sign of the cross and bowed their heads.

“Bless us, O Lord…”

Kathy’s mind wandered to a darker place. Her guilt was nearly overwhelming.

She didn’t deserve any blessings.

###

The lot in front of Saint Mary’s was practically empty as Kathy pulled into a parking spot. She hadn’t been to a church in five years. Not since her uncle’s funeral. He was in a car accident while Kathy was up in Alaska for a singing gig. He died in the hospital while she was on a flight home.

As she got out of the car, a warm voice exclaimed, “Bless my soul, is that little Katherine O’Reilly?”

A tall silver-haired man approached from the front steps of the church, wearing the familiar black cassock and white collar of the Roman Catholic Church.

“Yes, Father Carson, it’s me.”

Father Carson was in his seventies, but he showed no sign of slowing down. He lightly stepped toward her with hands outstretched and cupped her face with his warm hands. “My child, you look haggard. Your mother told me some of what you’ve been through, what with the disappearance of your beau and all. I’m truly sorry you’re experiencing such heartache.”

Something about the sincerity in his voice melted the thing that had been frozen inside of Kathy.

Like a film projector skipping randomly along a movie, images of the last handful of months flashed in her mind’s eye.

Brad’s bloody face. Her sheltering in the lab. The men rescuing her from the island. Kathy staring at Brad’s empty house, wondering if he was dead.

Throughout the attack on the island, the ensuing flight from danger, and even during the three months she’d hidden herself from the world at home… at no point had she truly felt any of it.

Until now.

Tears streamed unbidden down her cheeks. The numbness broke like a dam, giving way to an overwhelming explosion of emotions—relief, guilt, terror, sadness.

She wrapped her arms around herself as if she might come apart at the seams.