“I didn’t mean to leave them.” My voice broke, but I was desperate to confess, desperate to transfer the weight of my sins to this poor, kind priest who had been foolish enough to befriend me. “When I got lost, I thought I’d find my family after registration. I didn’t know one group was condemned to death while another wasn’t. All this time, I’ve been using you, Father Kolbe, and I let you believe I’m someone I’m not, and I’m sorry.”

“My beliefs about you aren’t false, Maria, I assure you. And if our friendship allowed me to play a small part in alleviating your suffering, then I thank God for giving us that grace.”

Thank goodness Father Kolbe couldn’t see the tears on the brink of spilling down my cheeks. “I don’t deserve God’s grace.”

“None of us do, yet He gives it to us anyway.”

“Do you really believe that in a place like this?”

“It’s in a place like this that I believe it most of all. How else could we find meaning amid such suffering?”

When we fell silent, the gentle patter of raindrops reached my ears. It was comforting somehow, and I wasn’t sure why because very little comforted me anymore. Comfort had receded into my past, unattainable in this new world, a world of anything but comfort. Father Kolbe’s presence was the only thing that transported me back to that state. To have the rain do the same was unusual, as if I were sitting by the window in my family’s apartment in Warsaw, watching raindrops roll down the windowpane. But neither Father Kolbe nor the soothing rainfall was enough to change my mind.

Father Kolbe wouldn’t approve of my decision, but I was tired of lying to him. He needed to hear the truth, the whole truth.

“I’m ready to leave.” I intended to say more, but the words stopped coming. My decision was made; it had been for a long time, but I didn’t anticipate it being so difficult to share.

The quiet surrounded us once again, a silence that pierced my heart until I could hardly withstand it. This time, instead of shock and disgust, I imagined fury on Father Kolbe’s face, but even in my mind the image was ludicrous.

“That’s not the answer, my friend.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Father Kolbe, and I don’t expect you or God or anyone to have mercy on me, but I can’t live with what I did to them,” I replied, the words barely audible. “Besides, I was sent here to die anyway.”

“Not like this.”