They passed by Quaker meetinghouses that held the graves of colonial Philadelphians. They examined streets where the ghosts of Franklin and Washington mingled with those of British redcoats. They walked among the ancestral memories of slave and free, indentured and conscript. They walked through history, and as they did so, each of them wondered what their place in it would be.

By the time they turned on Second Street and strolled a block and a half south, they’d walked past the nation’s oldest street and into the city’s newest fad—an art exhibit fashioned out of secrets.

“Welcome to Confessions,” said a smiling blonde with freshly coifed hair and glasses that made her appear almost professorial.

Coletti greeted her with a curt nod, while Smithson smiled warmly.

The hostess flipped her hair and pointed to a table propped up against the far wall. “There’s Camembert and cabernet in the back,” she said, exaggerating the French pronunciation of both the wine and the cheese.

Coletti wasn’t impressed. The hostess noticed, and moved swiftly to say something that would correct that. “Personally, I would’ve served chenin blanc with the Camembert, but the gallery owners are new to the business, and—”

Coletti walked away before she could finish. Smithson’s face turned red with embarrassment before she ran to catch up with him.

“Why were you so rude to her?” she hissed.

“Because I hate phonies,” he said, grabbing a glass of wine from the table and taking a long sip.

“I think you hate everybody,” she said, looking at him through squinting eyes.

“I don’t hate you,” he said, gulping down the remainder of the wine. “At least not yet.”

Smithson shook her head disapprovingly and grabbed him by the arm. “Come on.”

With six-foot potted palms intermittently placed along its carpeted floors and delicate flower arrangements on unvarnished pine tables, the gallery smelled of an earthy mix of wood, soil, and chemicals.

Silky, earth-toned fabric served as wallpaper. Paintings—mostly nudes and abstracts—were displayed beneath recessed lighting. White tags with sparse descriptions marked every painting, but none of them bore prices.

“I guess if you have to ask you can’t afford it,” Coletti mumbled as he admired a nude of a woman with flowing red hair and pale, freckled skin.

“Then don’t ask,” said an annoyed Smithson as she pulled him into the room where Confessions hung.

Foot-long stained-glass windows framed by ebony arches hung from the ceiling on wires. As people moved through the room, the glass spun, reflecting colored beams from tiny spotlights that illuminated handwritten notes arranged haphazardly on the walls.

The church-inspired imagery reminded Coletti of his dream. It disturbed him. Yet he was drawn to the exhibit by the same thing as those who’d never set foot inside a church—secrets.

“I hate my mother,” the first ragged and soiled piece of paper read. “She hung me by my wrists in the basement.”