Those heavy parish doors gave way once more. Clicking heels melded with the sound of them slamming shut behind me. Step by step, I made my way down that sacred aisle. The meditative silence broken by my presence felt incorrect and almost sacrilegious. Was there any theological reason I couldn’t be here right now? No. Was there anything I could be condemned for? Of course not. My discomfort had more to do with the wiring in my head. I felt tainted by my work, and standing in the house of God, I awaited judgment I had no reason to fear.

  The altar stood before me. The architecture of the building itself invited me in. It wrapped around me with distant guidance and unconditional warmth. Perhaps that was why the lost and wary found themselves on its doorsteps time and time again. Father Lewis was no exception. His upbringing would have broken a lesser man, but here he was still standing. Some would say that he was the poster child for someone who found themselves through faith.

  “I’ll save you the trouble,” I said. “It’s never good news.”

  He smiled softly. Age showed in the lines on his face. He was a tested man. Some would say by God. Others would say by chance. I didn’t pretend to know the answer. I worked in ambiguity and looked for meaning in places where truth was obscured. People like me handed out answers like candy, and all the hungry children gobbled them right up, happy to return to their peaceful lives. Answers were supposed to make the world feel orderly and simplistic, but I never felt an ounce of satisfaction. Where was the payoff I was promised?

  “I don’t ask for good news, detective,” he said, warily. “People come to me in times of crisis. I couldn’t counsel the lost and wary without a tolerance for tragedy.”

  “Then that makes two of us,” I said. “The only thing I ever see is tragedy.”

  Our words hung in the air, swirling around the ache at their core. Meaning slipped through our fingers. In its place, it left behind a residue of tension in our palms. From there it spread and infected the body. We armored ourselves for danger that would never come because it belonged in the past. That kind of hidden pain could only be held by those willing to look into the depths of despair time and time again.

  “You seem troubled,” he said.

  “I haven’t come for counsel, Father,” I said.

  I whipped out the contents found in their pockets. Two half-eaten bars and a bottle of water with a sticker slapped on the front indicating the parish. No identification. No documents. No digital footprint. They only left behind these three things and the clothes on their backs. Whether the rest was taken wouldn’t matter to most. When the homeless turned up dead, most people didn’t bat an eye. To them, it read as shorthand for useless or worthless. At the very least, it caught them red-handed being an inconvenience.

  “Does this look familiar?” I asked.

  He stepped closer and examined them gingerly with the care due for a newborn lamb.

  “These are from our pantry,” he said. “You were right, detective. It isn’t good news.”

  “No,” I whispered. “It’s not.”

  A moment of silence passed between us, and the items were handed back to me. I stowed them away where they belonged, hidden out of sight.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” he asked.

  “Two dead,” I said. “They were found nearby. I’m sorry; it wasn’t pretty.”

  Nobody ever accused me of being too delicate. The facts spoke for themselves, and I found myself rushing through them. The projector disc sat heavy in my pocket, begging for my attention, but something in my chest held me back. I hesitated to activate it. That metal disc seemed incorrect and out of place in this time capsule. Outside the city radiated energy and innovation. Inside, the peaceful ruminations of the past still lingered.

  “Be at ease,” he said quietly. “This too is God’s work.”

  Without another word, I flicked the projector to life. It buzzed and hummed until light poured out and formed two lifeless figures. A man and a woman. A couple, maybe. Hardship had been carved into them. Weathered faces and battered clothing obscured their age, but behind their matted hair were the remnants of youth. Time didn’t move at the same pace for all of us. Their time had already run out.

  He studied them again, scrunching his brows in concentration. He may have run this parish, but he wasn’t omniscient. Hundreds of troubled people passed through those doors every year, and not everyone stayed to chat. Not everyone was looking for counsel. In all likeliness, they were only looking for a hot meal and a place to rest. If he had the answers, he would have given them to me, but once his face fell, I knew it was over.

  “I wish I could give you more, Father,” I said.

  “So do I,” he sighed.

  “People evaporate here, don’t they?” I asked, looking up at the high ceiling.

  The stained glass windows filtered sunlight into colorful shapes dancing across the walls. Particles of dust shimmered in it like vapor.

  “Many people who disappear come here,” he said. “They look for salvation.”

  “Do you give it to them?” I asked.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I try,” he said. “As much I can.”

  Beyond the general congregation, many of those down on their luck came here. Some were born into poverty. Others lost their wealth to indulgence. A smaller minority chose to disappear and live on charity like ghosts. After all, the closest thing to death was the death of an identity. You disappeared the last time someone called your name.

  The first time I came here, it was in connection to the Sect of Abstantia. Noah asked me to look into Cassie. Back then, she was just a missing girl, and she was one of many. Even then, it nearly killed me to think I could have failed her. She lived, of course, but I didn’t get to know the end of her story. I never did. My job ended the minute a case was solved. Everything else was out of my hands.

  “Does it ever get easier to watch them disappear?” I asked.

  The heavy wooden doors crashed into the wall behind me. Two girls silhouetted against the setting sun rushed toward us. The taller one led the way while the younger one trailed behind. Momentarily blinded, I couldn’t make out their faces. When those doors slammed shut, I swore I’d seen them before.

  “You came back,” she said, wrapping her arms around me.

  “Did I?” I asked.

  “Thanks for bringing my big sister back,” the smaller girl said.

  My hands hovered at my sides; the words registered in my ears before my brain could make sense of them. A pair of girls. Two sisters. Only one needed to be brought home. The other was left waiting for her big sister.

  “Cassie…” I whispered. “What are you doing here?”

  She’d changed since I’d last seen her. I remembered her as a small, trembling mess of tears and shame. Her collapsed nature framed her as younger than she was. I’d forgotten that she was already fourteen. Comparing that girl to the one in front of me made me realize how much she’d grown. This was someone who could stand up straight even if days could still be hard. I saw resilience in her face, and, at least in that moment, she was happy.

  “We live here now,” she said.

  “Daddy takes care of us,” the younger girl said, tugging on his sleeve.

  Once the shock wore off, the girls were gone. Maybe they preemptively withdrew to protect themselves. Maybe I was seeing things, but it felt too real to be my imagination. When your savior came stumbling back to your doorstep, you wanted them to find as much meaning in it as you did. Nobody wanted to be just another number on a spreadsheet or a name in a forgotten memory. Sometimes, we wanted others to be troubled on our behalf to prove that we mattered enough for them to care.

  “It was you,” I whispered.

  I remembered him by her bedside in that white hospital room. The flowers weren’t even allowed to wilt lest they taint the fragile peace. They were artificial, from the tips of the petals down to the bottom of the stem. Firmly, faintly, and hidden away in the back, a residue stuck like taffy. Interwoven in between all the noise was grief. A grief so deep I couldn’t bear it. A grief didn’t belong to him or Cassie. Grief that was barely even mine because it clung to my father, who was never there.

  “I was told someone adopted them, but not who…” I said.

  My father who I admired. My father, who was the sole reason for my vocation. My father, who couldn’t teach me how to be a woman or a daughter, only a directed missile, only someone who lived for their job. My father, who should have been more to me than a symbol and filled more space than my memory held his image. For all the warmth he gave me, it was fleeting and rare. There was a hole in my chest in the shape of a father I’d held back all this time, and now it blurred my sight with tears.

  “It was you?” I asked.

  I took a step closer. My legs felt like lead.

  “I’ve been blessed to have been able to act as a surrogate father through my vocation, but I’ve never had children of my own,” he said.

  “But it wasn’t enough,” I said. “You wanted them.”

  He paused briefly, and in that space a thought bubbled up. Who was I really talking to? Was it him or was it the part of me that longed for a father? A nagging ache begged for more. I no longer desired to just be good and get the job done. Accolades didn’t satisfy me anymore. There was a young and needy part of myself that always wanted my father’s undivided attention and my mother’s unconditional love. Dangerous ideas came to me in the dead of night after I’d safely tucked myself into bed. Ideas that asked what would happen if I came first, or what it would be like to be loved simply for existing. Little Lana wanted to be big enough to fill their whole hearts with just the top of her head.

  “I did,” he said quietly. “Every child deserves to be wanted.”

  I’d prided myself on how well I kept things together my entire life. My goal was always to test my limits. The less I needed, the better I was. The more I achieved, the more I was worth. Love looked like approval from a distant authority figure. Their satisfaction proved I was good enough to go on another day. Behind my obsessive pursuit for perfection was the belief that I shouldn’t ever be greedy. But how did you separate greed from the desire to be loved simply for being born?

  “I’ve always thought the same thing,” I said.

  The words rang hollow in my ears, like platitudes you mouthed just to have said them. Deep down, I only believed in that sentiment when it had nothing to do with me. Sympathy itched me whenever it turned inward. I doubted them when I looked myself in the mirror. According to my nervous system, it applied to everyone on Earth except one, Detective Lana Walker.

  My feet took me backwards. The projector still hummed in my hands. Two nameless faces reduced to outlines hovered in the air. Two lives that might have once deserved to exist as much as any of us did. Two souls who departed this world far too soon. I didn’t know what they’d done, how good they were, or how much they were loved, but in my heart I knew it didn’t matter because none of it would have negated their right to exist. My fingers white-knuckled around the metal disc.

  “Wait, Detective—,” he called out, but I stopped him.

  “Call me Lana,” I said.

  Maybe it was a mistake to speak so casually in uniform, but I didn’t care anymore. My head was buzzing with thoughts, and none of them had to do with my badge. I held myself to standards I didn’t expect from anybody else.

  “Lana,” he corrected himself. “There’s a candlelight vigil tonight for the homeless.”

  “How?” I asked. “You were notified today.”

  “I didn’t organize it. They may live on the streets, but they weren’t alone,” he said.

  “Friends…” I muttered, taking the pamphlet from his outstretched hand.

  The analytical part of me ran through a list of objectives. Information could be gathered from someone familiar to them. Evidence was waiting to be found. It’d be negligent not to go. Inside my head, a quiet war was being fought. Lana Walker, the detective, wanted clean answers and a cleared queue. Lana, the woman, wanted to pay her respects. As to which side would win, time would tell.