Chapter 73: The Wedding Pastor
Daniel found the pastor in a small church office that smelled of dust, tea, and old hymn books. It was not grand enough for a performance, which made Daniel uneasy before sitting.
He had chosen the place because it still remembered a better version of him. At least, he hoped it did.
A framed photograph of his wedding stood on a shelf near the window. Evelyn in ivory.
Daniel in black. Both of them younger than their lies. The image was small, but it had the cruelty of a preserved witness.
The pastor did not offer a warm embrace. He offered a chair.
That was already less than Daniel had imagined. “I saw the interview,” the pastor said.
Daniel lowered himself into the chair. “Then you know how bad things have become.”
“I know they have become public.” The answer irritated him.
He had come for comfort, not accuracy. “I need you to speak to Evelyn.” Daniel noticed the absence of sympathy the way a cold man notices an unlit fire.
The pastor folded his hands on the desk. “About what?”
Daniel leaned forward. “About forgiveness.”
The word sounded noble in the room. It sounded safer than money.
The pastor watched him for a long moment. “Do you want forgiveness, Daniel, or do you want access?”
Daniel blinked. “Those are not separate.”
“They are often separate.” Outside the window, someone swept leaves from the church path.
The soft scrape filled the silence. Daniel hated ordinary sounds.
They made his desperation look theatrical. “You married us,” he said. He had selected the phrase forgiveness on the walk over because it sounded like a door no decent person would refuse to open.
“You stood there and said marriage was sacred. Surely that means something.” It did.
He could hear it in the pastor’s breathing. Not hope.
Grief. “It means I remember what you promised her.”
Daniel looked at the wedding photograph. He remembered the reception more clearly than the vows.
The champagne. The speeches.
The way people had looked at him because Evelyn had chosen him. “I made mistakes,” he said.
The pastor’s expression did not move. “Did you repent?”
Daniel was ready for blame. He was ready for disappointment.
He was not ready for that one clean word. Repent.
It did not mean apologise where cameras could hear. It did not mean suffer until people felt guilty. The pastor had married too many couples to confuse ceremony with character.
It meant turn around. It meant stop walking towards the same hunger.
Daniel rubbed his hands together. “I am trying to survive.”
“That was not my question.” “I have nowhere stable to live.”
“Still not my question.” Daniel’s patience snapped.
“If she forgave me, would she help me financially?” The room changed.
Even the sweeping outside seemed to stop. The pastor closed his eyes for half a second.
When he opened them, whatever softness remained had gone. “There it is.”
Daniel heard the mistake after he made it. He tried to recover.
“That is not what I meant.”
“It is exactly what you meant.”
The pastor stood.
The meeting was over before Daniel understood he had lost it. The word struck him because it left no room for branding, timing, or careful lighting.
“I will not carry that message to Evelyn.”
“You are meant to help people.”
“Yes,” the pastor said.
“That is why I will not help you use faith as a key to her bank account.”
Daniel rose too quickly.
The chair legs scraped the floor.
The wedding photograph trembled on the shelf but did not fall.
He stared at Evelyn’s face behind the glass.
For the first time, the room remembered her more kindly than it remembered him. The sentence did not shout. It simply removed the last respectable cover from his request.
Daniel left without shaking hands.
At the church door, he stopped.
If the pastor would not carry his words, he would deliver them himself. The idea came to him with the desperate confidence of a man who still mistook trespass for devotion.