FicWad

"It's been... I don't know exactly... roughly a month since my last confession."

Zorro didn't dare say anything, busy as he was watching the soldier pray in the middle of the church. When will the man finally decide he had prayed enough and go back to the cuartel, or the tavern, or wherever he wanted as long as it wasn't on Zorro's way!

"Father, I have hesitated all night long and all morning long before coming to you... but... it weighs on me more and more... and I... I... I don't know what is the rightest thing to do between protecting those I love and whom I feel responsible for on the one hand, and... and... being honest with the people whom I care for on the other hand..."

These words would have found a painful echo in Diego if he had been paying attention to them, but Zorro was only half-listening, vaguely and absent-mindedly hearing what the contrite parishioner was telling him – or rather, telling the padre. He had other problems on his mind than the existential issues of his fellow sinners. And in addition to that, he felt rather bad at hearing a confession that was meant to be heard by a priest and a priest only. Which he wasn't.

For God's sake, when would this damned soldier go away?! Oops, sorry my Lord for the swearword in Your holy house.

"Father, I... For years now I've been living a lie..."

Well, Diego thought wryly, tell me about it!

Zorro murmured to disguise his voice, distractedly so as he was still looking outside the confessional at the nave:

"Hmm? Really? Lie?"

Ah, good, the man was finally rising from his previous kneeling position... Oh, no! now he was heading to the statue of Nuestra Señora and lighting a candle! Won't he ever leave?!

"Yes, Padre. Almost a decade of conscious lie..."

Suddenly, it dawned on Diego that he knew this voice. Well of course he did! There were only so many people in Los Angeles and its surroundings...

But this voice sounded disturbingly familiar, even though he associated it only with very recent memories... Curious against his better judgement, he leaned to the grid until his nose touched it and he looked through the holes in the lattice.

Oh, Dios! It was dark, but despite this he clearly and unmistakably recognised Doña Araceli!

Well, that changed Zorro's priorities slightly. Or rather Diego's priorities? The previous urgency to leave this church was suddenly pushed to the background of his mind, as he became really curious to know what moral lapse she could have to confess. Except of course the one he already knew about the night she spent with his father. He really could do without hearing that!

But... didn't she just admit something about lying? For years? Lying about what, exactly?

He turned his full attention to her:

"I'm all ears, daughter," he murmured. "Tell me what's burdening your soul..."

"Well," she replied, "first, I must confess having been overcome with anger and hatred toward fellow human beings, Father..."

She went silent but before his lack of response she prompted him:

"Padre?"

"Si, si si, I'm listening to you. Go on..."

"I can't... I know it's wrong, but I can't help myself... When I think of these men who took my little girl... I feel so much anger inside me! I tell myself over and over that it's not worthy of a good Christian to feel this, that it keeps me away from God, diverts me from Him, but I can't... And when I think of this man, of Pablo... I feel so betrayed that I'm afraid I feel hatred in my heart. I know this feeling leads me away from the Lord's path, Padre, but I don't know how to stop it from gnawing at me..."

Diego didn't know what to tell her: he had wanted her to tell him about this lie she had alluded to at first, but now she was confessing the very human and even rather understandable wrong feelings the recent ordeal had triggered in her.

"Padre?"

"Si?"

"I don't want to be like that, I don't want my heart and soul to be taken over by Evil. And I thought... I thought... I thought that perhaps... perhaps it was because of the lie I've been living all these years... Perhaps it weakened my soul and made it an easier target for... for anger and hatred, for instance. Because even though I haven't truly lied by commission, by word, for years, I sort of repeat the lie by omission everyday..."

"And what exactly are you talking about, Seño– daughter? In order to understand your trouble and tell you whether it is what perverts your soul and keeps it away from our Father, I'm afraid I need some more detailed confession..."

She sighed.

"Si," she admitted. "Si, that's only fair..." She sighed again. "Padre..." Her voiced dropped a tone lower, and was now barely above a whisper. "Padre, I..." She paused. "I... I... I'm not widowed," she finally confessed. Another pause. "I'm still married. My husband is alive."

Diego wasn't expecting that. All he could do then was to stupidly stutter in a breathy voice:

"You... y-you... y-you're married? Still married?"

"Till death do us part, as you of all people very well know the saying... Until it truly do us part..."

The only reply she got from beyond the grid was a long silence.

"Padre...?"

"But WHY?" Zorro said a bit too loud. "Why have you said– why do you pretend that your husband is dead if he isn't?"

"Because that's what I had been told at first! Simply that!" she answered immediately. "They told me... his family... We had already been officially separated for two years then – my husband Pascual and I, I mean – and we hadn't kept in touch. Then one day I received a letter from his family... it said that he had just been ran over and trampled by his own prize bull and that he died three days later. When I arrived in San Juan Capistrano for the funerals, they didn't let me see the body, they told me he was too... you know..."

She paused.

"They told me it was too disturbing a sight, especially for women, and that it's not the image he wanted people to remember of him... He was the most beautiful man in the world, you know..."

"And...?" Zorro asked.

She sighed once more.

"And one or two years later," she went on, "I learned that it had all been an act, that he was still alive, that we had in fact buried a coffin filled with earth. That when he had been injured he survived but used this to avoid retribution from the family and the whole tribe of the Indian woman he had been living with for some months then. My in-laws finally told me that he loved her and wanted to live with her, but that what remained of her tribe disagreed of her leaving them to live with a Spaniard, to live like a Spaniard, and to have mixed-blood children; and apparently they had tried to kill him for that. Twice... Now the two of them are living somewhere else, either north or south, I don't know, under false identities and pretending to be married... I don't resent him for the lie, it's ancient history now, but unless he's dead by now, which his family wouldn't have failed to tell me now that they know that I know, errm... well... I'm still married before God if not before the law, Padre."

This confession left Zorro speechless.

Then once he had absorbed this unexpected revelation, the first thought that came to his mind was that at least it explained her stubborn refusal of marriage... Perhaps he should inform his father of that fact, to soften the blow it must have been to his pride at the time...

"Does..." he started, hesitant to go further, "does Don Alejandro know this...?"

"No..." she answered in a barely audible hoarse breath. "No... of course not. He would have never... He's a very decent man, he would have never... I mean... technically, it would have been adultery! He would never knowingly engage in such a relationship!"

Of course he wouldn't! But in Diego's eyes, technically it was indeed very much adultery, at least on her part.

"But you knew!" he said a little too heatedly. "You could have told him..." he went on a bit more quietly.

He heard her deeply breath in and then out.

"Yes I could have..." she admitted. "Except that I couldn't... You're the only person I've told this in... well, you're the only person I've ever told this. Even my own family doesn't know."

"You mean they too believe you're widowed?" he asked, stunned.

"Yes," she simply answered in a contrite voice. "Mind you, at least if they knew, my father and my brother wouldn't pester me at least twice a year with the idea of remarriage... But I couldn't tell anyone: I've only been entrusted with a secret that's not mine. The biggest secret here is not that I'm still married, it's that Pascual is still alive. It's a dangerous secret that could cost him his life, for real this time, if it reached his enemies' ears."

Yes of course, she had a point.

"Well," Diego told her rather curtly, "this would fix your situation, after all..."

She gasped, horrified.

"Padre!" she said, shocked. "I swear... I swear before God that I have never, ever had such a thought!"

"Don't invoke the name of the Lord to swear, daughter!" Zorro reminded her, acting his part as the priest.

"Si, excuse me Padre. But the thing is, first I said this not knowing it was a lie, then I repeated it because I couldn't just say that I thought it was true but in fact it wasn't, and because I couldn't betray Pascual's secret and jeopardise his safety, and then because technically I was living like a widow anyway and I admit it suited me; and next, ever since my daughter's birth... well..."

"Well what?" Zorro asked a bit on edge, starting to be slightly annoyed.

"Well, it's obvious, no?"

"Obvious?" Not to Diego, it seemed. "What does all this have to do with your daughter?" he asked, totally at a loss.

"Well, Padre, if people knew that I'm not widowed, she would be not only a bastard child in their eyes, as they currently already see her... but... but it would even make her an adulterine child!"

Oh! oh... oh... ow... Diego suddenly understood her point. Yes, things were certainly not smooth everyday for people born out of wedlock, but in the public's opinion being born of adultery was even a large cut below...

"I don't want that for Leonor, Padre. She is the most important person in my life, and I am responsible for her. My responsibility is to protect her the best I can."

"Si," Diego murmured, "si, of course."

She was right, he thought. If people knew that Leonor was adulterine... yes, it would be far worse for her than 'just' being illegitimate.

Doña Araceli went on:

"And there's also... There's Alejandro... I mean Don Alejandro... I suppose you know how he is, Padre... so right and proper... so by-the-book... formal even, sometimes... If he suddenly knew that... that I was... still married when we... you know..."

Yes, Diego knew, thank you very much; and he hadn't wanted to be reminded of it.

"...when he had an affair with you, you mean?" he completed soberly. "Well," he then snapped a bit curtly, "perhaps you should have thought about it at that time, don't you think? If you had truly cared about his personal preventions in that matter back then, you wouldn't have to spare him this uncomfortable knowledge now!"

"What's done is done, Padre! I'm precisely here to confess my sins," she replied in the same tone of voice, "not to undo them! No one can do that!"

Diego sighed.

"You're right, sorry," he answered her. "So, you were telling me about your guilt toward Don Alejandro..."

"...Guilt..." she answered, "...yes... and no..." She paused. "I know I shouldn't have lied to him... should have told him the truth... But on the other hand, if I had, then... then Leonor... you know... she wouldn't exist... I wouldn't have had my daughter..."

The more she was opening to him – no! to the padre! – and the more he was understanding her complicated point of view.

"I know I owed him the truth at the time, I know I owe it to him now, but... he would inevitably feel bad about it, even though he is not guilty of anything, he didn't commit adultery since he thought I was widowed. I don't want him to feel bad."

"And you're afraid of him resenting you, admit it!" Diego retorted.

In a barely audible voice, she answered:

"Si Padre."

Silence.

"I don't..." she started, before pausing again. "I don't want to lose his esteem and his affection. His friendship is important to me, we've come to an agreement as parents of a same child when we broke up all these years ago, and we managed to make it work. We built a strong friendship, a deep understanding over the years and... he now is part of my life, you know. And for Leonor, it's better that her parents don't grow cold with each other and turn to being on bad terms."

"Again, you're looking for excuses..." Diego said.

"Perhaps... but not only. I like Alejandro, I don't want to hurt him. What good would it truly do to him by now to know that?"

"Well... I suppose that it depends..." Diego suggested.

"Depends on what, Padre?"

He didn't answer immediately. And then he did, talking slowly and clearly, with a question of his own:

"Señora, what are your intentions toward Don Alejandro de la Vega?"