Any discomfort that the priest might have been feeling was, at the very least, well-masked. Malachi had heard more confessions than he could ever care to count, but there was something different about being told the truth face-to-face. Maybe that was why Mister Tully looked up at the ceiling instead, and why Malachi stared down at his hands.

All the things that he'd been told to say in these situations -- he never did say them. Never could. If that made him an awful priest, then that was what he was. But he had made it this far without condemning anyone, and his former parish at least had liked him for it.

After a long moment had passed, Malachi asked him, "why wouldn't God care about you, Mister Tully?"

This man was not the first that had pondered such things in his presence, though the specifics of his pain and his loss were wholly different.

"Not all things are intended as tests from God. Maybe neither of you were sent to test the other, Mister Tully, but to provide comfort in the time that you did have. If he wanted to punish you, he would never have let you have him at all."