HOW I FELL IN LOVE WITH A PRIEST

Chapter 2: How I Became a Nun

Inspo: Whiskey Lullaby

When I was ten years old, my father was sent to prison. He wasn’t a bad man. No, he just made one very human mistake that cost him his freedom. He was a truck driver, and one night, he fell asleep at the wheel, probably from long working hours. On that dark road, an accident happened, and a young couple died.

The court called it manslaughter. They gave him eight years in a maximum-security prison, and just like that, my family broke in half. For years, I grew up without him. My mother tried to wait for my dad, but she was young and naive. Eventually, she got tired and lonely.

By the time my father finished his sentence and came home, I was eighteen. I still remember the day he returned, ready to rebuild. But it was too late. My mother had already remarried. There was another man in the house, and a ring that wasn’t from my father on her finger.

I later learned from a prison warden who attended his funeral that while Dad was in prison, he worked in the prison workshop and saved every coin he could. He wanted to buy a ring when he came out so that he could take Mum to church and renew their vows. They had married long ago before he went to prison, but...