The old man sighed deeply with relief.
“Thank you, Father.”
The priest smiled kindly.
“But tell me… did the woman survive the war?”
“Oh yes,” the old man said proudly. “She lived another forty years.”
“Well then,” the priest replied gently, “it sounds like things turned out alright in the end.”
The old man hesitated.
Then cleared his throat awkwardly.
“There’s… one more thing.”
The priest raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, my son?”
The old man leaned closer and whispered:
“I still haven’t told her the war ended.”
The confession booth went completely silent.
For three full seconds, the priest simply stared at him.
Then suddenly—
“WHAT?!”
People waiting outside the confessional turned their heads immediately.
The old man shrugged helplessly.
“Well… at first it was difficult timing.”
The priest blinked repeatedly.
“That was eighty years ago!”
“I know, Father,” the old man admitted. “But every year I kept thinking, ‘Maybe next week.’”
The priest rubbed his forehead in disbelief.
“You’re telling me this poor woman has been hiding in your attic for decades?!”
“Well technically,” the old man corrected, “we renovated it into a very nice apartment around 1974.”
The priest looked absolutely horrified.
“You need to tell her immediately!”
The old man nodded slowly.
“That’s actually why I came today.”
The priest sighed with relief.
“Good.”
The old man smiled nervously.
“You think she’ll also be upset about missing the invention of television?”
The priest nearly fell out of his chair.
At that exact moment, another voice suddenly echoed from outside the confessional.
“Giovanni?!”
The old man froze.
An elderly woman stood near the church entrance holding grocery bags.
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“You told me you were going to confession!”
The priest looked back and forth between them in panic.
The old man smiled weakly.
“Well… technically I am.”
The woman crossed her arms.
“Who’s winning the war?”
The priest gasped so loudly that someone dropped a candle in the back of the church.
The old man slowly removed his hat.
“…About that.”