Prologue
The Day I Met God
Grace Fauchelle
PROLOGUE
Nine years ago…
I woke up to the peaceful quiet of my room. My eyes were wide awake and alert. It surprised me. It was the first full sleep I’d had in a while. My heart filled with hope. Maybe they’d stopped fighting; my parents. Maybe they had finally found the love they’d missed.
I threw away the Barbie covers and stepped towards my bedroom door. The sun outside shone towards it, as if it was God telling me to go. Excited, I opened the door. I glanced at the door of my younger brother, Michael. He wasn’t there. My parents had taken him to the hospital again last night. I couldn’t help but hate him. He and his disease had been the top discussion in my parents’ heated arguments. Bills and travel as well – adult things I couldn’t really understand yet.
At the bottom of the stairs Dad sat at the kitchen table. Unlike me, he looked exhausted. His body hunched over the table, his arms struggling to have breakfast, his head fighting to stay staring at the small pile of papers that sprawled across the table. His dark brown hair was scraggly, curled in all the wrong directions.
Hope turned into curiosity. I came closer to him, closer to the papers that seemed to beg for my Dad’s attention. I stood so close he should have noticed me and smiled his warm smile I missed so much. But he seemed so focussed on the papers, I remained invisible to him.
Drawn to the papers I searched for any words that would tell me what they were. Two words did. Bold and black, at the top of the front page, they blew away my hopes for a better family like they were each straw houses.
MARRIAGE TERMINATION.
My heart caught in my throat. Tears stung at my eyes. I couldn’t understand; I didn’t want to. What could it mean? My parents were separating from each other. Their marriage had been torn in two.
“Dad?” I choked out. Dad’s head finally jerked up towards me, his expression unreadable. He looked at me like he was looking at a stranger. He automatically grabbed the black ink pen and went to the last page, where I noticed every page but that one had been signed. The pen edged closer. I reached out and grabbed his hand.
“Dad, stop! Don’t do this. Don’t go away.”
“Maria!” My Dad’s scratchy voice called out. I heard thumping behind me, and I turned towards my Mum, who also was not looking at me, but at Dad. She huffed, “What?”
“Take your daughter away,” Dad ordered. My chest grew tight as he said your and not our. He had already made his decision. I couldn’t stop him, or my Mum. I was just too young and too immature to understand this.
Mum’s cold hand wrapped around my arm. She yanked me away from Dad and suggested, “Why don’t you and me go get ice cream? Dad is busy at the moment.”
I didn’t want to listen to her kind gesture. Ice cream meant nothing to me at this moment. I loved both my parents I didn’t want them to go. Screams wretched out at me; cursing God (if he even existed) and begging for my Dad. I wanted one last hug. I couldn’t even get that. Mum pulled me away and the last I saw my Dad was his hand slowly signing the paper.
* * * *
It was at least the late morning by the time my Mum and I returned home. We had ice cream, as promised, and I had my favourite, which was chocolate dipped. Mum also bought me a colouring book and took me to a children’s movie. It was fun. However, I couldn’t shake the terrifying feeling I felt knowing that when I returned home, Dad wasn’t going to be there anymore. His love packed up in bags, along with the rest of his precious belongings. I already saw him once throwing away pictures and cards I made for him, and though I picked them out and returned them to their rightful place in his room, I doubted he took them with him. Whoever I was to him, he had thrown away every piece of my love for him.
Mum drove me home in the blue Toyota. She stopped in the driveway of our house. I stepped out, still having a flickering hope that Dad was going to be there. That I was going to open the door and he was going to tackle me into his strong arms. Then he was going to go over and kiss Mum, and everything would be okay. Like when I was five. It was two years ago, yes, yet my hope remained stubbornly alive.
Mum opened the door, letting me in. My smile, my hope, at last crumbled. He was gone. He was not going to come back. Like God, perhaps, who had abandoned me long ago. Was he ever there? Did he ever care? When I spoke into the silent gloom of the house, I wasn’t only speaking for my Dad. I was also speaking about God; to God.
“He’s gone?”
“Yes, honey,” Mum confirmed. “He’s gone.”
A breath escaped from my mouth, mixed with rising tears. I tried to hold back the tears, like Mum, who remained emotionless at the loss of her husband. Of my Dad. I would not cry, I thought. I would not waste tears for people who didn’t give a damn about me.
Dad.
And God.
