Page 22 of An Unexpected Ascension
I nod, wiping the tears from my face.
I can feel.
Yes, this cave was to be my new Heaven. This is where I would feel and mourn and wither under the life I once knew.
“Where do I find her?”
“That’s the tragedy in death, you don’t. One day maybe you’ll cross paths, but the love you once knew will be nothing but a strange twinge in your chest, like a thought that sits at the tip of your tongue but never comes to fruition.”
“That’s horrible.” Another tear rolls down my cheek.
“Or perhaps that love is stronger than you realize, and the pull will be there. No way to really know until it happens.”
“I will find her.” I assert, but to him or myself, I’m not sure. “What areyoudoing here?”
“Just dropping in. Heaven has a grander state of landscape. Hell can be a little hot.”
I glower at him. “Wouldn’t a sanctuary like this be off limits to evil?”
“A sanctuary like this isn’t owned by a single God but acts as a bridge between worlds. Unknown by many, quiet, hidden. I quite like Galsip Falls.”
“I see.” I nod, paying him little attention.
I quickly return my eyes to my memories, and he watches with me, despite the lack of invitation.
Dark bangs brush my forehead, the rest of my hair pulled back in a pink scrunchy, my lucky scrunchy. Gifted from my mother before my spelling test. She said as long as I wore it, I would have all the luck in the world, and I aced that test. I never left the house without it, not for years. Not until it faded with overuse, the felt fabric rubbing thin, the elastic eventually snapping and along with it – all that luck.
Before me sat a small cake, vanilla and round with white frosting and sprinkles. Bright pink icing adorned the top – Happy B-Day, Bry! The words squished together, taking up the entire top layer of the cake. One candle sat in the middle, just between the words so they wouldn’t get ruined.
My mother smiled from the seat next to me, an apologetic look wearing her face. Checking her watch again, she sighed, standing. With a parting kiss, she leaves me there alone to call my father one more time.
He wasn’t coming. I didn’t care though because I didn’t want him to, anyway. My mother doesn’t know what I saw two nights ago before he stormed out of our house, before he broke the hinges on our door and never said another word.
She didn’t know I was coming to ask for help with my homework, didn’t know that I stood behind the ajar door of her bedroom as my father berated her again about money. How the loud crack of his fist against her cheekbone rang in my ears like the high-pitched whine of a faulty microphone.
But he did.
As my mother crumpled to the ground, his eyes, a mirror image of my own met mine. Fear, fury, regret. He stilled, realizing slowly what he had done, what he had been doing to his daughter’s mother.
Before this day, I had never thought of him as a bad man, he was never great either. Just there. He provided, kissed my forehead before work, tucked me into bed at night. Occasionally showed up for dance recitals, but I never looked at him the way I did this particular night. With a hatred so raw it rendered a heartless man guilty.
I don’t know what it was that he read in my stare, perhaps it was the blaring truth, that he was no longer welcome in this house. He was no longer a part of this family and if he ever returned, I would kill him myself. Or so my nearly-seven-year-old self-declared.
So, I sat there in front of my homemade birthday cake while my mother desperately tried to get my father to come home, knowing she was just wasting her time. After sneaking a few sprinkles off the top, my mother finally comes barreling back into the dining room.
Throwing her hands in the air, she sighs. “We’ll just have to start without him.”
And I smiled.
The cake quickly vanishes,the images blurring before my house appears again several years later with subtle changes, like a new couch and the dining room now a soft blue rather than the harsh outdated brown.
“I-I can quit.”
“No. No! You’re not quitting. We’ll find another way.”
“Mom,” I drawl softly. “You’ve been trying to find another way for at least a year now. If we don’t have the money, then let me quit. I don’t even like dancing.”
It was a lie, but a necessary one.
