Serenity’s Soul
February 14, 2010 (2: 00 a.m.)
Dear Serenity’s Soul,
My body is sweating, my heart is pounding. I feel as if something is keeping me from breathing. I can’t think. My mother is still sleeping, and I am in here…in the kitchen sitting nervously at the table writing to you. You see, I was sleeping when the nightmare of it all came rushing back to my memory. It was the memory of the day that was the beginning of the drastic change in all of our lives—the day that erased all good memories of my father for such a long time. Something in that terrible day changed my father. It was the day his smile vanished.
I was only seven years old, and I was playing in my room when I heard the front door open and my father call for my mother.
“Laura! Laura where are you?”
I was happy to hear his voice. My father was home, and all I wanted to do was run to him as usual. So, I ran out of my room and to the stairs, but I could see from the top of the stairs that something was terribly wrong…so I stopped, and I watched, and I listened.
“Steven, Honey, what’s wrong? What happened!?”
My father was frantic. He was pacing back and forth. He was crying, but the strangest thing of all was his clothes….stained with…..with blood.
“Steven! Steven, what happened, Honey!?”
My mother was trying to hold him, so he would stop pacing, but he was too distraught.
“I-I-…..Sh…She, just came! She just came! I didn’t mean it, Laura! I didn’t.”
Then he fell to his knees and cried. I had never seen my father cry before.
My mother knelt down to comfort him. She put her arms around him. “Sweety, you have to tell me what happened. You have to tell me so that I can understand, so that I can know how to help you.”
“She just came. She just came. She just came…”
He repeated as he rocked back and forth while covering his head with his hands.
He was crying out of fear, out of shock, out of pain, and I couldn’t take seeing my father this way. I knew that something was terribly wrong, so I ran back into my room and closed the door. I sat in the corner and covered my legs with my arms, and just waited. I waited until I saw the door slowly open.
“Monica? Monica, Baby? Come here, Sweety.” My mother said to me, as she grabbed some clothes out of my closet and my drawers.
“What’s wrong, Mommy? What’s wrong with Daddy?”
“Everything’s going to be okay, Sweety, you just have to go and stay next door for a little while, and Mama will come and get you, okay?”
“But why?”
“You just have to, Honey.”
“But why, Mommy, what’s wrong?”
“Monica! You just have to!” And then she knelt down and cried and hugged me. “Be a big girl for me, please. Be Mama’s sweet big girl, and know that I love you.”
I looked at her. I was afraid. “Okay, Mommy.”
And then she took me next door where I stayed for a couple of days until she came and got me.
I was happy to see her, and at first I didn’t see my father. It wasn’t until I ran upstairs to go into my room that I heard a small cry coming from my parent’s room. My mother stayed downstairs to fix some lunch, so I stood there and stared at the closed door of my parent’s room. I stood and stared until I decided to open it. I could see my father sitting on the side of the bed crying. I was still so happy to see him. I ran to him.
“Daddy!”
I ran to him and hugged him, but he was stiff and just felt so distant. So, I pulled away from him and looked into his eyes. They were unfamiliar. They were….dark and sad.
“I cannot save you.” He whispered to me.
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t understand.
“Why? Why are you still here? I told you that I cannot save you.”
“Daddy?”
“Go away.”
“But Daddy…”
“GO AWAY! JUST GO AWAY! I CANNOT SAVE YOU, SO JUST GO AWAY!”
He shouted and I trembled. My father had never yelled at me before. He had never been mean to me. He never wanted me to go away.
“Daddy?” I cried.
But Mama came into the room, and quickly took me away. She closed the door behind us and knelt down to hold me as I cried.
“You cannot talk to him right now, Sweety. Just let him rest.”
Then I woke up.
And here I sit at the kitchen table trembling as much as I did that day when my father no longer wanted me.
I just want to understand why.
Monica
