Into the Fire

           (From my e-book novel Sweet Release, Chapter Four)

     The telephone rang and startled CM out of an unintended doze on the couch. It was already dark. Without thinking to check the caller ID she picked up the receiver and hoarsely answered.
     “Claudia? Honey, is that you?” her mom asked hesitantly.
     “Oh, hi, Mom.” She cleared her throat.
     “I tried to reach you at work. Char said you went home yesterday and called in sick today. Are you alright?”
     “Yeah, Mom. Light day, and I was feeling a little under the weather, you know?”
     “I’m sorry to have to burden you with this if you’re not feeling well, honey, but your father has been in an accident.” She lowered her voice unintentionally and held back a sob. “A rather serious one, I’m afraid. You better come down to the hospital.”
     “For real, Mom?” she asked, her stomach uneasy.
     “For real, Claudia. And, CM, I have two requests. Number one: please hurry. And number two: please listen to what your father has to say. Please,” she nearly whispered. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
     After getting the correct hospital and learning her father was in ICU, she walked into her bathroom to wash her face, staring for a moment at her swollen eyes and red face. “My mother called me CM,” she said into the mirror. Milicent Marie Rutheford had never called her daughter CM, refusing to accept her daughter wouldn’t choose to go by her given names, carefully chosen for her by her mother after the two most influential women in her life and agreed to by her father because of his own respect for the two women. Those must’ve been the days, she thought abstractedly as she hurried to repair the damage crying for hours had done to her face.
     She quickly changed her clothes and was out the door within ten minutes of the phone call. As she drove to the hospital, she remembered her mother’s two requests, the second one puzzling her. When in the last 20 years had her mother ever told her to listen to her dad? If ever in fact she had. Her dad left them nearly that long ago after being unfaithful more than once. Her mother had done her level best not to badmouth her father, and although her mom was truly a pretty woman with a sweet personality, she’d never married again, and you could count on one hand the amount of men with whom she’d ventured out on a date since the breakup.
     As CM grew into adulthood, she realized her mom had never stopped loving her dad and she simply didn’t want anyone else if she couldn’t have him. When CM pressed her with pointed questions about his infidelity, her mom answered her as honestly as she could, but when those questions produced tearful answers, CM ceased asking them. It pained CM worse to see how hurt her mother was at what her father had done to them—or maybe she’d just chosen to grow out of the hurt and lock it away someplace where it didn’t have to resurface. Until now. Why in the world should I listen to anything my father has to say?

Father, again, apart from you, I can do nothing. No words, no stories, no inspiration. For all of it, thank you is never enough. I'm so grateful. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.