Come Before Winter – Chapter Nine – Knock Knock

December 9^th, 2021

2 Timothy 4:21, “Do your utmost to come before winter.”

CHAPTER NINE – KNOCK KNOCK

The beat of her heart matched the tick of the clock. Mercy held her breath as she waited for her friend to speak. Like reading Braille, Patsy’s fingers moved across the surface of the envelope, then she held it up to the light, trying to read the postmark. Of course, as Mercy’s luck would have it, a return address was obscured by weather, time and poor handwriting, and incidentally, the postmark was smudged also. The only identifying information was the name ‘Day’ scratched in the top left corner.

‘Could it be Denver?’ Mercy asked hopefully.

‘Yes!’ Patsy declared excitedly, ‘I don’t know if it says Denver, but I bet I can make out CO.’

Mercy spoke quietly, ‘It would make sense anyway. I doubt my family would have had it together enough to leave Colorado.’ She added bitterly, ‘I mean, where else but what you know does someone go when you’re facing life sentences?’ Slowly, Mercy raised her eyes to search Patsy’s face. She’d never spoken aloud of her childhood. She couldn’t bear someone feeling sorry for her, looking at her with regret.

Her friend arched her eyebrows and peeked out through shuttered eyes. Cautiously, ‘You wanna talk about it, lovely?’

At once, Mercy couldn’t breathe. A large elephant had ambled into the room and had taken a seat on her chest. Or a dozen monkeys were jumping inside and sliding down her veins as if they were playing at a park. Tears smarted, burning like fire in her throat and dropping from her eyelashes. ‘I’ve never talked about it,’ she admitted aloud. ‘But I’ve never forgotten either. My family disintegrated, and that’s all that mattered in the end. I didn’t understand at all back then, but I figured it out eventually.’ Mercy sighed, like a brake on a railroad car.

‘It might help to talk about it, Mercy. And together maybe we can put our heads together and formulate a plan. Let me help, love. It can no longer hurt you and maybe not carrying it alone any longer will help.’ Her smile was so genuine, so vested, Mercy almost felt a huge weight lift. The extra baggage for this many years had been toting her mom, her dad and her grampa, all wrapped around her neck like albatrosses weighing her down, dragging her behind.

‘One day I woke up and my mom was gone. I was little, maybe like three or four. I don’t remember her. At all. I don’t think I even realized she went missing. I mustn’t have known her very well because nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She was just…gone.’ Mercy breathed in deeply. It felt good to let it all out. ‘What was unique was my grampa was lost too. Now, that was what got my attention. I loved my grampa. I couldn’t imagine life without him.’

‘Two in one day? Goodness, Mercy, you were little more than a baby, and dependent on the adults in your life, and two of the most important people to a child went away at the same time?!’ Patsy’s voice was incredulous. ‘How did you get through this? What about your dad?’

The tears still smarted, but the girl was feeling stronger and more assured. She wasn’t crazy, the emotions she had fought for a lifetime weren’t unrealistic. She had thought sometimes there was something wrong with her, that everyone left, and no one returned, and she never had wanted to ask anyone else in case they left too. ‘Well, let’s just say, he was present, but he wasn’t there. I don’t know if my father and I ever had another conversation again, to be truthful.’ Now is where the memory became painful. ‘One day he just never came home again,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never seen him since. He must have had somewhere better to be.’ Bitterly certain, Mercy proudly raised her chin and held her head high.

‘Like, never?’ Patsy was astounded; Mercy could tell. Slowly, she nodded. ‘I had no idea. Oh, child! I am so sorry. See, we are given very scant details as foster families. Sometimes it would be helpful to know more so we could be more efficient and careful, but in the wrong hands, that isn’t good either. We were informed that you had no known family available or able to take you in and that you had been in multiple foster homes for most of your life.’ Like a cold front came through, Patsy shivered, shuddering with the enormity and reality of Mercy’s life. And now, some man claiming to be her father, the very man that abandoned her and let her go it alone, has dialed in, asking for the girl’s help. Really?! ‘Heck no!’ Patsy emphatically pronounced. ‘And heck no!’ she added for emphasis.

Psalm 68:5-6a, “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, He leads out the prisoner with singing.”

                                                                                                    To Be Continued…