The worst thing they could have done to me was to not be available when a day came that all I needed was for my mommy to come to me and hold me while I cried.
Tripp had begged me not to call her; he knew that this would happen if I ever spoke to them again, and he knew that if I called them then, that it would break me beyond repair.
He knew. I should have.
Maybe a small part of me did know; maybe that part of me was just smothered by the other parts that still, after all of this time, want so desperately for the parents that I knew to love me just as much now as they did when I was twelve years old and didn’t have a drop of sin anywhere near me.
Before I’d finally gotten the courage to ask the questions I’d been too scared to ask, and before I made choices that they felt went against what God would approve of – even if I felt otherwise.
On my knees with steam filling the room around me, I choke back a sob that begs to claw its way from my throat.
“Well?” My mom urges. “Tell meexactlywhat it is that you expect me to do for you, Julia.”
I’m two inches tall.
Shrunk down to the size of her opinion of me.
Maybe shrunk down to the fraction of love that I hope she still carries for me.
I can’t speak. I’m not entirely sure that I can breathe.
“God is the only one who can fix anything for you, anymore. I suggest you get right with Him,” she tells me.
And the line goes dead.
“Mommy,please,” I quietly plead into the now-silent phone clamped too tightly in my hand.
I spend the next ten minutes telling her about my mistakes, asking where to go from here, how I can fix it; and instead of hearing the lecture that she would have given me had she stayed on the line, I imagine her telling me what I might say if it wasmychild on the phone, seeking comfort and not judgment.
I pretend for a while that she cares.
And I pretend for a while that I can fix what my husband doesn’t know that I’ve broken.
When those ten minutes are over, I pick myself up off of the floor and wash my face, throwing my hair into a claw clip beforeI slip into a fresh set of pajamas and turn off the flow of the shower.
Tripp is standing at our dresser, pulling a pair of sleep pants from a drawer as I step toward our bed to pull back the covers. Tossing the pants onto the top of the dresser before pulling his t-shirt over his head, he studies me for a moment.
“Your hair’s dry,” he comments, his brow pinched. “It’s Sunday.”
My hand moves on instinct to brush any stray pieces into the clip secured at the back of my head, and I offer him a soft smile.
“I was too tired to deal with it tonight.” Gesturing toward my waiting e-reader, I say, “I don’t think I’ll even make it through three chapters.”
Closing the seemingly infinite distance between us, he wraps his arms around me, squeezing my body against his. I melt into his embrace, breathing in the rich wood and faint florals of the cologne that still clings to his soft, warm skin.
“G’night,” he tells me. “I love you.”
Please don’t sleep downstairs tonight, I beg him wordlessly as his lips meet the top of my head.Please let me fix this.
“I love you, too,” I tell him instead, tracing a thumb across the smooth skin of his jaw.
As he leaves for the makeshift bed waiting for him on our couch and I climb into our bed, I shiver.
Cold.
Alone.
Empty.
