JRR Tolkien Award

goes to

Jennifer van den Bogerd

Fenwick, ON, Canada

First Place

(Category: High School)

Bio:

Canadian home-educated student, Jennifer van den Bogerd, envisions a writing career in her future. Only seventeen, she’s been published in poetry and essay anthologies, had an article published in a national equestrian magazine under her pseudonym J.L. Orchard, and co-writes a popular E-zine for horse enthusiasts called Cinch Magazine. But as all writers know, the writing life has its valleys. Exhausted by the dozen stories Jen attempted for this contest, she returned to one of her earliest works. Through extensive revision and the support of her critique partner, Kate, The Rain Sequence emerged as the story of a teen who finds freedom in an unexpected way. In much the same way, Jen found freedom from months of difficult writing through the support of her parents, and from God, the author of our lives.

Website: www.cinchmagazine.com.

To contact Jennifer van den Bogerd you may seek her contact information through the contest administrators by sending an email to director@athanatosministries.org.

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THE RAIN SEQUENCE

by

Jennifer van den Bogerd

Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved

Rain pelted the windshield of the Ford Focus as Tania Morris cruised Toronto’s roadway. Black morning air glittered in the glare of headlights.

Water streamed over the car hood like honey glaze, but no matter the conditions outside, inside the car, eighteen-year-old Tania bobbed her head to the beat of Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.

Okay, so it was an old song. She’d never admit it to her friends but she actually liked it.

She tweaked the volume up a notch and jigged to the music while B.J. Thomas crooned the chorus.

Listening to her parent’s music in her parent’s car felt like an anthem of victory. It was like having every leash they had ever tied to her reaching toward her but not reeling her in. Now they were the ones who were collared.

The windshield wipers snapped back and forth across the glass. She leaned against the steering wheel and squinted to see ahead. Through the constant downpour, the airport lights twinkled on the black horizon.

Tania grinned. Freedom.

Her childhood fantasy of a princess not ruled by a queen would come true – the moment Flight 32 lifted off.

The song bounced through its verses and her foot weighed against the gas. The Ford skiied over the cement with the early-morning commuters.

No one, Tania suspected, had a destination quite like hers.

Tania tousled a loose cinnamon bang behind her ear and mouthed the words that boomed from the radio. Her parent’s would freak when she returned from this trip, hair 22-karat blonde and upped in a French Twist.

Tania tipped her Leafs hockey mug to her upturned lips. One week from now her mistaken identity as “little miss do nothing unexpected” would be gone with the wind. At college she – yes she – would be reining in the gazes.

Roll out the red carpet guys! The Paperbag Princess is no more!

Tania checked the clock as she settled her mug back in its holder. 6:28a.m.

Good.

Her parents always slept as if stoned until their alarm blipped, at seven exactly every Sunday. When they awoke, they’d probably notice the Ford missing before they realized she’d left. Then they’d see the note “considerately” placed on Tania’s pillow. With it they would know where to find the car, and if they dug for information they might learn from the airport which plane she’d taken … But from now until the end of the week, she would be free from “home contact.”

Tania blinked at the sun visor where an elastic band secured her many dreams – all of which were soon to come true. They inspired her whenever the lights stood red too long, and encouraged her to keep straight when the light blinked green.

A paperclip gripped a printed email from France to the elastic. She scanned over the words. Waiting for you in Paris – Marjory.

Marjory Cerise Chantel, a foreign exchange student from last semester was a better friend than most people. She promised a week of adventure in Paris. All Tania had to do was get on a plane and escape for the March Break of her life.

Any punishment her parents could conjure up would dissolve in the thrill of revving around the Arc de Triomphe with Marjory the day they both turned nineteen, not to mention a picnic and wine beneath the Eiffel Tower.

She would return from Paris a new person. An independent, free-thinking individual.

Paris would change her life.

Her parent’s righteous opinions about obedience and moral behavior would mean nothing to the new Tania. Nothing.

A church drifted by on her left. Its white steeple and cross remained visible in the rearview mirror as she neared the final intersection between her and Toronto’s International Airport.

Her toe hardened on the gas and the Ford careened through the wet sheen on the road. Traffic was tight, but not so tight that she couldn’t dance the car from lane to lane and sneak ahead of the other commuters that had less important places to be.

A quick glance at her speedometer gave Tania visions of a tailing police cruiser. Then at the clock …

6:51.

She tap-danced her fingers on the wheel. She’d be on that flight before her parents knew what happened …

B.J. Thomas ran through the final verse of Rain Drops Keep Falling on my Head.

The rain click, click, clicked on the car’s body.

Her bang fell loose and she flicked it from her eye. Her finger nicked the visor. With a light splash, the paperclip plopped into her mug.

“Oh …” Great, metal poisoning in my mocha.

Tania fished two fingers through the coffee. Her mother’s tiny cross-shaped keychain caught her eye where it dangled from the ignition. She read the words scripted in it:

Where are you going?

Marjory’s email stared at her from where it’d fallen on her lap.

Waiting for you in Paris.

The intersection’s yellow light flashed red and Tania’s foot searched for the brakes.

The car sped on.

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Blackness.

Thin bars of light slid slowly downward through the darkness.

Their fuzzy edges became solid, then bright.

Tania squinted at the peach-colored ceiling and sighed. She dragged her hand from beneath the plush hotel comforter, smacked her blue wristwatch into silence, then flopped her arm against the pillow.

She couldn’t help but smile.

Paris.

Pushing herself upright, Tania hit the power button on the TV remote and watched it sizzle to life. Geometric-shaped cartoons traipsed across the screen while Tania buffed the many wrinkles from her blouse. Wow, I can’t believe I slept in my clothes – Then again … who cares?

A smile bounced to her lips at the thought of ruling her own life for an entire week – in Paris!

She flipped the TV to a news station.

For a moment, Tania heard her dad’s voice reciting a familiar fable, one of her favorites about the duck and the hunting hound. She swallowed hard, made a visual note of the clipart sun that the weather man presented, and switched to an English channel.

Last thing she wanted was to think about home.

A Christian talk show rattled on Channel 14: the Cross-Roads Station. The topic: missing persons.

Boring!

Tania killed the power and tossed the remote on the end of the bed. She would not be distracted by the outside world.

The phone yodeled from the night stand. “Hey?” Coughing lightly into the receiver, Tania rattled off a sentence, the translation dented by her mom’s Italian influence on Tania’s voice. “Allô, Qui est à l’appareil?”

“Hey went better.”

Recognizing the French voice, Tania bounced a barefoot party dance on the bed. “Marjory! How are you? I’m here! I’m in Paris! Can you believe it?!”

Her friend’s accent remained present, even in fluent English. “I believe it! How was your flight?”

Tania scratched her forehead through her bangs. “Oh, fine …” She must have slept harder than she thought. She couldn’t quite recall that part of the trip. “I wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t, right?”

“Right. So my mom is taking my aunt to market in an hour. After they go, I will escape and pick you up. Then the whole day is ours!”

“Awesome. I’ll be waiting.” She wiggled her legs, the energy pulsing through her to do another jig. “Can’t wait!”

“Me too. Hey, I’ll talk to you in a bit, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay,” Tania replied. “Hey, too bad your aunt is staying at your place. If she wasn’t, I could have. Then we could party every night!”

“Yeah, maybe.” Marjory farewelled in French and Tania replied with, “See you in a bit,” before sliding the phone onto its hook.

Tania scanned the room and spotted her suitcase on the floor by the window. She thumbed through the neatly folded clothes and chose a set to wear around town. The khaki blouse and mini skirt would have to do until she could update her wardrobe with some French class.

Tania remembered her plane ticket and unzipped her purse. She shuffled through the contents. Where on earth…?

“It’s not here.” She flipped the purse over and shook it out. No flight receipt, no where! She hadn’t lost it, had she?

“Mom’s going to freak…” What was she thinking? She wagged her head to clear it. Her mom would freak that she bought a plane ticket to France in the first place. The fact that she’d then lost it was a minor of a minor technicality.

Tania plopped the purse on top of its spilled contents and faced the mirror. She would do things on a “need to do” basis. Finding a lost ticket, she did not need to do, right now.

The mirror reflected her early morning rag-doll hairdo and Tania let the tension from her shoulders in one long sigh. “Tania, this trip is so worth the aftermath. From this moment on all ‘parent’ thoughts are officially banned!” She poked her fingers at her temples, drilling that statement into her mind. “I am going to enjoy Paris.”

Tania picked her jacket off the coat hook and resolved to explore the street in front of the hotel until Marjory arrived. But for no reasonable reason at all, she was still wincing at her vow.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Tania nudged the glass door of the Cerise Hotel into the world outside. Misty clouds hung overhead and damp air nipped at her cheeks like the salty breeze that blows across the sea. People hustled shoulder to shoulder along the roadside and even spilled into the clustered avenue. Oddly, street performers, mimes, and more bounded between the crowd.

It was a fanfare of color: yellow and red striped hats, pink jackets with orange buttons. Some of the performers blew fire from their mouth while others swallowed knives. One mime with a blob of red paint on his lips jokingly pouted at a grim-faced passerby. The clown costumes seemed a cosmic clash of color to the drab grays and black of the everyday commuters.

Tania stepped into the current of people, feeling invisible in the crowd as person after person knocked her shoulder and no one apologized. The clowns danced and skipped from one side of the road to the other with painted smiles on their white faces. It was a magnificent parade of entertainers but no one seemed amused. No one, other than her, even seemed to notice them.

Mimes folded their hands as if praying but instead bounced on their knees like a child begging for a toy. Then they sprung back to their feet, wagging their fingers in a “no” to the child.

Tania frowned and tried to push against the flow of people. How could they mock prayer, like this?

One mime jolted to a halt in front of Tania. He jigged his white-gloved hands in front of him from left to right as if they clasped a steering wheel. Then he leaned his head against his shoulders, his eyes closed with a whimsical but haughty, “I’m better than you,” smile rocking on his pastel lips.

She tried to push past the performer, but was carried backwards by the constant flow of commuters, all headed in the same direction.

The clown jumped from his invisible car and plucked a photograph of a baby from his shirt pouch. Stroking and cooing over the picture of the infant, he faked tears and Tania felt brine boil in her stomach.

He dropped to his knees and prayed over the photo.

Tania coiled her hands into fists ready to barrel forward through the crowd when the mime leapt to his feet once more. He tore the photo in half and thrust it at the road where, across the street, a tourist carriage awaited. Except it wasn’t a carriage for touring. It and the horses were coal black.

A hurst.

The mime made smug expressions, sticking his tongue at the invisible parents still kneeling in prayer.

Tania felt the brine thicken into a lead ball. His cheap performance wasn’t mocking prayer. He was mocking her!

The mime tilted his head sideways, one finger pointed down the road indicating she should move with the crowd. Huge horned gargoyles glared from the buildings that lined the street, their claws clutching their pedestals. And the black horses pawed the cobble lane, the pair snorting and whinnying with impatience.

Tears stung the back of her eyes. Each inhale seemed to vacuum an invisible plastic bag tighter to her gaped lips.

Heat bubbled under her skin, the lack of oxygen collapsing her lungs. She squeezed sideways toward the hotel – she had to get out of here!

At the last moment she burst through the final thread of people and flopped against the hotel wall, huffing.

How could they act this way?! How could they understand her or her motives for leaving?

The performer stared through the net of people at her as rain spattered around them like a shower of volcanic ash. His brows tightened with disapproval. A second later, he dissolved behind the crowd of solemn faces.

Tania sank against the gray-hammered stone, regulating her breath in hope that the thump of her heart would follow. Rain streaked her face, and a shiver chilled her skin.

This part of France she did not like.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The moment Marjory arrived, Tania did her best to shove that morning’s misadventure to the back of her mind. But even after they’d sprawled their picnic blanket across the grass near the Eiffel Tower, the worse-than-hell experience remained vivid in her mind. Where was the freedom France was supposed to bring?

“Whoa!” Marjory’s voice wobbled, the cork in her wine bottle popping over her head. Rose-colored liquid sieved down the bottle’s neck and Marjory dunked the spout over two glasses. “Voila.” She handed one glass to Tania.

Tania tasted the wine and the sweet tang of grapes sizzled on her tongue. She pursed her lips and nodded. “Hmhm. Good. Very good.”

Marjory smiled and clinked glasses with Tania.

After sipping their drinks, they both leaned back and sighed in unison. Marjory’s sounded of satisfaction, but Tania’s was of relief that nothing weird could possibly happen at the Eiffel Tower.

While Marjory reminisced about their time together in school, Tania gazed through the spritzing fountains at the opposite bank of the Tower’s sapphire pool. A couple with small children picnicked on that bank. Their toddlers danced about the family blanket, their giggles causing the air to bubble with memories of Tania’s childhood.

One child, a tiny girl with golden curls, skipped away from her family toward the pool. Her dollish smile seemed perfectly carefree and innocent.

Had Tania once smiled that way? Wasn’t that the sort of smile she was meant to rediscover in Paris?

The girl spun in circles, arms sprawled to the heavens. A laugh giggled from her mouth, but with each delicate spin, her toes came an inch closer to the pool’s edge.

Tania felt her heart creep into her throat blocking the way of her breaths. Didn’t anyone see the child wandering?

The girl leapt into the air, her fingers waggling at a butterfly. As if in slow motion, her tiny feet made their return for earth, but –

Tania felt momentum rush through her, bidding her to burst toward the river and save the girl’s fall, but she didn’t move. She stiffened. Her gaze locked in horror on the child whose body tipped forward in a slow motion collapse toward the water. The girl’s fingers fanned open as if she could clasp an invisible barrier that would keep her from falling.

The girl’s fingers broke the water’s surface, her body …

Two arms seat-belted across the girl’s stomach, and drew her into the safety of her father’s hug.

A wavering sigh relieved Tania’s clogged lungs, and amazingly, from this distance she heard the father whisper into the little girl’s ear, “Where are you going?”

It was the softest question Tania had ever heard spoken, and it almost didn’t seem a question – but guidance, directing the infant into her father’s protection.

Where are you going? She had heard those words before?

Tania felt a tear tingle behind her eye and Marjory bopped Tania’s shoulder, jolting her back to reality.

“Wine too strong for you?”

Tania wiped a drip of liquid from her lips. “No. It’s fine.”

“Oh. Good.” Marjory leaned back on one arm, wine glass in the other. “Then it’s just you.” Her eyebrow lifted like the curl of a question mark.

Tania paused with the glass to her lips. Oh how she could use a dad’s hug right now.

She watched the little girl sink her chin into her father’s shoulder, the image escorting Tania back to those moments with her family on a Sunday afternoon.

No.

Tania looked over her shoulder at Marjory’s diverted gaze, the French girl’s green eyes hinting boredom.

I can’t think about this … I can’t lose my perfect holiday.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Eleanor Morris paced the hospital waiting room and watched as the wall clock’s thin hand dropped to 7:31 a.m. She cupped the Ford’s keys in her fists and couldn’t help but read the inscription on the metal cross again.

Where are you going?

If she lost her daughter now – where would Tania go?

Eleanor closed her hands and held them trembling to her lips. God, show my daughter the truth!

Wallace Morris reached his arm around Eleanor’s waist and she buried her head in his neck. “What’s taking so long?” she whimpered, biting her knuckles.

A nurse wandered through the doorway and Eleanor’s gaze leapt to the woman.

“Mr. and Mrs. Morris?”

“That’s us!” She clasped Wallace’s knitted sweater and dragged him towards the nurse. “That’s us. How’s Tania? How’s our daughter?” She asked, then bit her knuckle all the harder – perhaps only God could answer that now.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Marjory, do you believe in salvation? I mean in Heaven and Hell?” Tania didn’t know why she asked, but now that she had, she wondered if it was more a question for herself.

Did she believe in Heaven and Hell? If asked, she might have described two experiences that day as gateways to Heaven and Hell. The jester, without question, reminded her of her childhood impression of Hell and the grim reaper, but what about the father rescuing his child?

Marjory veered the Mini Cooper to the side of the road not far from the roundabout of the Arc de Triomphe.

“What are you doing?” Weren’t they going to circle the monument and whoop it out to celebrate their birthdays?

Marjory popped the gear shift into “park” with an attitude Tania had never seen in the care-free, fun-loving French girl. “What are you doing? I mean, what are you talking about?” Her voice sharpened into a whisper. “I thought you came to France to escape your parent’s religious views and yet you’ve been distracted all day and now you bring up, for the tenth time since we left the Tour Eiffel – what else – religion!” She plopped back against her seat. “Must I hear anymore about your family and their views? And in answer to your question, if Heaven is anything like your life: church on Sunday, devotions everyday, a guilty conscience about spending time with your bestfriend in Paris – Hell sounds pretty good.”

A clump congested in Tania’s throat and she couldn’t bring herself to look at Marjory. “I’m … sorry.”

Her voice still heavy, Marjory replied, “Yeah. You know what, it’s okay.” She plucked the keys from the ignition. “But, I could go for some extra caffeine right now. So … let’s head to the Café and if we need to we can talk. Okay?”

Tania nodded solemnly. “Okay.” Marjory’s hand clasped the car door ready to pop it open and Tania felt compelled to add, “I am sorry, Marjory. I expected France to start me on my ‘new life,’ but…”

Marjory mushed her lips together then forced a half-playful smile. “Don’t worry. It will.”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Wallace massaged his wife’s shoulder as they drew near the room he sensed was his daughter’s. “It’ll be alright,” he whispered.

At the sight of their child lying motionless on the hospital bed, Eleanor gasped behind her hand and he had to swab a rush of tears from his own eyes. Dear God, let my little girl be alright!

The police’s description of the accident scene had scarred a painful image in his mind. The metal body of the Ford wrenched around and beneath the bumper of the transport truck, the driver’s seat virtually the only thing still intact. Thank God for small miracles.

Wallace slid the curtain closed behind them and crept toward his daughter. Despite her injuries, with her eyes closed she looked like the little girl he’d tucked to sleep so many nights.

Eleanor held her hands in a loose fist near her lips. “Oh baby …” She stroked her daughter’s bangs from the girl’s ashen forehead and Wallace leaned forward to whisper into his daughter’s ear.

“The nurse said we could talk, Tania. She said you would hear us. So I’m going to talk.” He tried to swallow the frogs that scuttled through his throat as he spoke. “I know – I know you didn’t like to listen when I talked about God. But you need to know. You need to know. Sometimes God brings us into circumstances, like this, to show us … To show us that we can’t do things on our own.”

Wallace tensed, hoping for some sign of understanding from Tania. He stroked her forehead and talked, but it felt more as if he spoke to one of her dolls. Could she really hear him?

When she was a child he had told stories to help her understand the Christian values he wanted her to learn. Those stories were some of his fondest shared memories and he hoped they were some of hers.

“You had some good stories yourself. Do you remember this one, baby?” He smudged a tear from his eye, but another escaped over his cheek and rolled under his chin. He looked aside, swallowing over and over but the frogs only scuffled higher.

Eleanor stroked his back, dabbing her own eyes. “Go on dear. Which one is it?”

Wallace clenched his eyes, the drip of rain on the window drumming in his ears. “Once upon a time …” His throat bobbed. “There was a duck, and three hunting hounds …”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Marjory was right. Tania couldn’t forfeit the Paris experience to worry over her parent’s teachings of “salvation” and “only one chance at eternal life.”

She slipped onto the street side café’s metal chair opposite Marjory, then exhaled hard to release the tension from her shoulders.

Marjory stared at the table and twirled her cappuccino straw.  “So, what happened to you,” she asked. “I mean you were practically the biggest agnostic in school – or that’s the impression you gave.”

Tania nibbled her lip. She hadn’t always been an agnostic. She’d once believed every word her parent’s spoke of God and his love and desire to work in her life.

Marjory settled her plastic cup on the table and sighed peaceably. She had loosened up since their sudden halt on the roadside and adjusted to an even more casual attitude as she spoke, her lips hinting a smirk. “I mean, you remind me of that one fable. Don’t stop me if you’ve heard it.”

Tania felt a smile lift to her lips for the first time that day. Her friend’s lightened tone felt good – Magical.

Tania curled her hand over her coffee mug and let the heat fill her palm like a wool mitt. Marjory recalled her story, a fable Tania did know – in fact she knew it quite well.

It was about a duckling that befriended hunting hounds and decided it would rather live with the hounds than in the pond. But when the hounds went with their master in search of game, they forfeited their friendship with the duckling and attacked it. Then the father duck appeared and flew above the hounds distracting them so the duckling could escape to the water. The father duck was captured by the hounds, but its duckling was saved.

There had been a twist to the story, Tania recalled, that had made it funny – or maybe it was the accents her dad had given the animals that had made her giggle as a child. But Marjory’s purpose in telling the story was lost on Tania. Her thoughts were on the fable’s meaning …

She was the duckling that befriended the hounds, her friends that made a mockery of her parent’s religion. She became an agnostic in order to feel akin to her friends. She’d joined Marjory in Paris when she knew her parents would disapprove … She’d allowed herself to forget common sense and be swept into believing life could be better without her parent’s hands holding her back – But hadn’t their hands actually been guiding her?

Perhaps the adult duck was Jesus, the one who, according to her parents, had died for her. What a waste that would be if she left the pond and returned to the hounds.

Something plunked in her mug causing a splash to sprit into the air. Great, rain. She bounced from her seat ready to shield her head from a sudden on-pour. She started to warn Marjory, “Looks like…” but instead of Marjory, Tania saw an empty chair.  “What the…?!”

She spun in a circle, scanning every face in the café and on the street. People don’t just poof into thin air!

Or do they?

She dropped her stare to the coffee mug, then picked it off the table and peered in.

There at the bottom, resting on top of an oval coffee stain lay a paperclip.

What on earth? Tania clattered the mug against the table, and hurried alongside the road. I can’t breathe… Marjory, where are you?

A street performer bent over his guitar singing that old familiar tune, “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.”

That song? In France? In English?

Her gaze swung off the guitarist toward the road.

Voices buzzed through her. Her mother’s. Her father’s. Both. Another voice …

Where are you going, Tania?

In slow motion people crossed the street. Talked alongside the buildings.

In slow motion a red Ford Focus cruised in front of Tania. It moved so slow and carefully, yet its tires screeched. The driver glanced her way meeting Tania with the same face that looked at her each morning in the mirror, staring through her with dark hazel eyes.

Tania’s heart slammed against her ribs.

The vehicle’s wheels squealed on the cement.

Hiding her face in her hands, Tania spun from the road.

A newspaper stand faced her from across the sidewalk. The Daily’s headline glared at her in English: Waiting for you in Paris.

Full color photographs of the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, and a Toronto chapel peered from its inky cover, the words looping in her mind …

Waiting for you in Paris.

Waiting for you in Paris.

Waiting for you in …

The steady guitar thrums of Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.

Cold shivered through her toes. Oh! She stood in a puddle! Raindrops quivered small rings in the water. But the sky above was clear. Blue.

Rainless.

Vehicles sputtered on the road. Voices chatted at the café. That song. All of it echoed from a distance – as if from the end of a hall.

Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head.

Hurricane wind rammed her chest. Tania’s stomach folded and she staggered backwards. The wave struck again. She stumbled over her foot toward the street. No one turned to see her. No one noticed. Not even the guitarist.

Dad …

The French café went fuzzy in front of her. Again the throbs strobed through her like an electric shock.

Beep … Beep … Beep…

Headlights beamed at her.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Her toe clipped the curb.

Dad! Catch me!

Beep. Beep. Beep.

In the darkness someone’s arms encircled Tania and a voice whispered, “Where are you going?”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Streaks of white lined the blackness in Tania’s mind. Voices rushed around her. Someone shouted, “Clear!”

A throb stunned her body.

Then she lost all sense of this world.

The light dissipated. The voices sank to nothing. For eternity she seemed to lie there. Still. In the darkness.

Beep … Beep … Beep.

Her father’s voice sieved through the black curtain cloaking Tania’s vision, followed by her mother’s. Someone’s kiss stamped her forehead – to make her “boo boo” better.

Light overhead grew into a vivid white, void of shadow or shade but pure and endless.

Then dabs of red, blue and silver washed through the light like watercolor on paper, forming into faces – her mother’s and her father’s.

Her head clouded, Tania muttered her new realization, and wondered if the words came out aloud, “This isn’t Hell.”

A gasp sucked from her mother and she thrust her arms around Tania. “Baby! Oh, my baby!”

Squeezed by her mother, spots of pain twinged down Tania’s spine and the best smile she could muster was a wince – but it was heartfelt. She was home.

Her dad drew next to Tania on the opposite side of the bed and with a forgiving and grateful smile he closed her in his arms. “I love you honey. Don’t ever let something like this happen again, ever.”

The memory of the accident wandered back to her but, she knew the real accident she’d let happen long before. Tania’s eyes drifted closed and she tucked herself tighter into her parent’s embrace. “I won’t.”

A cell-phone’s jingle disrupted the peace and each party withdrew from the three-way hug with a light cough.

Her mom picked the purple vibrating phone from the chair next to Tania’s bed. Hesitantly, she handed it to Tania. “It’s for you.”

Tania read the number and guessed the caller’s name immediately – Marjory.

What would she tell her? The real Marjory knew nothing of Tania’s accident, or of the imaginary Paris that had changed her life.

She’d call Marjory back later, but for now … Tania heaved herself into a seated position, against the pang of bruised muscles. Her voice softened as she glanced between parents. “I’m not going.”

Her mother fiddled with her sleeve, her voice authoritative but gentle, “Of course you’re not. You’re in no condition…”

“No. I mean … That’s not why I’m not going.”

Both her parents looked at her, their eyes a little wider and the corners of their lips drawing upwards.

Tania reached her arms around her parent’s backs and buried her face in their shoulders. Snuggling her head in the warmth of their clothes, Tania felt a contented and peaceful smile spread through her. She snuck her gaze between their arms toward the window. Despite the spittle of rain outside, Tania sighed – and believed she could see God looking back through the rain-speckled glass.

Thanks for catching me.

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