Pieces of a Mending Heart (2 page)

Without my consent, my voice fills the room. “Please,” it says, my eyes falling closed and head bowing.

I can feel
God’s smile burning into my skin
, filling me with a
yearning
I didn’t know existed. “My child, you will do wonderful things. I have sent you an angel, the one to bring you from darkness and into the light. Keep your eyes open, Katherine, because he is not an angel in your sense of the word,” God continues, quietly.

“What are the words for, Father?” I ask meekly.

“These,” he again motions towards the square on the floor, “
are what you must face when
you return. They are your punishment, but also a necessity. Your soul has been fractured for too long, child. Your back has been turned and these are the reciprocations.”

“Sir, if I deserve punishment, why are you giving me a secon
d chance?” I ask, unable to ignore
my curiosity.

“Katherine, punishment is different than damning you to an eternity in Hell,” he says patiently. “Not on
e of my children is perfect, but
all are worthy of a second chance. I will send you back to Earth, but you will face the consequences of your act. These words I have laid ou
t will be experienced by you;
emotions
and situations
that
you will i
nevitably experience
.
These experiences will transform you into who you need to be.
You have spent so
much time cutting me out, Katherine. It is time you feel agai
n, and
this is where you begin
.”

He walks towards my dead body and I notice for the first time that he is barefoot. There is a halo of
azure
blue
light around his head, which
surprises
me considering the person in which it surrounds. I thought halos were supp
osed to be yellow or orange,
not
blue
.

Without warning, he turns around, smiling peacefully. “
Blue
is your favorite color, Katherine. I am everything you have ever loved and more. My Kingdom is waiting for you, but you must let
me
make the proper decisions.
You must fight Satan and sin, because t
here will be no more
chance
s
. Look for your angel, he will make everything right again,” he finishes.

“Will I
experience these
all the time, Father?” I whisper, feeling fearful.

God
offers me a small smile. “No, D
aughter, you will not. When the time
comes, you will feel them much stronger
than anyone else
ever has
, but if you follow the course you’re meant to follow, your time in Earthly purgatory will be short.
This is your
punishment, but it wil
l make you stronger, Katherine; this will right your wrongs.
N
ot feeling has been an option for
you for
far
too long. Not everything in this world is evil
, despite what you may think,”
he shakes his head sadly.

“Father?” I say as he continues to look at me, “I am sorry I betrayed you. I am sorry I am not who I was meant to be.” My eyes feel strange, as if being pricked by needles, as if I am crying tears of vinegar. I cry out, hands coming to my face, but God stops me.

“Katherine, you are exactly who you are meant to be.
All your conscious mind has to do is find that strand that connects your inner-mind to your heart, and it will.
Do good with the gifts you are given, child,” he says, placing his hand on my head. The pain immediately subsides, leaving me breathless as I watch wisps of black smoke float to the ceiling of the steam filled bathroom.

God seems to notice my distraction and gestures to the smoke. “Your sins,” is all he says.

“Thank you, Father. I will do my best,” I say, looking in his eyes, which are an ind
escribable green
-
blue
color.
Almost like turquoise.

“Your angel will be searching for you as well, Katherine. Be happy, my child. He is your light,” the Lord says, walking backwards until he stands in the water of the bath with my dead body.

Never turning his back on me, he puts both his hands out in front of him and splays his fingers in the air over my chest. T
he bathroom door opens with a squeak
and my mother walks in, head
down.
As she sees my body,
I he
ar her intake of breath before
a stran
gled sob escapes her mouth
.
She screams and I feel
myself slippin
g. The Lord’s face is the last thing I see before my world flips to black.

Chapter 2

             
Five
months later, I am sitting in the first class section of the airplane destined for Shields Valley, Montana- population 2,013. My pare
nts have decided it is best for me
to take a break from the fast paced life of a seventeen-year-old Chicago girl and to spend a bit of time breathing in the crisp Montana air.

             
I will spend my senior year in a new school, boarding with an aunt I have met no more than three times in my yo
ung life. It seems to get an extended vacation
all one needs to do is add “mentally unstable” to their rap sheet. The irony of life and its’ simplicities…

My mind flashes to the day I woke up in the hospital’s psych ward. The lumpy pillow under my head, squeaky bed wrapped in cellophane, flimsy white sheet lying on top of me, and the man standing just outside my door, all added to a very drama
tic wake-up. My once icy mother
turned into
a
doting strange
r as she
took in the bandages wrapped around my
wrists
, carrying on
about how sorry she was
that I felt like I didn’t have anyone to turn to.

She is a coward
. This is
not the first time one of her
children has been in the nuthouse, you see. My older brother, David, committed the same heinous act that I did; it must be hereditary to feel the desire to pull your own plug. When I was fifteen, I remember feeling panic as I raced through the house to
get the telephone, terrified I wouldn’t get help in time. Like the cowards they were, my parents sent him away to a reform school in Toronto. He never came back.

No, he didn’t die. He just got smart. David writes to me twice a month, telling me to be strong and that things will get better.
But the thing is
they aren’t getting better. My parents, who I would be lucky to see for an hour every day, have
never
been my parents. Blood is nothing but an Earthly tie to these deplorable bodies we are forced to possess.

PANG. A knife is twisted into my stomach as I feel the hatred creep in. Like physical pain, I feel the burn twirling my intestines into a jumble of pebbles, leaving a stinging ache in its wake. I take a deep breath, focusing on the pleasant things in life.

Thankfully, the hatred subsides quickly. I am not angry with God, you see. I am angry at
my parents for being who they are
. Actually, I have become what many
teenagers
would call a “re
ligious freak” since my “
death
”
five
months ago, but there is no possible way to explain my meeting with God to anyone without getting ch
ucked right back into the ward, so I keep that little tidbit to me, myself and I.

I remember everything that happened that night with sharper clarity than I have remembered anything before. Meeting God is not something I have ever considered, ever actually thought about happening. Sur
e, I didn’t think suicide
was very serious at
the time. I never considered whether or not I would wake up in heaven or hell, which was actually the point. I just never wanted to wake up.

             
The drugs weren’t helping much in my decision making
at the time
, but now I’m cleaner than
a preacher’s daughter
. Doing drugs was my escape; they were the only things that made me
feel
. It’s pretty impressive actually, getting away
with
using drugs for as long as I did. The private all-girls Catholic high school wasn’t as obs
ervant as they should have been
and
, being the rebellious
teen that I was,
I took full advantage of the fact.

I run my fingers over the fading scars on my left wrist, the constant reminder of not only my breaking point, but of my meeting with God. He told me to look fo
r my angel, so
I have ardently been keeping my eyes open. There was a boy on my street named Angel, but I had never spoken to him because he was three years younger than me. There was the occasional a
ttractive stranger that caught my eye
and even some fellow head-cases in the hospital, but none of them seemed any different than anyone else.
I’m expecting fanfare: strobe-lights, trumpets,
‘Hallelujah’ and ‘
Hark the herald angels sing’
playing in the distance as the lights dim… you know,
the whole shebang.

Since I met God- which I’ve grown to refer to as “the meeting” – I
feel the way I felt before I grew up, at the time where complete innocence
embraced
me.

Feeling the anger creep back into my blood, I take a deep breath and come back to th
e present. My angel better show
himself pretty soon, or else I might have to resort to drastic measures.
    
             
Maybe
an ad on Craigslist,
I joke to myself. Thinking
about my angel makes me wonder… I
s he going to be my age? A best friend?
A lover? A teacher, maybe? Just
an inspiring, influ
ential person to bring me avoid
the pit that is eternally hovering around my ankles?

Maybe I should stop looking for him. If it’s destined by God that we meet, it will happen soon enough. I trust Him wholly, believing with all my heart that my elusive protector will be someone fantastic. Just thinking about the possibilities sends my heart into an uneven gallop,
flushing my face and gracing my
features with a small, rare smile.

I hear the mechanical whirring sounds that could only mean the plane is about to take off. As predicted, the pilots’ voice filters through the speakers, thanking everyone for flying with them today. I block it all out, tracing the thick scar
s
on my wrist and humming
. The plane jolts forward, momentarily sending my stomach into a nervous knot. There is no reason to fear flying, but there’s a first time for everything and I’ve never been on a plane before.

The aircraft rockets forward and begins to ascend, leaving the city behind and all the memories it holds. Whether this is a
blessing or a curse is unknown to me, but that’s the beauty of it all. I’m not running away from the past, but rather embarking on a new adventure. The f
uture is mysterious and unknown and
both adjectives fill
most peo
ple with anxiety or nervousness, but n
ot me
. No, right now
all I can think of is the joy of becoming a new person,
full of excitement at the
opportunities ahead. Right now, all I can think of is finding my angel.

*
* *

A few hours later, I end
up in the backseat of my
Aunt Rachel’s car. Not only does
it smell like
baby powder,
heavily
, but also like roses
. No
t the smells
that
I’m used to,
but I immediately associate this with new beginnings. Hopefully, though, the rest of m
y adventure won’t be as… girly
.
I’m not a tomboy, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t like smelling like old ladies who fell in a rosebush.

The car ride i
s awkward to say the least, having to sit in the backseat because
my luggage took up every other available space.
Silence fills
the heavy air with its uncomfortable deadness, and even the static-filled radio c
an’t
relieve the tension floating
through the air.