Page 104 of Sunday Morning

I hated Heather and Joanna for playing such a horrible joke on me.

But mostly, I hated God because my heart knew what my mind refused to believe. And no loving god would allow that to happen to my friends.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

KANSAS, “DUST IN THE WIND”

The phone rang nonstop,so I yanked the cord out of the wall. My family knocked at my door incessantly, so I put on my headphones and listened to music.

I sat in the same spot, staring at near darkness as the moon was barely a sliver that night. The bed was too far away. Moving felt impossible when breathing took everything I had left. So I eventually leaned to the side, resting on the floor in a ball, staring at black figures under my bed. They were boxes and boxes of pictures and yearbooks. Heather and Joanna were in those boxes.

Short spells of sleep gave me moments of reprieve between the endless tears. When the first morning light pierced through my shades, I winced while sitting up. My head felt heavy, and my eyes were painfully swollen. Thedesk was in front of my door, which meant it wasn’t just a bad dream.

Heather and Joanna were gone, and I needed to pee.

I slid the desk just far enough to unlock my door and ease it partway open. My mom lifted her head from the pillow on the floor. She was in her robe, covered in an afghan.

“I can’t talk,” I whispered.

She stood with the blanket draped over her shoulders and hugged me.

No words.

No explanation.

She wrapped me in her arms, and it was the closest thing I could imagine to God’s love. Only I knew my mom would never have let my friends die if she were as almighty as the deity my father praised every Sunday.

I pulled away and shuffled my feet to the bathroom. When I returned to my room, my mom was sitting on the edge of my bed, facing the window.

“We thought it was you,” she whispered, “in the vehicle with Heather. And I died a little in that moment.”

I sat on the opposite side of the bed so our backs were to each other. My emotions were too tangled to make sense of them.

Pain.

Denial.

Regret.

Somuch regret and remorse.

“Heather’s funeral is tomorrow. Joanna’s isn’t until Thursday when her grandparents can be there.”

I closed my eyes. It wasn’t real.

“Where were you?” Her voice cracked.

I couldn’t respond, so I lay on my side, my hands tucked under my cheek on the pillow.

My mom was everything a mom should have been, but I needed space for my thoughts and emotions—space for the truth to shape my new reality.

That’s not what I got.

With two knocks at my bedroom door, Dad poked his head inside. “Matt’s here, honey.” He eyed the desk and slipped through the crack to move it back into place, using a piece of paper to sweep the broken lightbulb out of the way.

“Sarah,” Matt whispered, sliding his hands into his pockets as he stepped into my room.

“We’ll be downstairs,” Mom said, taking my dad’s hand and guiding him out of my room.