Necessary Heartbreak: A Novel of Faith and Forgiveness (When Time Forgets #1)
Michael J. Sullivan
TO MY WIFE DEBBIE, MOM AND DAD, AUNT RUTH AND UNCLE ED,
AND BROTHER LEO RICHARD,
FOR GIVING ME LIFE IN FOUR DIFFERENT WAYS
1
INTO THE
TUNNEL
“Let’s save each other some time today, Elizabeth. What are you wearing?”
“In a sec, Dad.”
Michael sighed and looked in the mirror. His head was pounding from a few glasses of pity wine the previous night, and he noticed a web of inflamed capillaries spreading across the corner of his left eye. I look awful, he thought.
Disgusted, he retreated to his bedroom and pulled open the top drawer of his worn dresser. A thin layer of dust was across the top, and absentmindedly he brushed it away. He stared down sullenly into the contents of the drawer and pushed aside a few pairs of socks. There it was at the bottom—a simple gold band. He turned it sideways to read the inscription: I’M GLAD I FOUND YOU. LOVE, VICKI.
Michael sighed and rubbed it gently against his T-shirt. He rarely wore it, except when he wanted to prevent any awkward encounters with unattached women. One look at the ring and they would be sure to leave him alone.
He slipped the ring on his finger and rubbed his stomach, uncomfortably aware of how his belly was gaining a foothold over the worn elastic waistband of his pajamas. He was beginning to understand why women complained about feeling bloated all the time. Adding to his misery was the humidity of the April day, so he chose a simple white T-shirt, light gray sweats, and a pair of his favorite old sandals. He pulled the sweats above his belly and sighed. Now I look like Fred Mertz.
He dressed conservatively these days even though he was just forty. With his daughter now a teenager, he believed he needed to set a good example. Michael had seen what the kids wore at the local middle school, where Elizabeth was in the eighth grade. She was becoming a young adult, and sometimes he felt alone against the world in protecting her. No matter how hard he tried to be open, there was no way he could agree with belly rings and low-cut shirts.
I hope she doesn’t come down in another skimpy tank top. He was well trained by this point. She would wait upstairs until they were miserably late, with no time to spare. Then it would be a last-second struggle: he would barely see her run past him on the way to the car, leaving him time to register only the most horrific thing she was wearing.
Today, though, he felt ready for the dress-code war.
His determination was swayed by the startling ring of the phone. “Elizabeth, are you going to get that?” Michael shouted upstairs. He chided himself for waiting for an answer; her friends called almost exclusively on her cell, meaning that she wouldn’t waste time picking up the house phone.
He ran into the living room and saw the phone out of its holder, along with the empty wine bottle sitting on the side table near his recliner. He bent down and dug furiously along the cushion of the chair. “Got it,” he muttered. He noticed the caller ID said unknown. His stomach lurched and he threw the phone back onto the recliner. Probably the bank again. Why can’t they leave me alone?
Elizabeth, sandals on her feet, T-shirt tied up to her navel, and oversize shorts hanging low on her waist, sprinted down with the upstairs phone in her hand. “Sure, he’s here, hold on.” She glanced up and saw her father scowl. “Oops,” she whispered as she handed it to him.
“Hello?” He paused, looking annoyed. “Yes, I understand my financial obligations. I’m working as hard as I can and as fast as I can to keep up. I need a couple more weeks. My boss cut my salary in half, sir. So I’m trying to find other ways to make it up. Can you give me more time?”
Elizabeth stood motionless on the stairs, watching her father’s brow furrow. For the first time, she noticed some strands of gray hair peeking through the sides of his head, near his ears.
“Good-bye.” Michael sighed. He clicked the phone off and looked down. I really need to clean this carpet, he thought randomly.
“Everything okay?” Elizabeth asked, noticing the shiny gold ring on his finger.
Michael gazed at his growing daughter, undeterred.
“No. Change the shirt.”
“Why, Dad?”
“Change the shirt. Change it or we won’t go.”
In this rare case, Michael knew he held the upper hand. She needed him to take her to this event to receive the proper credit for school. Every student in the honor society needed a certain number of community-service points, and she was still short.
“Oh, fine. Whatever.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes dramatically but then scampered up the stairs back to her bedroom.
Michael was aware that Elizabeth was gradually becoming less attached to him, which meant that the most positive aspect of his life was slowly eroding. He tried hard not to think about it. But on this Saturday morning, he didn’t mind the power-broker role for, if nothing else, it kept her with him.
Elizabeth walked down the stairs in an oversize, faded-white Springsteen concert T-shirt. Michael was slumped in the recliner, still clenching the phone and staring off into space. She smiled, trying to cheer him up. “Hey, Dad, does this shirt go down far enough?” The shirt fell past her shorts, well below her knees.
He looked up. “I see you were in my closet. Did you ask?”
“No. I wanted to pick out something you would approve of.”
“So you took one of my favorite T-shirts?”
“Bruce wouldn’t mind, right?” asked Elizabeth as she flashed an angelic smile.
Michael smiled weakly. “Bruce isn’t your father, I am. But this time I approve. C’mon, let’s scoot.” He slapped his knees before standing up.
Opening the front door for her, he was happy to see that the rain had finally stopped. “Who’s my baby?”
Elizabeth didn’t answer, knowing from experience that it would only encourage him to ask it again.
Michael smiled as they climbed into the car, deciding it was probably best not to tease her more. He had finally upgraded to a Camry a few years back because it gave Elizabeth more room in the backseat to keep her video games, DVDs and CDs. However, Elizabeth had now taken a liking to sitting in the front. He still couldn’t get used to it. He watched as she put in the white earbuds and began playing with the iPhone. Michael once again felt a mingled sense of pride and worry as her fingers rapidly began moving.
“Who are you texting?”
“My friends.”
“Boy? Girl?”
She looked at him. “Both.”
“What’s the boy’s name?”
“Matt.”
“How old is he?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re not sure?!”
“Okay, okay, he’s a couple of years older than me. So?”
Michael grimaced and took a deep breath. “Is that perfume?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Mommy’s drawer. You said I could have anything in there.”
He glanced over at his daughter and noticed how much she had grown up over the past year. Her hair was neatly brushed, the once girlish curls now straight and pulled into a tightly wound ponytail wrapped in a simple green elastic band. The smell of sparkly nail polish filled the car.
“You’re not meeting him here, are you?” asked Michael.
“He might be here later. Do you want to meet him?”
“Um . . . no . . . ah, yeah, yes . . . I don’t know.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Well, which is it?”