WHY SHE LEFT

                                  SUMMER 2002 

       "May the peace of the Lord which surpasses all understanding be with you, now and forevermore!" the voice of the priest rang out in the church. 

       "Amen! Amen! Aaaaamen!" the congregation sang in response. 

        "May the Lord be with you!" 

        "And with your spirit!" 

   The congregation started to disperse from the church. Joshua removed his choir robe and walked straight to his family that was seated at the front pew. No one makes a move unless their father stands up first. 

       "Mr and Mrs Prescott," an older man called. 

      Her father stood up and shook hands with the man.  "Mr Thompson, good to see you again," Faith's father said. 

       Faith's mother was not entirely happy, she smiled forced smiles. As their father interacted with the man, a middle-aged woman, the same as her mother came up to her with a smile. 

       "Ahh, Rose, good to see you," her mother said and hugged the woman. Faith's and Joshua's works were to greet the elders and say nothing more. 

       Rose made a sign with her eyes and Faith's mother followed her. Faith's father watched her as she went with Rose. Once he was done talking to Mr Thompson, he asked Joshua and Faith to follow him. They followed him and he went outside where their mother stood with Rose. 

       "Excuse me, ladies," he said and smiled at the ladies, then turned to their mother. "Let's go." 

      An uncertain look was on the face of their mother and tears filled her eyes when their dad grabbed her arm and led her away, towards the car. As they proceeded towards the car, their father looked back at Ms Rose and smiled then turned to their mother. 

       "What were you doing with that unbeliever?" their father asked slowly, not letting anyone notice how tight he was grabbing their mother's arm. 

        "She is my friend," their mother retorted.  "What makes you think she is an unbeliever?" 

        Their father tightened his grip on their mother and she let out a low yelp. He shushed her, opening the car with one hand and holding her with the other. He opened the car and shoved her inside.  "Get into the car," he said to the kids. 

      Joshua and Faith quickly went into the passenger seat and remained still. Their father circled round and entered the driver's seat. Their mother was looking determined and defiant like she was ready for anything. Tears were already tugging in Faith's heart and she huffing to prevent herself from crying. 

      Their mother looked behind and reached for her face, she stroked her cheeks and smiled at her.  "It's fine, sweetie." 

      She was too attached to her mother that her mother notices every little detail in her. Their father ignited the car and started reversing out of the church compound. 

       "The Bible said; do not be equally yoked with sinners, but each time you go to that Rose of a woman." 

        "She is my friend! What is it that you are so scared of?" 

        "She is unmarried, she would lead you out of marriage." 

        "Are you scared she would find out about all the pain you inflict on me?" 

       "I don't inflict pain on you, I give you corrections, you are a very stubborn woman, always provoking me and pushing me to the wall. That is the way you also want to train our kids." 

        "Keep deceiving yourself. If you were so sure it's the correction you give us, why don't you correct us in public? Why did you choose inside the house at the outskirt of town where no one would hear us and come to help us?" 

      Their father's knuckles tightened on the steering.  "Celina! Stop talking nonsense with your mouth right now." 

       "What? Are you going to stop me? With your fist? Come on, try something new, I am used to your fist now." 

      When they got home, his father turned off the car and quickly left the car, their mother sat still and he opened the door and grabbed her hair. Joshua and Faith left the car, Joshua hugged Faith as their father dragged their mother to the porch and opened the door, still holding their mom's hair, their mother was not crying this time, it was as if a particular demon possessed her. 

    He opened the door and shoved her in, Joshua grabbed Faith's hands and they ran up the stairs. When they got to the landing, Faith saw her father unbuckling his belt and before she went into her room, he had released his first lash and their mother shrieked. 

     "You should be like the proverb 31 woman! A woman of virtue...!" 

     Faith ran into her room and climbed into bed. She lay down and covered herself with a duvet and started to weep and blocked her ears with her hands. She didn't know when time passed, the next thing, someone opened her duvet, and she was sweating profusely. It was Joshua. 

      "Angel, come, come, let's go and see mommy, he had left the house." 

     Faith climbed down from the bed and they went downstairs together what they saw made Faith shriek. Their mother was wallowing in pain under the dining table and she was crawling under the table and blood trailing after her. Their father was walking around the table looking terrified and confused and he was begging their mother to come out from under the table so that he could help her, but she was too stubborn. 

      She climbed under the table and curled herself there clutching her stomach. Their father started removing the chairs from the table and hefted the table to one side and knelt beside their mother. 

      "Celina, Celina! Look at me, please stay with me." He carried her up. 

     Faith and Joshua were crying now looking at the whole drama. Their father looked their way.  "Joshua, you can take care of your sister, right? Stay here while I get mommy to the hospital. Take care of your sister." He hurried out of the house carrying their mother. 

      The children wept for a while, Joshua turned to Faith, wiped her face and hugged her. "Mommy would be fine, let's stop crying, let's stop crying," he consoled. 

      After a while, they got buckets of water and mops and mopped up all the blood in the living room. It took them a while to mop everything and they fell asleep on the couch. The next time they woke up was at dusk, when their father came back. He looked like a shadow of himself, his head and shoulders hung, and they sat on the couch watching him. He passed them like he didn't see them and started up the stairs, shuffling his feet on the wooden floor. 

      Their father was a huge man and when he walked like that it seemed the wooden stairs would buckle under his feet. They couldn't ask him what went wrong or what the problem was. He didn't give them that audacity to question him. They were so scared, especially Faith. They just sat in the living and kept calm. 

     They heard their father bang his room door and they looked at each other. 

      "Is mommy coming back?" Faith asked. 

       "Yes, she will come back tomorrow," Joshua answered. 

        "How do you know that?" 

        "I just know things because I am the older one." 

        "If I was the older one will I know things too?" 

      Joshua looked at her and smiled.  "I'm sure you will, every older one knows what to say to the younger one in times like this..." 

       They were interrupted by a loud noise from their father's bedroom. They ran up the stairs and stood by his door and heard their father weeping.  That was when Joshua sat on the floor and started to cry. Faith sat down with him. 

     "Why are you crying?" she asked on the verge of tears. 

      "If dad is crying, then mommy might not come back tomorrow." 

       Faith didn't understand what he was talking about, but she joined him to cry. They cried until they slept off on the floor. Alfred came out and saw them sprawled on the floor in front of his room and he carried each into their bedroom. 

       Their mother did not come back the next day nor the day after, but their father was always leaving the house very early, they knew he wasn't going to work that early, his work usually starts by ten but he left the house by seven o'clock a.m. and come back by eight or nine in the evening. One day, Joshua summoned up the courage to ask him about their mother. He smiled and told them that she would return home soon. 

     A few days after, their mother returned home, but she didn't look like the mother they knew. She looked withdrawn and hardly spoke to anyone. Their father was becoming nicer to her, but she rarely smiled. Her eyes were always staring into space and they always glint with tears in them. 

      A few days passed but she didn't get better, their father had to invite Reverend Bernard and he came and prayed for their mother. For those few days, each time Faith comes back from school, her mother would lift her and place her on her thighs and sing her a lullaby, while rocking her, most of the time Faith always sleeps off and at those times, her mother smiles at her. 

       It went on for weeks and Faith got accustomed to it. She grew a deep bond with her mother. She was close to her mother before, but this time, it was a different kind of bond. It made Faith cry if her mother was not by her side when she feels like sleeping, it made her become attached to her mother so much. 

       Joshua was always by himself those days, either reading a book or just sitting beside his mother on the porch where she always sat, rocking Faith. Their mother has not been one to agree with leaving the house but since she came back from the hospital, she would always tell them not to worry and that they would soon live freely without pain or fear. She always assured them that with a smile as if she had it all planned out. 

       For those weeks, whenever their father was around, their mother would pretend to blank out, she only stares into space but when she was alone with her kids, she focuses on them, smiled and she talks with them. Father Bernard came again and prayed for her and the family. The days went on with no more violence or beating from their father that the kids almost forgot that there had ever been any. 

       They would go to school, come back, eat and little by little, their mother started coming out of the shell she had crawled into. She started discussing at the dining table and started talking to their father again. Then one day something happened. 

        They were in the living room as usual for morning devotion when their father started having seizures. The kids were panicking but their mother was as cool as ever. Joshua ran out of the house before their mother could stop him and ran all the way to the church and was lucky to find the Reverend. He narrated everything to the Reverend and the man followed him immediately, they came in his car and were able to take their father to the hospital. 

     Joshua and Faith did not go to school that day because they were asked to stay home and not panic. Their mother come back almost immediately and told them that their father was still alive, but she didn't sound happy about it. She had wished him dead. 

       A few days passed and their father was discharged from the hospital and he was taken to the church instead of coming home. Joshua and Faith had to go to the church to see him. Their mother was there once in a while but most of the time, she was at home. When their father came back to the house, he and their mother never talked and he always prepared his food himself. The children were too young to comprehend what was going on but one day, before they came back from school their mother had left the house. 

     That was the last they heard nor saw from her, then their father returned to being the monster that he was. It was as if the children were receiving the punishment for their mother, whatever she did. 

                                PRESENT-DAY

      Faith was not really concentrating on what she was cooking. All her thoughts were on the memories she remembered that day. Something definitely went wrong and she needed to know it. Maybe her father was not the monster she thought he was, maybe, their mother was the real monster and Joshua might know something, but he was proving too stubborn. 

       They were all stubborn, a trait that had passed from their mother. If Joshua had a good relationship with their father, maybe he would have told them what had really happened. The kitchen door flung open and Ethan came in. Faith smiled at him. 

        "Hey, handsome you are back," she said as she brought down the stir fry. 

      Ethan walked up to her, hugged her and kissed her forehead. "Can I help?" he asked. 

        "Yeah! Get the dishes to the dining. I am done cooking." 

     She carried the meal to the dining and he came after her with the dishes. She dished the food into their various plates and they sat down to eat. 

     "So, how was therapy today?" Ethan asked before stuffing his mouth with food. 

     Faith shrugged.  "I remembered a lot of things and they make me doubt my previous assumptions." 

      Ethan swallowed quickly so that he could respond. "Things like what?" 

       "My mother always told Joshua and me that she was the cause of the punishments my dad mated out on her. I remembered an incident that happened before she left." 

        "What incident?" 

        "My father kind of had an attack, a sudden one and it seemed my mother had been happy about it and after that incident, she left a few weeks after. We the kids were not told anything." 

       "So, what are you going to do now?" 

       "I guess is to look for her. I mean my mother, that's if she is still alive. I want to know what happened." 

        "How are we going to do that?" 

        "I guess it's to go back to where it all started, someone might know something, my mother must have left an address with someone, even if no one has the address, at least someone might know what had happened. Father Bernard should know." 

       "He must have been transferred by now." 

       "Oak Park is his home town and he must be an old man by now, don't they retire in this priest work?" 

      "They do. If he is retired he would become an emeritus priest and is likely to go back to his home town, so I think you have a little luck there." 

     Faith nod ded. Dr Adriana had told her to take her time making any decisions when she had told her about it, but Faith knew that she wanted the truth no matter how bitter it was.