A College Seeress' Diary

True Origin

Dear Jesus,

It was Mom who woke me.
The sun was already rising, spilling its arms all over my balcony.

I knew I slept late, but I didn't imagine I had slept out there in the cold all through the night.

There was this alarmed look on Mom's face. It was priceless.
Like she had been searching for her supposedly kidnapped child only to find her crouched between poison ivy bushes, playing hide-and-seek with her dog.

I smiled to myself as I remembered that look while I stabbed a slice of boiled yam on my plate with my fork.
The highlight of today's breakfast was the scrambled eggs. Absolutely scrumptious. Garnished with peas, hot dog, sardine and baked beans, it was nothing like the bland one I was used to eating at school.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Dad asked, looking at me intently with an amused expression.

I started. We had been eating in silence in the dining.

I relaxed, smiled brighter at him and then glanced at Mom who was discreetly watching both of us.

"Nothing serious. I was just smiling when I remembered Mom's expression when she came to wake me up this morning. I wonder how panicked she must have felt when she saw my empty bed. Much more when she came out to see me on the floor."

Dad chuckled and nodded in understanding as he continued eating.
"That's Julia for you," he muttered.

"Hey, don't tell me you wouldn't have reacted worse," Mom said, slapping Dad lightly on his arm.

Dad laughed hard now. The belly laughter was infectious so I joined in. Mom glared at both of us. 

Dad coughed, choking on his laughter.

"Serves you right, Kennedy," Mom said mischievously but filled a glass with water and shoved it into his hands.

Dad shot a smashing smile at Mom after he had drunk the water and settled from the choking.

"But Radiance, you shouldn't be exposing yourself like that. The cold, the mosquitoes, the night crawlers. Especially with your condition," Mom scolded, referring to my leg.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know when I slept off," I said with an apologetic puppy dog expression.

"I'm just glad nothing disastrous happened when you fell."

"How are you feeling?" Dad asked, his face etched with concern.

"Same," I said with a shrug, taking the bottle of pills the doctor had prescribed to reduce the occasional pain.
I shook out two capsules of diclofenac potassium to my palm and swallowed them at once with water.

"It is well with you," Dad said with a sympathetic look.

"Amen," I said and continued eating.

Dad looked at Mom, giving her a silent signal and said to me, "We want to talk to you, Radiance, after we're done eating."

I gulped, almost choking too as I felt the tension settle on me.

"Oh, um. Sure, no problem."

We finished our breakfast with no other drama, but all the while my mind was spinning, trying to bring up other possible things they could probably want to talk to me about, apart from the looming issue I knew of.

As I awkwardly leaned on my walking stick to rise, I tried to take my plate too. I almost stumbled again.

"Let me have that, young lady," Mom said and took the plate from my hand with hers and Dad's. She piled everything including our used cups and cutlery onto the serving tray and carried it to the kitchen.