Picking up the Pieces

Chapter 1

I hugged my quilt close, not ready for the day to begin and not ready to face my father after the night before. I knew that when I walked out of my room I would immediately smell the pie I had made, most likely still sitting on the stovetop where I'd left it. I knew I'd feel the
disappointment thick in the air where I'd left my trail.

Finally building up the courage, I walked out and into the kitchen.

Everything was quiet and I cringed as I realized the only sound was the one of heavy rain hitting the roof. "How irritatingly appropriate," I whispered to myself. I walked to the window but slipped on the scattered recipe cards before I could make it. Pieces of the former intricately carved box that held them still covered the ground.

"How could I have thrown it?" I sat there and felt tears slip down my face. "How could he send me away now?" I grabbed my daily substitute of coffee, Coco. It would be the only silver lining that would come today. Sitting down at the table my eyes found a note that I hadn't seen before. 'Stephanie, We will send for you when your mother is on her last days. Until then do behave for your grandmother
-Dad.' This was the goodbye I was getting. "I don't want it," I whispered.

I don't understand how he could take me away from my mother at the time she needs me most, at a time I need her most.

My mother, Charlotte, was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer when I was 13 years old. Seeing her in agony hit my father and me like a ton of bricks. She pleaded to spend the rest of her days with me and her mother, my granny, but my father pressed that she got the best care possible.

That makes him sound like a wonderful person. Always flaunting his lawyer money in public acting like he cares for us but in reality, he doesn't give two shits.

My father has his own law firm where he would spend most of his days. When I was a little girl I was always pining to be in the limelight of his life but it never worked out for me.

When he would come home we would have one civilized conversation over dinner and if I got lucky, I usually didn't, he would wish me a good night's sleep.

The rest of his time he would usually spend drowning himself in expensive booze and being an asshole to my mother for not being a good wife. He quit yelling at her the day of the diagnosis and instead redirected his wrath at me.

My mother was, no is, a beautiful woman.
I have got to get it out of my head that she is dead.

If there is a tiny sliver of hope left in me it is that my mother will make it out of her treatment safe and sound.

Suddenly I hear a key jingle outside of the massive oak door at the entrance of my house.

"Who is it?" I voiced.