Hope and Faith

ONE: FAITH

If you asked for her favourite colour, she wouldn't be able to tell you. Faith Everett hated choosing favourites. In fact, she hated choosing anything. Be it sports teams, outfits, or what to eat for dinner. She was indecisive at best. And if one thing was for certain, it was that Faith did not care what anyone thought. You and I – our opinions – were irrelevant to her.

            She walked in a way that made people stare. She walked with poise and confidence. But she also walked like a sixteen-year-old girl who didn't give a second thought about the world around her. Which personally, if you ask me, is not the greatest impression one can have on people.

            She spent her days hunched over the desk, fingers black from lead. Her pencil constantly rubbing against her hands as she sketched in that sketchbook for hours on end. Hair black as soot, flowing over her shoulders like a veil. Crystal blue eyes focused on that one thing. She never did anything with her drawings – never knew what there was to do with them – but she never grew tired of it. And that was okay. It gave her something to do. Something to fill her time. Something to busy her mind.

            Faith Everett was always thinking. She was often kept awake at night due to the busyness that took place inside of her brain. Like a zoo on the weekend, thoughts and sounds and voices and people, moving methodically through her thoughts, navigating their way through her hippocampus right down to her cerebellum. She would close her eyes, grab onto her temples with both hands. She would hold on tight and scream for it to stop. But it never did. She eventually learned to take it as a gift. A gift she could never turn off.

            She couldn't recall a time when the noise ever truly stopped. Not until that warm summers day, on June 3, 1991. Sitting at her kitchen table, her brother, Michael – it's Mike, he would say – sitting next to her. Her parents, William and Claudia Everett, seated in front of her. That is when the noise ceased. And that is where her story begins.

            "Did someone die?" Mike asked, slumping backwards in his chair.
             Claudia took in a breath.
             "Oh God, who is it? Faith said.
             "Nobody's dead," William stated ever so calmly, as if it were the most mundane thing in the world.
             "You're acting strange," Mike said.
             William looked to the cabinet in the corner. Claudia pursed her lips, eyes drifting downwards. Two kids in the principal's office, avoiding the trouble that awaited them.
             "Just spit it out already!" Faith said.
             William looked at his daughter, impatience growing in her eyes, and finally spoke: "We're separating."
             Claudia turned to her husband, then to her children. She didn't speak.
             "Separating?" Faith echoed. "What do you mean?"
             "We will no longer be living together," William said, evidently taking the reins on the conversation as Claudia remained silent.
             "So you're getting divorced?" Mike asked.
             Claudia opened her mouth to say something but William interjected. "We won't make it legal unless we have to."
             "So you are getting divorced," Faith said. "Wow, how so very Catholic of you."
             "Now's not the time, Faith," her father warned.
             "Oh, pardon me. When is the right time? When you sign the legal documents? When you look to God and go back on your word – your vows – that you made to him twenty-five years ago?"
             "Faith –" her mother cut her off.
             "No, let her finish," William said.
             Faith stared at them both. "Why?"
             "You know why."
             "This is so fucked up," from Mike.
             "Language."
             "What? You can get divorced but I can't swear?"
             "So they are no longer two, but one," Faith began, reciting the bible verse from memory. "Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate. Matthew, nineteen six."
             Her mother stared at her. "We tried to keep you two out of it for as long as we could," Claudia said. "But now the wheels are in motion. It's happening."
             "You're separating," Faith said, testing out the words in her mouth once again, seeing how it sounded.
             Claudia nodded slowly.
             "You can't just try to work things out? Go see a marriage counsellor or something?"
             "You think we haven't tried?" William said. "We've tried everything. We've tried for so long to make this work. But we've reached a point where we can't do it anymore. It's time to give up and move on."
             "Wow," Faith said. "Real motivational. You guys should do speeches. Go around to the schools –"
             "This is already hard enough as it is," Claudia interrupted her daughter. "Not only for us, but for you two. Seeing what we're putting you through. And what the neighbors will think..."
             Faith snorted. "You're really concerned about what the neighbors will think at a time like this?"
             "They'll talk," Claudia said through stern lips. "You know they will."
             "Yeah," Mike said. "We all know how that will look. Georgetown's favourite Catholics getting divorced. You'll be the talk of the town."
             Claudia closed her eyes. William put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. 
             "Please try to be considerate to your mother," he said. "This is a very difficult time for her. As is for me. You're not the only ones who are upset about this."
             "If you're so upset about it," Mike said. "Then why do it?"
             "We've just explained that to you!" Claudia snapped. "Do you not listen?"
             "We just can't do it any longer," William said. "I wouldn't expect you two to understand. You haven't been married for twenty-five years. You haven't gone through the ups, the downs, the hardships, the struggles. You're just children, for God's sake."
             "William –"
             "No, they need to hear it."
             But then it went silent, as though no one in the room had any idea what to say after that. It was quiet for a long time before Faith spoke. "So who's leaving?"
             They all looked at her.
             "Someone's gotta be leaving, right?"
             William cleared his throat. "Actually," he said. "Everyone's leaving."
             Faith looked at her father in confusion. "What do you mean?"
             "We can't afford to keep the house with only one of us living here," Claudia explained. "So, your father is moving to the city. He will get an apartment there. And me," she paused. "Well, I'm moving to Meadow."
             "Where the fuck is Meadow?" Mike asked.
             "Up North. In the country."
             "You're moving to the country?"
             "It's a nice place," Claudia said. "I can have my office at home, get all my work done from there. And there's a lake," she added. As though a lake would make everything better.
             "So who's going where?" Faith asked.
             "That's up to the two of you."
             "You mean, we have to choose?"
             It was quiet again.
             "So," Mike said. "You call us into the kitchen to ruin our lives. Now you're telling us that we have to choose between the city and fucking Meadow?"
             "Life really is over," Faith said.

And to her, it just might have really felt that way.