Mrs. Independent: Part Two

Chapter Twelve: Purple Flower

Chapter Twelve: Purple Flower

I was up all night pretending to be fine until Josh fell asleep, and then I laid there and had tears streaming down my cheeks the whole night.
The mere thought of thinking about God again, about trying to get him to forgive me? Of starting there? It makes me sick to my stomach.
But by the time the sun started coming up, I made a decision that there's not  way I'm going to be happy if I don't.
Because everything always comes down to my past, and while I handled the physical problems, there are still mental problems that are just as dangerous as the physical ones.
I took a shower before anybody left their rooms, and by the time I got out, everyone was awake and dressed for the day.
I dressed too and put on makeup to conceal my bags because I didn't even try to sleep last night.
I know Josh is really worried about me. I can tell every time he looks at me.
But this thing I'm going through?
This is something that I need to deal with on my own.
Because this is something that I created.
I need to handle it.
But before I got waltzing into a church, I need a sign.
I need God to show me that he's here.
I just need something.

_____

Our relatives decided to go to Chicago today, and now we're wandering the streets.
I'm regretting my outfit because I'm freezing.
It's forty five outside. I'm in a black dress that goes down a few inches above the knee. I paired it with a brown belt around my waist, brown boots, and a tan sweater.
All the plants and leaves are dead in preparation for winter, and everyone is talking and laughing. My hands are shoved in the pockets of my dress. We stop at a crosswalk and I look at the dead trees in the park across the street.
Nothing is green. Everything looks cold.
My eyes drift from the dead branches to the tall buildings, and then the people walking.
I hear something hit the ground and look down to see that Ashley dropped her keys.
Josh picks them up for her, but my eyes don't leave the sidewalk.
I can't look away from the sidewalk.
Because all the plants are dead here because it's almost winter.
It's cold and windy outside.
But somehow, in the middle of the sidewalk, a purple flower is peeking up out of the crack, almost as if somebody planted it there for me.
The stem is a rich green, and if I didn't know any better, I would think it's the middle of spring.
My jaw opens slightly and my eyes start to frantically search the sidewalks in sight for any more flowers, but there's none, just this one, which just so happens to be right in front of me.
I drop Josh's hand and crouch down.
Surely the flower is fake, right?
It's probably artificial. Somebody must have bought fake flowers and dropped one.
"Kate? What's up?" Josh asks, curious as to why I'm practically sitting on the dirty Chicago streets.
I reach out with my left hand, picking the flower out of the ground.
I stand up and raise it to my nose, and it smells real.
It's real.
Astounded, I turn to my husband.
"This is a real flower." I push it towards his nose.
"Yeah, it is." He says, rubbing my back.
The crosswalk goes white and we shuffle across the street.
I sniff the flower again and let Josh take my free hand.
We walk with our family and I keep searching the sidewalk but there aren't any other flowers.
"It's just a flower hun, what's the big deal?" Josh looks genuinely curious.
I look at him.
"Flowers don't grow in November. There aren't any other ones, and every other plant is dead."
"I guess that's weird."
"And it's even weirder that I found it." I say.
I pull out my wallet and drop the flower into it, safely zipping it inside.
He must seem to understand that this is just me working through my problems because he kisses my cheek and stays silent.
We stop at another crosswalk again.
"Katherine!" Somebody across the street yells.
My head snaps up at the sound of my name. A woman is smiling, walking towards her friend wearing a name tag with a red star on it. She works at Macy's and her name is Katherine, but she spells it with a C instead of a K.
The girls hug, and my eyes drift to a woman talking on the phone, arguing with somebody on the other end.
She's clearly very pregnant and she has a stroller in front of her with a child who looks to be about two years old. The woman starts digging through her purse and I watch as her son removes his seatbelt to the stroller and gets out. His mother is looking down to her purse and nobody around is paying attention as the little boy walks towards the street.
"Oh god." I say as his foot hits the street. "Oh my god, no!"
I feel my purse leave my hands and my feet propel my forward, and then I'm running as hard as I can out to into the busy street. I hear people screaming at me to stop as the little boy steps in front of a city bus who isn't showing any signs of slowing down.
Run right in front of the bus, grab the front of the boys shirt and yank as hard as I can.
I hear the toddler start to cry and the sound of the bus whizzing past my body. Tires squeal and everything comes to a stop.
The mother is frantic now, reaching for her son who is crying.
I sit up in my dress, and when I look down, I see tire tracks on my dress.
It fanned out slightly where it wasn't touching my body, and the part that wasn't touching me was ran over.
If I hit the ground a few inches to the left, I would be dead right now.
"Katherine!" Josh's eyes are wild. "What the fuck was that for? Are you crazy?" He starts pulling me to my feet, checking for injuries.
"Is he okay?" I ask the boy's Mom.
"He's fine. He's okay." She sniffles. "You saved his life. Thank you. Thank you so much." She hugs me with the arm that isn't holding her son. "How did you see him? I didn't even see him!"
I blink, trying to remember.
And then my eyes snap to two women, one of them wearing a Macy's name tag with my name on it.
"I-" I feel like I'm going to explode. My relatives are surrounding me and Josh and wiping my dress off with his hand and he looks panicked. "That woman called my name." I gesture to her.
"Me?" She asks. "No I didn't."
"You did." I nod frantically. "My name is Katherine. You called out to your friend but I hear my name so I looked, and then I saw your son unbuckle himself from his seat and walk towards the street. If I didn't have the same name as her, your son would be dead."
If I waited a millisecond more to run after the boy, I would have been hit by that bus.
Just then, the sun peeks out of the clouds, shining down on us, but it's right in my eyes, blinding me.
And it's like I can see him.
God.
First the flower right in front of me and nobody else, and then the girl calling my name so I could save that little boy.
And now the sun is out.
And I feel stupid, because how could I have thought for a second that God wasn't here? He's always here. He's always going to be here.
And I know what I need to do.
"I have to go." I say.
"What are you talking about?" Josh asks worriedly. "Kath, I'm worried about you, okay? You're acting weird today."
"I need you to let me be." I say quietly. "I'll find my way home."

_____

I'm literally so tired of working all the time you guys have no idea
~Sam