Christian Romance: Heaven on Earth... [4 Beautiful Christian Romance Stories] (5 page)

“Daddy don’t talk like that. It’s
unfair. You’re not going anywhere yet. You can get better. God will
heal you, we just have to pray,” said Melissa, shaking her
head.

“Rose petal, I’ve got a feeling God’s
got other plans for my soul. Don’t be afraid, I’m not. I’ll be with
God and take my rest, but I can’t do that without being sure you’re
all going to be alright when I leave. Your Mama, she’ll be fine.
She’s as strong as a mule even if she looks frail, and I’m sure
she’ll pull through no matter what. You’re brother got Sally now,
and Jordan, he’ll be fine too. But I worry about you. You write
plenty of letters but I’ve read them and read them, and all you
ever talk about is work. You never mentioned a friend in any of
your letters. You always go out alone. I don’t want to go to heaven
thinking about you alone in a London apartment. I want to be sure
you have people around you who’ll help and support you.”

“I’ll be fine daddy, you should worry
about yourself first. You’ve lost a lot of weight, is it the
medication?”

“Maybe,” he father replied with, it
seemed to Melissa, a hint of irony. “I’ve come to terms with what’s
about to happen petal.”

“What?” she cried angrily, “Dad! It
feels like you already gave up on getting better! Stop talking like
that and concentrate on living another twenty years, please!” she
implored.

“Calm down Mels. I’ll be…” Before her
father could finish the sentence, he was caught in a wave of
coughing that wouldn’t seem to stop. Alarmed, Melissa rushed out
and called her Mother, who came running in with Sally in
tow.

Melissa watched helplessly as Sally
placed an oxygen mask over his face, while her mother rubbed her
father’s back until his coughing quieted down.

“He probably needs to sleep now. We
should let him rest,” Malcolm said, taking Melissa by the shoulders
and leading her out. Tears were still streaming down her
face.

Melissa was back in her old room. The
small double bed that she hadn’t used in almost six years still had
the familiar rose-colored sheets with the floral print. Her old
books where in the night stand and the beloved bible was on her
dresser, her old pictures were still on the frames and everything
felt really familiar to her, comforting even. She had already
unpacked her things and she decided to look over some old
pictures.

There was her prom picture, her in her
pale blue dress and silver shoes. Jordan had taken her to the prom
and they had danced all night. She had been a bit disappointed that
Jordan was her date, he was almost a permanent fixture in their
home, and she had a crush on another boy, but that boy never asked
her, and as a last resort she begged her brother to find her a
date. They had talked and laughed, and she enjoyed herself despite
her initial disappointment.

Then, there was her sweet sixteen; she
was wearing a sweet yellow dress, standing in front of a big cake
and a tarpaulin that said Melissa’s Sweet Sixteen on it. Her
mother, brother and father stood next to her. To the side were some
of her friends in high school, as well as some of her cousins. To
the far side, she saw Jordan again, skinny and awkward. Who would
have guessed that he would turn into all this now? He was handsome
and confident, a real catch compared to the awkward teenager he
once was. She looked over to their family again. Her mother lost a
bit of weight, but she looked almost the same except for the gray
hairs. Malcolm had become a man and filled in his gangly frame. She
was taller, and her freckles were gone, but she felt as lost as she
was when she was sixteen. Her eyes turned to her father, he had a
ruddy color on his cheeks and he was still big and strong, he was
her hero, he still was. A searing pain went through her chest. Her
mind still couldn’t believe that this big, strong man in the
picture was the same person on the bed in the parlor. Her father
was pale, and he must be about half his weight. He looked frail and
weak, nothing like he had been in life.

“Mels? Lunch is ready,” said Malcolm’s
voice through the door.

“I’ll be down in a minute.
Okay?”

She heard Malcolm’s foot falls go down
the stairs. She took another deep breath and stood up. She wiped
her eyes and applied some concealer. She didn’t want to make the
lunch seem grim with her swollen eyes. She had to pull a brave
face, in undoubtedly the same way as her mother and brother were.
She had to be brave for her father most of all.

The atmosphere during lunch was
understandably strained. Jordan left for work, but Sally still ate
with them.

“So Mels, how’s the food? Didn’t I
tell you it was good? Sally cooks exquisitely doesn’t
she?”

“Oh yeah, she really does. This is
great.” Then came another awkward pause that Melissa decided to
fill. “So Mal, how’d you and Sally meet? To be honest, I was a bit
surprised you were engaged; I didn’t even know you had a girlfriend
a week ago.”

Malcolm cleared his throat, fully
aware of the barbed thought behind the question.

“I’m your father’s nurse. I have been
since he first started showing symptoms. I work at the hospital and
I decided to work with your family full time when he was diagnosed
two weeks ago,” Sally volunteered.

“So you’ve known each other for less
than a month? And you’re engaged already?”

“No, we’ve known each other for half a
year. Malcolm proposed last month.”

Melissa saw the guilty looks from her
mother and brother.

“How can that be? You only called to
tell me about dad being sick a month ago, how could you two have
known each other for half a year? Have you been hiding all this
from me?”

Malcolm and her mother looked at each
other, until Agatha finally cleared her throat.

“When your father started coughing, we
didn’t know what was wrong or if it was a serious disease. We
didn’t want to have you worrying on the other side of the world. We
went back and forth to the hospital. When we got the diagnosis last
month, we decided to let you know. We just wanted what was best for
you Melissa, please don’t be angry.”

Melissa mouth was a thin line. She
felt angry and betrayed by the people she loved most and it hurt
really badly. She didn’t know what to do. Finally, Melissa got up
to go, but her mother stood up too, and grabbed her by the
hand.

“Mels please. We didn’t want you to
worry. Your father didn’t want to say anything until we were sure
what it was. We wanted to give you the chance to focus on your work
and your career. Please calm down.”

Melissa just pulled away. “You didn’t
think I could handle this?”

“Of course that’s not the reason, we
just didn’t want to alarm you when there was nothing you could do,”
her mother said imploringly.

“Whatever mom, I don’t really care
about your intentions. I had a right to know that my father was
getting sick. What I might do with that information was my choice
and you took that away. Good day mother.”

And with that, she stormed off to her
room. She took her wallet and phone and ran back down. Malcolm was
at the foot of the stairs holding up the keys to his
car.

“Drive safe sis, and…” he stopped her
with a hand on her shoulder, “I’m sorry about what we did. Dad made
me swear not to tell you.” Melissa didn’t even look at him and
Malcolm let her through.

She ran up to his pickup and drove
away.

“I told you we should have called
her.”

“I just don’t know how she’d going to
take the next bit of news. Oh Mal, I don’t know how to tell
her!”

Melissa drove into town with trembling
hands. Her face had become a splotchy red color, as it does when
she gets agitated over something. She didn’t know where to go so
she stopped at a new looking restaurant that hadn’t been here six
years ago when she first went to college. She went inside and sat
down; aware of the curious glances everyone in the restaurant threw
her way.

“How can I help you miss?” asked a
waitress.

Melissa ordered a coffee and a bagel.
She didn’t want to drink so early and she needed to sort through
her feelings, and to do that she needed to be sober.

Before the coffee and the bagel
arrived, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“I take it lunch didn’t go very well?”
It was Jordan again, looking sympathetically at her, gardening
gloves clutched on his hand.

“No, it didn’t go well at all. What
are you doing here?” Melissa asked, eager to get the spotlight away
from her.

“I’m on my lunch break. We’re doing
some landscaping now that the building’s done. This is a George and
James production actually.” He meant the building. Their company
had probably made the building and he was now occupied with the
landscaping out front.

“Really, Malcolm designed this
building? I’m impressed.” It was a rustic little place, and it had
an eye-catching woodwork design. “You’re on your lunch break,
right? I’m just having coffee but you can have lunch with me if you
like,” Melissa broached almost shyly.

Jordan’s face broke out in a wide
smile as he pulled up a chair. After Jordan ordered ‘his regular’
and Melissa’s coffee and bagel came, they both sat in comfortable
silence for a while.

“What do you do in London?”

“Oh I’m junior VP in interior design
for our hotel chain. I got the promotion just 4 months ago,” there
was a tinge of hurt in her voice when she said this, realizing that
her father was already sick when she got the promotion, and it was
probably because of the promotion that they had refrained from
telling her.

“What’s wrong Mels?”

“Nothing… no actually, everything’s
wrong. My father is sicker than anyone said, and for longer than I
was lead to believe, and my brother will be getting married to a
woman who’s a complete stranger to me. It’s like my family went on
ahead without me,” said Melissa, her knuckles white from holding
her hands in tight fists.

“You live in London Mels, it’s what
you’ve wanted since you were twelve and watched My Fair Lady on
VHS. It was your dream. When you got that job and lived in a posh
apartment in London, your parents didn’t want to come between you
and your dreams. I think that’s why your dad didn’t want you to
know. And you can still get to know Sally right?”

“But don’t I have a right to know? I
could have spent more time with them, with dad, rather than me
coming just now. Right?”

“Well, don’t you think your parents
would have wanted you here? That they didn’t miss you every minute
you were away? Of course they did, but maybe you don’t remember how
excited you were when you got your working passport and that London
internship. Mels, it was as if you could fly to the moon on your
dreams alone. That’s what your parents didn’t want to disturb, you
following your dreams.”

Tears started falling in earnest
again. The waitress, who came to bring Jordan’s food, glanced
awkwardly at the weeping woman and shuffled away. Jordan let her
cry, biting slowly into his burger and waiting for the waves of
sadness to dissipate.

After a good 5 minutes, after she was
all cried out, Melissa wiped her eyes and looked shyly at Jordan,
who was eating his burger quietly.

“I don’t know why Jordie, but it was
always so easy to talk to you. Thanks.”

“No problem. We’ll be doing some
gardening and I know it’s not fancy hotel decorating, but maybe it
can get your mind off things.”

“You mean help out with your
landscaping?” she asked, unsure.

“Yeah, I know you’ll do a great
job.”

Jordan brought Melissa to the back of
the restaurant that was still closed off to the public. The lawn
was being placed and there were cement paths there, but there was
still an assortment of flowers and crotons in planters. Melissa and
Jordan spent the rest of the day digging and arranging the various
florae, laughing and teasing each other. It seemed as if the last
six years didn’t exist at all, it was as if they were never apart.
She was always close with Malcolm, but there was effortlessness in
her interactions with Jordan that made her more open to him and she
found herself telling him all about London, homesickness, and the
emptiness of living for the job.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy and I
love my job, but it kind of makes you ask yourself if that’s all
there is. I go to church, but it’s not the same when you go alone,
then go home to an empty apartment. I never told mom and dad, I
didn’t want to disappoint them.”

“Why would that disappoint them? It’s
natural that you’d feel that way since you’re in an different
country. And I have a feeling this was a choice. I’m sure you
didn’t want for suitors.”

“There were some guys, but when I told
them about my faith and about abstinence they didn’t really stick
around for long. If they can’t wait and respect my decision then
they probably aren’t for me. I wonder if there are still any Godly
men who would be willing to wait till marriage.”

“I’m sure there are, you just have to
look closer,” said Jordan quietly. A slight breeze chilled Melissa,
and something in Jordan’s voice made her heart race.