Chapter Thirty Four
It Came to Me in the Middle of the Night
Links to previous chapters: Ch1 Ch2 Ch3 Ch4 Ch5 Ch6 Ch7 Ch8 Ch9 Ch10 Ch11 Ch12 Ch13 Ch14 Ch15 Ch16 Ch17 Ch18 Ch19 Ch20 Ch21 Ch22 Ch23 Ch24 Ch25 Ch26 Ch27 Ch28 Ch29 Ch30 Ch31 Ch32 Ch33
I was sitting hunched up in bed, head in hands, unable to sleep. Julia was softly snoring beside me. I wondered how she could possibly sleep after the events of the evening and our lengthy interviews by police. “Why do these things happen to me?”, I thought. “Is there really a god? Am I being punished for my lack of faith?”
“Couldn’t you just punish me and leave the others alone?” I beseeched the ceiling wordlessly. I wondered if I was being tested, but… if there is a god then he already knows that I have no faith. What would be the point? My thoughts went round and round in circles. It was definitely my fault! I was useless. I can’t protect my family. I don’t deserve them. No answers or logic came out of my distressed brain. “No wonder people drink and take drugs!”, I thought. I remembered that the strongest drug in the house was chocolate. That wouldn’t work. I wriggled clumsily out of bed and went to fetch it anyway.
My thigh was hurting where it had been bumped against the telegraph pole. My elbow was stinging from sliding on the concrete footpath. I had pushed Horatio’s stroller aside as the dirty white ute had swerved onto the nature strip beside the group of us while we were walking home from our dinner at the local café. Michelle, young and nimble, leapt aside as the vehicle had lurched towards her, revving horribly. Sarika called emergency services while the ute screeched off into the distance and turned toward the highway. She told the police that she had clearly recognised Wayne’s face as the ute had roared into the light of the streetlamp. Little Horatio, despite all the noises and a bumpy ride in the stroller, which came to a stop at the fence line of number 25, hadn’t even woken! I had been yelling, Michelle was wailing loudly. Lights had come on over the front porches of darkened houses. People were emerging to see what was going on. Julia, amazingly, had the presence of mind to remember the number plate as the vehicle took off away from the scene.
The ambulance paramedic had checked me over and pronounced me well enough to not need a trip to hospital. I was able to stay and be interviewed with the others by the attendant police officers. The whole street was awake, lights were on, an ambulance was lit up like a Christmas tree. Police cars, with sirens now off, flashed blue light across the scene. We could hear other sirens in the distance, hopefully in pursuit of our assailant. Police radios buzzed and chattered.
I had replayed all this in my head as I had tried to sleep. I could hear Michelle and Sarika still awake talking in the lounge room and soon discovered that they had eaten all the chocolate, so I busied myself making a pot of tea.
That’s when it came to me: I had been very busy feeling sorry for myself. I had been very busy blaming myself. It had all been about me in my head. Poor me! But I thought then, from the point of view of Michelle. Her torment had started long ago before she had even met Wayne. She had suffered his bad temper and narcissistic demands long before I had inadvertently come into the picture. Julia too had been struggling with the horrible pressure that Wayne had applied to her and Michelle. An AVO had been necessary before I even met them.
All in all, the relationships we had all formed had been the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me. I hoped that they felt the same way about me. I love them so much that I am glad that I can be here to help, even to divert danger from them, painful as that may be. It’s not just about my romantic love for Julia. I love Michelle too, like a daughter. I love Horatio to bits. I had a surge of gratitude then, while the kettle boiled, for the opportunity to be there to push that stroller away from harm.
Life is no longer about me, me, me, and my desire to be a good helping vicar, my ticket into heaven, sucking up to God. Life is about love and being part of our group. To love and be loved. If the bishop thinks I will go to hell, then I am quite willing to do so if it means that the people I love will be safe, thriving and developing as they should, in this world. I’ll deal with the next world when I get to it.
“Maybe I’ll be reincarnated as a cockroach.”, I thought dryly, chuckling for the first time in quite a while.