The Pearl of the of Sea

Chapter 9

    After the school day ends, Steve arrives to pick up his kids. Tom arrives in his wheelchair by the side of his car and Steve gets out of the car to assist Tom into the car, but he notices Neenah isn't with him, "Where's Neenah?"
    "She told me she was going to her boyfriend's house."
    "What!? I keep telling her that I don't want her seeing that man!"
Tom shrugs his shoulders, "And I keep telling Angela that I love her and she doesn't want to listen either."
Steve puts his hand up, "Tom, that's not important right now!"
Tom rolls away from the car, "She's important to me!"
Steve crosses his arms, "Oh, is that why you stalk her?" Steve sees Tom stop and turn around, "Yeah, the school called and told me what happened."
    "Dad...I thought we didn't have any phones."
    Steve shakes his head, "After I was stalked by Michelle Dyson throughout my junior and senior years of high school, not to mention still to this day she probably still creeps on me!" Steve then cries, "Now my own son is stalking someone, do you know how that makes me feel!?"
"Dad, I wasn't stalking Angela!" Tom screams.
"What do you call message after message every day?" Steve shakes his finger at him and yells, "I told you NOT to bother this girl and you did anyway, you're like your sister you never listen!"
    "Dad, it wasn't stalking, I just wanted her to know that I loved her."
"Well obviously she doesn't love you, so just let her go!" Steve stomps his foot.
    Tom starts to grind his teeth, "No, I love her too much to let her go!" he then rolls away from the car, "Why don't you accept the fact mom will never come back and maybe I'll get over Angela!"
"You know what? You can roll your ass home, because I'm going home without you!" Steve gets in the car and he sees a bunch of people staring, "Mind your own business!" and he drives off.
Steve drives to Epiphany Church, it's a white building that has an all-purpose room on one side and the other side has the church itself. Steve walks into the building and heads into the church blessing himself before he enters. He walks up to one of the pews and kneels to pray, "Dear God, it's me Steven Cashlin, I want to know why you did this to me." Steve starts to get teary-eyed, "I want to know why my life has turned to crap." He then looks up, "Why does my daughter hate me, why did you have my son put in a wheelchair, why doesn't their mother care about them?" he then starts to cry, "Tell, me lord why? You have to help me, I can't take it anymore!" he then puts his face closer to his hands and whispers softly, "I try to be a good Catholic, I even try harder to be a good father, please help me, please God just help me." He sits back and continues to cry to himself.
As Steve is crying Annemarie watches as she stands by the door blessing herself, "Oh man, that's Tom's dad." She sees him look over, "Uh-Oh!" she turns around and leaves.
Steve gets up and walks down to the altar, "This is where I got married, this is where my kids were baptized." He kneels down at the altar, "and this will be where my funeral is." He looks up at the cross on the wall as he gets back up, "Please answer my prayer, God." He stands back up and leaves the church.
Meanwhile, Tom is pushing himself home and he's starting to get really tired so he stops to take a breath, "Oh, God why me!?" he starts to push himself again and he stops to shake out his arms.
As Steve is driving home he sees Tom on the side of the road so he pulls over and gets out of the car, "Hey, Tom, I'm sorry I ditched you."
Tom rolls up next to the passenger side of the car and opens the door, "Yeah whatever."
Steve lifts Tom into the car and he shuts the door, and gets back in the car, and drives home. When he arrives at the apartment he parks the car and puts his arm around Tom, "Tom, do you believe in God?"
"Sure, why do you ask?"
Steve looks out the window where he sees a bunch of teens smoking and shoving each other around, then he looks back at Tom, "I thought maybe with your mom leaving, you losing your ability to walk and going from being rich to being poor, you lost faith in God."
"Well, I'll admit that maybe I'm questioning the existence of God, but I still believe that there's some sort of higher power." Tom smiles, "I mean everything was just so perfect before mom left."
Steve shakes his head, "No, it wasn't." he takes a deep breath and he touches Tom's hand, "You were too young to notice, but your mom had a bad addiction to prescription pain killers, that eventually lead to her using heroin. I didn't want to tell you kids, but I basically made her leave." Steve takes his hand off Tom's hand and puts his forehead on the steering wheel, "I'm sorry, I didn't want you to know the truth, but I couldn't keep it a secret anymore."
    Tom hugs Steve, "I had a feeling something was wrong with her, I just tried to pretend there wasn't."
Steve pulls Tom off him and grabs his head and looks deep into his brown eyes, "Please, don't tell your sister she adored your mom." He lets go and gets out of the car to help Tom out.
After Steve places Tom back in his wheelchair, he turns to him, "I promise, I won't. I hate to see her upset."
    Steve hugs Tom, "Thank you." He holds Tom tighter, "I'm sorry, I know it's hard, but we'll get through it, I promise." he says as he pushes Tom inside the apartment.