Mallory's Melody

Chapter 26

SHE WOULD NEVER CALL HIM FATHER AGAIN

Mallory hit the accelerator harder through the blur of tears. She squinted farther into the night and struggled to keep a firm grip on Susan's Corolla. But the genuine struggle was keeping her emotions in check. She was angry at Cole, and it baffled her that the anger had no solid basis except for the claim Diana had laid. It all starts with Cole Trent, she'd said. Yes, Diana, with all her foxiness and stealth wasn't exactly a trustworthy source, but there was something vaguely indisputable about the claim concerning Cole. Mallory had attested to it over the years, noticed it about him. And even though she couldn't exactly pinpoint how, she couldn't deny that Cole was a pathological liar, a man who withheld secrets he was terrible at hiding.

She'd been living with a liar all these years.

It wasn't open to debates. It was a truism. She was mad at Cole's recent behavior, about his indifference to her stay in the academy, but now that Diana's claim had challenged her myopic view of his character, it became clear that she never truly had a reason to have ever trusted him. She'd always found him too private, overly secretive. Always saw that part of him that was ever too eager to sheath painful truths from her. It was clear when she questioned him about God's sovereignty, about why He, in all his power and grace, had a justice system so porous, that the bad guys go scot-free and the good, unjustly punished. His justice system was flawed. Life was unfair, and without the bliss one expected under the authority of an omnipotent God—whom she now doubted thanks to her affiliation with Eric Rossi. Maybe he was right. Maybe God was just a cooked up fairytale to subdue rascals and give kids something to dream about at night.

But Cole never told her in explicit terms that Life was unfair. He wrapped his answers in pretty gift-boxes and repeated mundane and inconsequential phrases like, 'what you sow you reap,' What folly that was! She didn't sow her elimination from the academy, and here and behold, she had reaped it. It proved to her the errancy of the bible he cherry-picked verses from and at the same time affirmed her father's mendacious tendencies. He had lied to her, and if Diana be truthful—he had lied more than she thought.

But today she would force the truth out of him. Be it he laid on his deathbed!

Mallory sped farther into the night, shattering a speed-limit that could earn her a fine from the hillside police. But she didn't care. Ever since her elimination from the academy, life had lost its salt, its meaning. Being morally ethical was less appealing now. She'd become stoic to adventure, resistant to change, and deeply in love with her bed. But with that feeling of emptiness came another feeling accompanying it, a meta-feeling of some sort. She felt bad about feeling empty, hated her lack of passion and incentive. Even playing the violin was tedious nowadays. Her notes had become stifled and forced, born from a place that used to be fiery and alive. It was the reality of things. What was life without the dreamy visions and fantasies that colored it up, what was the point now that her dreams of being a starlight star had been slaughtered alive?

Mallory sped into Crown General's driveway and got out of the car. A sudden surge of breeze lifted her hair and threw it to her face. It was night, but Crown General's outward look made it appear as if it was otherwise, with its aesthetic and light-bedecked sign-post, and it's sterile and white inward appearance. It made her reminisce about the time Cole used to bring her here—a dozen of the times to dislodge a bone that had found its way down her throat after a scrumptious chicken soup. Mallory laughed and entered the hospital. What good times those were. Now, distant memories.

"Welcome to Crown General. How may I help you please," Said the blonde receptionist in a monotone and robotic voice. She hardly even nudged her head forward to look up at Mallory, Just stared at her phone as though hypnotized.