Short Stories
Sheila Murphy sighed as she walked away from the house, past the picket fence, and across the street. She was running away, but she doubted anyone even noticed her departure. They were too wrapped up in their own problems and lives to recognize that she had walked out the door—walked out of their lives for what she hoped would be forever. She was tired of being neglected and ignored, despite her many vain attempts to solicit her family’s attention.
Sheila had noticed from an early age that her family was different. First there was Aunt Charlie who had come to live with the family when Sheila was very young. So young, in fact, that very few people believed Sheila when she claimed to remember the whole affair surrounding the dismal end of her aunt’s clown career, her subsequent “entire day living on the streets that scarred her for life,” and the inevitable conclusion to the drama that brought circus Charlie to live with her long-neglected sister (Sheila’s mother) who was ironically the more successful of the pair.
Sheila knew this was true, yet the rest of the family never acknowledged such a story. In order to appear more normal to the outside world, they tried to convince everyone (including themselves) that Aunt Charlie had always led a respectable life and had no scandal in her past, much less a scandal involving a circus and a night on the streets. But they could not fool Sheila. She saw the faraway look in her aunt’s eyes when the circus passed through town. And then there was Charlie’s suspicious juggling talent and tendency toward colorful clothes and gaudy makeup.
Charlie had evidently been the more beloved of the two sisters growing up. She was not only the beauty of the family, but she also displayed the most talent. No one realized at the time, of course, that these “talents” would lead her to the life of a circus clown; if they had they might have been more inclined to check her behavior. But as it was, she was almost required to achieve greatness, which accounted, in Sheila’s opinion, for her often moody behavior at having to accept the kindness of her unpraised sister.
But even her occasional bitter gloominess was overshadowed by the intense appearance of depression exhibited by her lawyer husband. Sheila saw their marriage as an act of over-compensation. Aunt Charlie had married a decidedly dreary man with a respectable but boring occupation in an attempt to off-set her ridiculous past. Uncle Jim, on the other hand, had compensated for his flaws merely by following through with the act of marriage. This was because he was irreparably fearful of commitment, so to make up for it he married the first woman who would tolerate his painful personality. That happened to be Aunt Charlie, and just as Sheila could recall her aunt’s arrival at the house, she could also remember their wedding.
It had been a gaudy affair, due mainly to the fact that Jim could not make a decision and thus left his unconventional wife to see to the wedding details. Sheila’s mother, knowing that Charlie was attempting to distance herself from her clowny image, altered some of the plans to make the wedding appear more traditional, but the result was a sickening mix between the two styles that only served to emphasize the incompatibility of the couple. Adding to the uncomfortable decorations, the wedding was worsened by the groom’s terrified expression. He shook uncontrollably at the prospect of taking such an important vow, and he wore a certain “deer in the headlights” look that made everyone uncomfortable. Throughout the service, Sheila had to fight back a burning desire to walk up behind the petrified groom and yell “Boo.” She could just picture him going into cardiac arrest, and she slightly suspected that he had experienced some kind of panic attack anyway, because he was mysteriously absent for much of the reception.
At the time, Sheila had expected that, married as she now was, her aunt would move out of the house to prove to the world that she could survive apart from her sister. But with an indecisive husband it soon became clear that this would never occur. There were some close calls, however. They had visited countless prospective homes over the years, each one better than the last. But just when Charlie’s hopes were raised that they would finally buy a house, Jim would find a flaw in the purchase and she would again have to resign herself to accepting her sister’s charity.
So they remained as invaders in Sheila’s home. But they largely ignored her, so she did not mind them as much as she minded their eight year-old son who followed her around, constantly getting underfoot. He was a veritable stalker. She had declared when he turned four that he was the most annoying child on the entire planet, and perhaps the entire universe, because no alien could possibly be more aggravating than him. She could see hints of both his parents in him, which made for an interesting fusion of character. He would pick up on his mother’s silly antics, tumbling about as if he too had joined the circus. But at the same time his father’s gravity gave his actions focus and he seemed almost diligent in the objectives of his play. Unfortunately, he was the only member of the family who paid any attention to Sheila. Yet ironically he was the one person she wished most to avoid.
But she had no way to defer his attention, so he continued to tag along as she went about her life, which included attempting to capture the notice of her grandfather, affectionately known as “Smokey” because of his ever worsening chain-smoking habit. Sheila was convinced that the second-hand smoke had played a role in the deaths of every pet she had ever owned, which was quite a list. She had forced him to attend, against his will, the funerals of two dogs, five goldfish, one cat, three hamsters, and one wild armadillo (which even Sheila admitted was a pet doomed to failure.)
Grandpa Smokey was a man of the world. He had experienced many hardships in his life, including the moderately recent death of his beloved wife of nearly fifty years. He had been wild in his youth, and in order to ensure no one made the same mistakes he had, he constantly told appalling stories about his younger years. In their few times together, he tried to scare Sheila into behaving by teaching her the ways of the world and its cruelty. His cynical advice only served to discourage Sheila even more from any hope that her life would improve.
But as old, crusty and sometimes scary as he was, Sheila clung to Smokey’s every word because he more or less replaced her father who had died in a tragic pool accident when she was only six. Her father had been the light of her life, and that was why she worked so hard to gain from her grandfather what she had lost with her father’s death. He had made sure she knew every day that she was loved, and they had shared countless hours together playing and laughing. But now his absence left a hole in her very being—a gaping abyss in her heart that she thought could never be filled. She constantly watched home videos of him to try to fill the void. He was always laughing in the videos and winking at the camera, and she imagined that he was winking for her alone like he always used to do every time he told her he loved her.
Because of her father’s absence, Sheila had gained a curiosity at a very early age about life after death. When she was not busy working at one of her many jobs, her mother sat and talked with Sheila about her father. She explained that he was in heaven, and she meant it. She did not just say it like people do just to make themselves feel better; she believed he was with God.
In these rare moments together, she told Sheila stories from the big family Bible, and the stories captivated Sheila because they were true and she wanted to know all about the people in them. Her mother read stories about Adam and Eve and stories about Noah, Abraham, and Moses. But the best stories of all were about Jesus, because Sheila knew that if she had met Jesus he would have cared about her the way her father had. He would not have been too busy or distracted to notice her. Her mother told her about Jesus’s untimely death, but how he knew it would happen and he let it occur anyway. And she told her daughter that anyone could get to know Jesus, even better than she knew her father, if they believed in his existence and tried to emulate him in their lives.
And Sheila knew that this kind of life was possible because she saw it in her mother. Despite the fact that her mother was hardly home between jobs, she knew that she was working to support their large family by herself. Sheila would have thought that Uncle Jim’s salary would help ease her mother’s load, but apparently this was not the case because he had been losing money ever since he had set up his own practice.
So her mother worked hard to take care of everyone, which was ironic because when she was growing up, she had been constantly overshadowed by her attractive and gifted sister. Not only that, but her steadiness of character lent her easily to abandonment by those she loved, which was exactly what happened. But what truly showed Sheila the genuineness of her mother’s faith was her reaction to the neglect: she continued to love them all. When Aunt Charlie appeared suddenly with her complete and utter failure of a life, Sheila’s mother kindly offered her a home with not so much as a trace of bitterness that she had been ignored for so long.
But Sheila missed her mother while she worked and wished that they were not so distant. They hardly knew anything about one another. And because of this, despite her better judgment, Sheila began to believe that her mother did not really care about her. And once this irrational thought took root, the hole in Sheila’s heart grew and she felt completely and utterly alone.
That was why she was running now. Running away from a family that did not love her. But where would her running take her? She considered requesting to stay at her best friend’s home, but that would be the first place her family would look for her—if they looked for her. No, she had to escape them completely. But who else cared about her?
God. The answer came involuntarily to her mind like a swimmer coming up for breath. God loved her, but where was He? Where had He been during her painful childhood that left her heart so empty?
But then she realized that He had been with her all along. Her mother had said that God was everywhere and that Jesus had died so that he could fill each person’s heart, and she wanted that more than anything.
So did that mean He was with her now? She looked up to realize she was standing at her own front door again. She had been walking for what seemed like hours, but somehow she had come full-circle and was now home again. But even if God was filling her heart, would she be able to survive in a place where no one else loved her?
She hadn’t knocked, but suddenly the door opened and every single member of Sheila’s family came rushing out, nearly knocking her over in their haste to reach the family car. Her mother noticed her first and burst into tears without warning, pulling her into a fierce embrace.
And suddenly the entire family was joined in a group hug around Sheila. It was a hug that told her they had worried about her. It was a hug that meant they loved her. It was a hug that changed everything.
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