Wings Of The Dawn by Tracie Peterson

Author:Tracie Peterson [Peterson, Tracie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-60742-928-9
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2008-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

eleven

Boom!

Cheryl awoke just before dawn to a late summer thunderstorm in full progress. The flashes of lightning lit the room up as though it were daylight, and with each flash came an earsplitting crash of thunder. The windowpane rattled mercilessly and barely had time to stop vibrating before the next strike came.

Sitting up and hugging her knees to her chest, Cheryl remembered how frightened she’d been of storms as a child. “Think of something pleasant,” her mother would say. But for Cheryl there were so many unpleasant things to dwell upon that the pleasant ones didn’t stand a chance.

Glancing at the clock on her nightstand, she saw the red illuminated numbers and read 5:45. It will soon be light, she thought and decided to go ahead and start the day. The storm would surely seem less menacing if she dressed and busied herself. She went to find her standard wardrobe, T-shirts and jeans, but suddenly felt compelled to do something with her hair. She studied it in the mirror for a moment. The golden ash of her blond hair seemed dingy against her pale skin. When had she last washed it? She couldn’t remember.

That determined her first order of business, and despite the fact that the thunderstorm raged on around her, Cheryl stepped into a steaming shower.

The water ran down over her head, penetrating the layers of dirty blond curls, saturating her dry, abused skin. It felt better than Cheryl could ever remember a shower feeling. She lathered her hair and scrubbed until her head ached from the attention. She rinsed this out and lathered again—determined to wash away even the remotest particle of dirt. With this accomplished, she poured on expensive conditioner and massaged her hair the way her hairdresser Michelle had told her to do. Good grief, she thought, Michelle must think I fell off the face of the earth.

“I guess in a way, I did,” she mused aloud. Some people sang in the shower, but Cheryl had always been given to having full conversations with herself.

“I should make an appointment to have my hair cut.” She held up the limp lengthy curls and sighed. There had been a time when she’d been a regular every week at the beauty salon.

“What have I done to myself?” she questioned, knowing full well the answer. She’d given up on life, but slowly through the efforts of her friends, and even her enemies, Cheryl realized that just because she wanted life to end was no sure sign that it would. She picked up a plush washcloth and soap and began to wash her body, thinking as she did that she needed to somehow find her way back among the living.

“But I don’t feel alive,” she said and passed the cloth over her stomach. She remembered the baby, something that happened at the strangest moments. As usual, tears came unbidden to her eyes. Why was this so hard to get past? It was just a baby. An unborn fetus without a name or, for all she knew, sex.

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