Preacher's Daughter: Chapter 3

[OK. I may be stating the obvious here, but this chapter is a part of an ongoing story. It may make more sense if you look up and read the previous installments first. I have the first three chapters (which includes a prologue) pinned at the end of this story]

Clark had made the 911 call as soon as he saw the “door” closed, he then waited for the paramedics and police to show up before calling his much older sister, who was 15 years older than he was. As a sister, a true sister, he never knew her as that, because as a kid there was that identity exchange, and considered her to be more of an aunt than a sister, although now, he knows better. He waited until one of the paramedics were present before he made the call though.

“Hello?” Lara said groggily on her end of the call. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s about Mom, she just died.”

“What? No. No! Don’t joke around like that.”

“If you don’t believe me, I can put one of the paramedics on.”

Jon, one of the paramedics was used to dealing with situations like this every day looked at Clark as he almost instinctively reached out for the phone. “Hello, this is Jon, one of the paramedics for the Philadelphia Fire and Rescue. Your Mother, Mrs. Doris Johnson, died at 12:00 midnight exactly. And from the way things look, it was of natural causes with a total heart and body failure at that time.”

“OK, put Clark back on,”

“Clark,” Jon handed Clark back the phone.

“So, what are we going to do now?” Lara asked as Clark took the phone back.

“Well pretty much she’s already made the arrangements almost a year ago when she was in one of her better moments. So, the arrangements are already made, just need to be set into motion. She didn’t want a big, massive funeral, she’ll be getting a simple cremation, and a small ceremony we can have in one of the smaller rooms at the funeral home.” As Clark talked, he put the phone on speaker, so that the paramedic could hear what was being said.

“With what Funeral Home?” Lara asked.

“Serenity Funeral Home,”

“How soon can we have the funeral?” Lara asked ignoring what Clark just said.

“Well,” Jon was the one who spoke up, “if the coroner agrees with my findings that her death was of natural causes, then she could be cremated as soon as three days from now, and the coroner can hand her ashes over to you at Serenity and you could possibly have any services as soon as the end of next week.”

“O-okay,” Lara said, as Clark moved from the edge of his mother’s bedroom to a more comfortable place on the couch downstairs. “So, what are you going to do? Living in that house isn’t going to be an option for very long, neither is coming to live with me. Maybe for a couple of days, but after that--.”

“Lara,” Clark sighed, “none of this is unexpected. It wasn’t a matter of if, but when, the house is already in my name, I brought it from her for $1.00 plus the lawyer fees. And the lawyer has all of the paperwork in his office.”

“Smart move,” Jon commented, realizing that maybe he shouldn’t have.

“And I was already talking with McAllister Bros., one of those people who buys houses for like 50,000 and renovates them.”

“When?”

“Earlier when I knew mom was on her last legs for real,”

“I wish I would have been there when she died.”

“Lara, I told you at 5:00 tonight was going to be the last night. You know I did.”

“True, how much is that guy going to pay you?”

“$50,000.”

“That’s not a lot,” Lara commented, “for a house in northeast Philly.”

“On one hand it’s not, but considering I want to be out of here as soon as possible, it is.”

“But where are you going to go?”

“I think you already know the answer to that one,” Clark looked at the picture that was still in his hand.

“Clark, you tried looking her up a few times, you don’t even know for sure where she moved to, and her looks have certainly changed from when that picture you have of her was taken, you don’t even know if her last name is still “Collins”. I heard that there is the possibility that it’s not. Married some girl named Dawn.”

“Dawn’s her kid sister, goofy ah--.”

“Language. You and Rachael seemed to formulate a form of cursing that was all your own. Now how do you know where to find Rachael. You didn’t find one of those letters that mom intercepted, did you?”

“I--.” Clark didn’t want to say that some old white-haired angel with a schoolboy charm named Gabriel told her, Lara would think that he was nuttier than she was. And he certainly he didn’t want to tell even Lara that he was in almost constant contact with her the whole five years. “I think I figured that part out, and I do believe her name is still Miss. Rachael Collins.”

“If you’re sure,” Lara cursed silently.

“I am. On both,” Clark had moved from his mother’s room to the living room, and looked at the laptop that openly sat to the side of the coffee table, it was still fairly new, just a couple of months old. With this laptop, he was able to use his cellphone as a hot-spot for the computer, and still be able to use the phone. As he powered up the computer, he watched as police officers silently moved back and forth in-front of him, but none of them seemed to need him directly. “Listen, they’re going to be here for a while, and there are a couple of other things I could be doing until they need me.”

“OK,” Lara said, “do you want me to come over?”

“What for?” Clark asked. “We already have everything covered, I’m not under any stress, in fact I feel kind of relieved. We can get together tomorrow to go to the funeral home to get that ball rolling, I’m sure the paramedic will give some preliminary paperwork for that before they leave tonight.”

“OK, if you need me call me.”

“I will,” Clark hung up the cellphone and activated the mobile hot-spot, while he waited for the phone and the computer to make their connection, he made himself a small pot of coffee, he knew it was going to be a long night

Rachael was in bed, but wide awake, usually once she was in bed, and put on her Christian Rock App, she was good for the night, but for some reason she was wired up, she found herself on her social network looking at some funny video someone in one of her groups put up. One of the groups she was in were Christians from all over the United States, and another was a pre-tribulation rapture group, a Christian belief she strongly believed in.

Suddenly, there was a ping on her computer, and a message saying she had one friend request. At first, she treated it casually, she got one almost once a day, sometimes it was from one of the people from one of those groups who wanted to get to know her on a (AHEM) way more personal level than she wanted to, or just simply wanted to be alerted whenever she put up a post on Facebook. But this came from Clark via their usual chat generator

Hello, this is Clark I have a few things to tell you that just happened concerning Mom's death.

Rachael’s eyes widened like two saucers as she stared at the screen. “MO-OMM!”

Carolyn was at the door almost instantaneously, as were her father, man in his mid-50’s with thick, salt and pepper curly hair and blue eyes.

“Is anything wrong?” Her father asked, as he looked at Rachael, whose face had turned almost colorless. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“More like an answer to a prayer.”

“Well, as a pastor, I’ve seen many answered prayers, and while many of them are answered in crazy ways, I’ve never seen one answered in a way that made people think you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Well, it happened to me, especially since I just prayed the prayer not more than a few minutes ago.”

“What did you pray for,” Andrew asked, as he listened to the song that was currently playing, “that they would play a descent version of “The Midnight Hour” on the radio?”

“No--.”

“Andrew,” Carolyn scolded, he was a good man, but sometimes, especially when he wasn’t in the pulpit, he could sometimes get to be a little bit of a smart Alec. “Is this about Clark?”

“Clark?” Andrew asked. “What’s he got to do with this?”

“Everything and yes,” Rachael said, “I prayed about Clark that he would be somehow released from his obligations to his mother earlier tonight.”

“OK, that’s natural, you liked him, he liked you, and now after being apart for a few years, you’re beginning to think about him again, only more as an adult.”

“I prayed that prayer only a few minutes ago,”

“Well prayers aren’t that are instantly answered like some microwave dinner,” Andrew laughed, “give it some time.”

“Dad,” Rachael turned her laptop so that her father could see the screen, “look at the stupid screen.”

Andrew read the message.

“Are you going to answer it?” Carolyn asked as a beaming smile came to her face.

“Of course.”

“And when you respond, you better send him an updated picture, the last time he saw you, you just turned 16 and had a boy’s haircut, had a pimply face, and had braces on your teeth, and had an affinity to wearing boy’s clothes!” Andrew teased, even though it was true.

“OK,” Rachael had enough, she turned her computer so she could use it, then pointed to the door, “out, everybody out!”

Hello Clark, what’s the matter?

While she waited for Clark to respond with his return message, Rachael quickly moved the laptop from her room to the table on the kitchen downstairs.

I just want to let you know that we don’t need to be so secret about our getting together, I think it will come out better of we talk face to face.

It took Clark just a few moments to bring the video app up on his computer, it was something he had, but never initialized, now that he had it, it was going to come in handy. He called up the number that Rachael had given him and was surprised when he saw Rachael’s face show up, not the pimply faced girl with boy cut hair and braces, but this girl was clean faced and had perfect teeth, and she had let her hair hang down.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mrs. Collins,” Clark teased, “I was looking for Rachael.”

“Clark!” Rachael wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry. “It’s me, Rachael. Although it is true that me and mom do look like twins separated by a few years.”

“Let’s just say you no longer look like the picture I have of you,” Clark said

“What picture would that be?”

Clark held up a picture of Rachael when she was 16 to the computer camera, she was in unisex overalls and was pimply faced with a boy’s haircut.

“Oh, dear God in heaven, is that how you remember me?” Rachael barked.

“Just kidding,” Clark responded, “I do have all of those pictures you sent me over the computer, but they don’t do you justice.”

“I want you to do something, burn that picture of me, that tomboy image is no longer me, more or less.” Rachael smiled as she leaned into the camera to show off her pimple-free face and an appearance more appropriate for Clark to remember.

“Can I take a snapshot of this?”

“Uh,” Rachael shrugged, she was in her nightgown, but it still made her look more presentable than the 5-year-old picture that Clark had of her. “If you want.”

Clark made a few strokes on his computer, as he saved the current image of Rachael to his photo files.

“I also have a few pics I want to send you.”

“So, before we go anywhere with this,” Clark said, “there are a few things I need to know.”

“Like?”

“Are you married…I mean is there, you know anybody special in your life? I mean we’ve been talking a lot over the past few years, but there were a lot of things we weren’t able to convey to one another.”

Rachael looked at him.

“You know, any guys?” He got no answer. “Any girls?”

“No, but I am at the right age for that now.” Rachael thought about it, then decided to torment Clark for a moment, “although there is this woman at work that I have a special relationship with.”

“Oh, gosh,” Clark was disappointed. “wow…uh.”

“Woah!” Rachael realized what was going through Clark’s head. “No. It’s not like that; yes Rosemary, that’s her name, is pansexual and pulls no punches about it, but my relationship with her is strictly platonic at least on my part.”

Clark smiled at that one. “If you want, we can now try to pick up where we left off five years ago,”

Rachael let out a laugh. “That’s not going to happen!”

Clark looked at Rachael sadly through the computer. “Why not?”

“Because, that foulmouthed tomboy who lived next door to you no longer exists,” Rachael frowned, “although, I can still be foulmouthed at times.”

“How ’bout we start something fresh and new, here and now?”

“That we can do. Turn the page, start something new, bury the past.”

“Speaking of burying the past,” Clark looked at Rachael, “my mother just died tonight.”

“Tonight? When?”

“Just a few minutes ago actually, almost right at the stroke of midnight.”

“Clark, this is going to sound weird, but--.”