Finding Him

by Naomi Townsend

  Finding Him

  By Naomi Townsend

  Chapter 1

  The Search "Our family is falling apart Paul! And you don't even care!" Martha’s heartbreaking words ring through the house. Boom boom boom! Heavy boots stomp down the stairs. Click. The door unlocks. Swoosh! The front door swings open Paul’s anger pulsates through the knob. Bang! A car door slams so hard the windows rattle. Ding... ding, the car waits ready to go. Paul takes a moment, should he really leave? Vroooom! The question is answered. Skuuurrrttttt! The car rips out the driveway.

  Silence. No one in the house stirs. The silence from this dramatic episode from Paul and Martha Wilson is still in the air. Mrs. Wilson returns to her bed heavy hearted and defeated. She wonders can her heart take any more of this pain? She falls asleep on her tear stained pillow. In the next room her oldest daughter Anika lies awake cradling her two frightened sisters. Her heart is beating as tears stream down her face. She wonders will her parents ever stop fighting like this?

  This is a reoccurring episode in the Wilson home. Mr. And Mrs. Wilson are constantly having late night chats that turn into heated discussions about the failure and misfortune of the family and why Paul is to blame. Now don't get the wrong idea here the Wilson family is not poor by any stretch of the imagination. But they’re not filthy rich either. Like most parents they make it work, in their case well enough to send their seven children to Luden Marks Christian Academy (a prestigious school in Williamson Bay County) and to live in a good neighborhood. Both Paul and Martha work at the same construction company (B & B Construction) where they met 25 years ago and fell madly in love. Almost like something out if a fairytale. But, as of late it seems that their marriage may be coming to an end.

  Beeeep beep! The sound of Anika's alarm clock startles her out of her thoughts. She hasn't been to sleep yet in hopes she would hear her dad come in, it's now 5:45 and she has to get up and get dressed for church. Anika silently slips out of her bed and hurries to the bathroom. In the Wilson house you're either early to the bathroom or you get a cold shower.

  As she is finishing getting ready she hears the front door creak open and heavy footsteps come up the stairs. She instinctively turns off the bathroom lights. She's relieved her dad's home, but angry that he keeps leaving.

  By now Anika has been up for 28 hours (you can’t even imagine the bags under her eyes). Anika can't even remember the last time she's gotten a proper night's rest, but as they say there’s no rest for the weary. After she hears her parents bedroom door shut she turns the lights back on breathing a sigh of relief. Maybe this blow up will finally fix them she thinks. It all has to fall apart for it to get better right?

  She attempts to fix the bags under her eyes, (it doesn’t go well). After many failed attempts she throws the brush she’s using down in frustration. Hot tears roll down her cheeks. The emotions of last night’s events, the previous nights of war, and barely any sleep all rush out in a hot stream of tears. Upset at herself for crying over her parents she tries to brush the tears away and move on, but as those kinds of persistent tears do they continued rolling getting harder and harder as they came. Anika wasn't just crying because of her stress she was crying for her little brothers and sisters, they didn't deserve to live in so much instability. The foolishness and stubbornness of her parents is hurting them and they refuse to open their eyes and see the damage that they're doing. And the worst part is she can't tell anyone or the Wilson name would be diminished and she'd be in more trouble than she knew how to deal with.

  After a while she pulls herself together. She pours water in her eyes to reduce the redness and walks out the bathroom. When she opens the door she’s greeted with a line of her siblings waiting for the bathroom. Luckily her youngest sister is at the front of the line and does not yell at her because she had taken so long, but gives her a hug instead. She tells everyone good morning and goes back to her room. She shuts the door and grabs her phone (idle scrolling is a great stress reliever). While scrolling through her phone she runs across an and ad for an app to find people to talk to a sort of Tindr for teens if you will. As hurting people seeking an escape do, she downloads the app out of desperation masked as "curiosity”.

  You may have already noticed the recurring drama at the Wilson house has been none stop for much longer than a few months. These battles have been sprinkled throughout their marriage, but these past couple of years the fights have ramped up. Her mom or dad are storming out in the early hours of the morning or being overly upset at the kids. As you may know parent drama is a whole different level of stress and worriedness. Anika is a type of person who puts together plans before executing anything. She's been planning for a blow up from her parents since she was 14. She's gotten her driver's licenses, taken cooking class in case she has to feed her siblings for more than one meal, she has a job and money saved in case anything happens, and a notebook full of several escape routes in case her parents ever get violent. She's prepared physically for the worst. But, spiritually and emotionally she's hardly ready gir the trials ahead.

  For the next hour and a half Anika spends time on the app. She has already received some less than holy propositions. She is baffled at how early people were up looking for sex, especially on a Sunday. But, she simply blocks them. An hour passes and she has blocked what feels like a million boys looking for the one thing she is not giving up. Just as she was giving up hope she gets a message from a guy named Anderson Peterson. "Hi!" he wrote. She replied to him in the same way he had (never had she seen a guy use an exclamation point when texting hi). They had the "basic getting to know you" conversation but they clicked instantly. Anika knew in her heart that something was special about him. They planned to meet after they both got out of church at a local frozen yogurt spot. Anika understood what she was doing was risky and she could end up kidnapped or something worse but there's a certain level of desperation that makes you do wildly irrational things, it's that level between existing and rock bottom.

  Anika could hardly pay attention in church (for obvious reasons). Today she is even able to pull off the "everything is fine" act without any hiccups. She thinks "God must be really working in my favor today."

  After church Anika asks if she can go to Yo Yo Land to meet a friend (technically not a lie). Her parents agree without a second thought (Williamson Bay is a fairly small town and everyone seemingly knows everyone so in theory she's" safe"). As soon as she gets the okay she dashes over to Yo Yo Land. Her and Anderson have planned to meet right outside of the shop at the table with the flamingo pink umbrella. Anika arrives first so she sits at the table with the pink umbrella thankful that it is empty. Anderson text her and says he's there. She looks up (trying her hardest to look natural) and her eyes fall on the most beautiful boy she's ever seen. He has brown curly hair down to his shoulders, caramel skin, big brown eyes, and the cutest smile she had ever seen in her whole existence, she nearly choked on her fro-yo. The sun was shining in such a way that it made him look angelic. He wore a light blue shirt and white shorts with white shoes looking even the more angelic. Anika set back in her chair and stared in awe. "How had God created such a beautiful man?" He finally arrives at the table. He stops at their table and says, "Hi!" Anika nearly died his voice was like an ice cream sundae with chocolate syrup drizzled on it. She nearly falls out of her chair when she hears his voice. When she finally spoke she shocked Anderson with her candidness. "Wow you're gorgeous," she said with a smile on her face. Anderson just smiled feeling like the king of the world. The two smiled at each other for what felt like two eternities. They finally realized they had just been staring into each other's eyes but hadn’t said anything more than “hi” to each other. Anderson with his beautiful voice started talking about what he had learned in church, and
the conversation started from there. They had a long conversation talking about their families, school, friends, church, and why they had never met each other. By the time they had finished talking it was the evening. The two had learned so much about each other. Anderson offered to drive her home an offer she gladly accepted. They talked all the way to Anika’s house. When he pulled up to her house he stops the car and walks her to the door. Anika is nearly dead at this point never has she ever encountered such a gentleman. They said goodbye and promise to meet the next day. Anika had lost track of time in those gorgeous eyes and she knew as soon as she went inside she was screwed. She prayed time had stood still for her but it hasn't.

  When Anika arrives home she realizes time hadn’t stopped for her. She walked into the kitchen starving. As soon as she walked in she opened the refrigerator to get something to eat. And all of a sudden her dad busts through the backdoor. "Where have you been Anika?" He demanded. "I'm sorry dad, I lost track of time," She said trying to lessen the blow of her on coming punishment. Anika's dad went on a screaming tirade hitting points of kidnap, rape, death, and ending with how worried he had been. Punishments were settled on house arrest for three days no friends (like she had any real ones besides Anderson), no phone, and no fun (as if she had time to have any). Anika accepted the punishment. She just hands over her phone and goes to her room trying her hardest to look remorseful, she had had such a wonderful time she couldn't be upset. She has homework to do so she got into it.

  A little later into the night her mom came into her room and sat on her bed. She explained that her dad had overreacted and that she was not in any serious trouble but she did need to let them know where she was at when she's running late. Her mom left without giving Anika a chance to say anything. Anika was left on her bed confused, but she just hoped she wouldn't be the topic of tonight's discussion.

  Chapter 2

  The Search Continues Or The Calm Before the Storm "What happened to us babe? What happened to US? Where did we go wrong?" Paul asked laying on his bed. Martha rattled by the sincerity of the questions took a moment before she replied. She turned over on her side to face her husband, his face sparkled in the moonlit room, she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him look the way he looks tonight. She finally answers his questions with the same sincerity he had asked his questions in, "When you stopped coming home and I became a single mother." Martha's words slice into his heart, he replies a little defensively " What do you mean when I stopped coming home? I'm right here aren't I?" Martha sighs heavily she's tired of all the fighting so she attempts to close the late night session before it escalates. But, Paul desperately wants the answer to his question. Martha tries to think of a way to answer the question that won't hurt her husband but decides if he wants the truth so badly then she'll give it to him. She finally replies calmly " You're so consumed with your job and providing for us you're not here. Sure your body is but my Paul is not here he hasn't been in awhile." The tension in the room is thick, how do you react to someone diminishing the one thing you think you're doing right. Paul was under the impression that he was being a great provider maybe he had let somethings slide but he was still involved. Martha's answer is one-sided she works just as much as her husband sometimes even more. But, she reasons because she is downstairs to greet her children before they leave for school, cleans the house (occasionally), cooks and is home more often meant than Paul meant she was showing up in her kids life more than Paul. Just because you're physically in someone's life doesn't mean you're their emotionally.

  3:00 a.m. By now Anika has given up on any possibility of sleeping. Her parents had been at it again the argument lasted longer than it ever had that night, the door slammed harder than it had ever slammed, and this time her dad didn't hesitate to pull out the driveway. She had been expecting the two dings subconsciously. When they didn't come her heart dropped to her feet. Was her dad coming home this time? Had this been the last straw? The weight of the world seemed to fall on her shoulders as she thought more and more about the possibility of her dad not coming home. After an hour and a half of pacing the floor reviewing her game plan, incase her dad didn't show up. She went downstairs to fix her siblings lunch for the day. Something had tonat least be normalish.

  Anika had become a master lunch maker over the years. She had lunches made, packed, and stored in under ten minutes. After she finished cleaning she returns to her room and starts getting ready for school. Again she tries to fix her baggy eyes (it still doesn't work), she determines she's not going to let that get the best of her.

  Anika wakes up her siblings because her mom hasn't come out of her room yet. Their mom is always up even after the fights, her not bring up worries Anika. Something bad must have happened but she can't figure it out. Her mom is still not up so she makes breakfasts and loads everybody into the van. As they come out of the house Anika checks everyone's backpacks to make sure no one has left important things inside, and hands out lunch. Seeing that her mom is not coming down this morning she drives everyone to school. She makes sure her siblings don't know what happened the night before. She reasons there was no sense in telling them why their parents hadn't been downstairs to greet them this morning amd ruining a perfectly good day. Her brothers and sisters weren’t blind to the issue but she didn't want them knowing the details.

  Siblings can be the most annoying people in the whole universe! But the love that y'all share is like no other love you'll ever have. Even though they get on top, up under, and around your nerves subconsciously you know there's not a lot you wouldn't do to keep them safe. Sometimes you want to keep them safe from the world you've known in hopes they avoid it completely and find something better. To protect them from the dark secrets that lace the Wilson’s life Anika has decided to protect her siblings from the drama. Her plan may or may not backfire but her actions are noble.

  As you grow up you start to see different sides of your parent. You start to see them as humans and not just mom or dad. Realizing your parents are human to and make mistakes is like glass in a perfect world shattering. It's unnerving sometimes but once you see them as human people things shift sometimes good and sometimes unimaginably bad.

  They arrive at school 15 minutes early giving everyone plenty of time to get to class. Anika hugs everyone (even her brothers who try to squirm away) and tells them to have a good day. The four older kids (in middle school) walked to class by themselves and she walks her two younger sisters to the elementary building. After she had dropped them off she hurried to class. She walked into class with two minutes to spare and sat down by her school friends. They were talking about some drama about a girl who was kicked out because she got pregnant and the school didn’t want her sin on display at school or something . Anika didn't understand why the school had kicked the girl out even though they claimed to love everyone as Christ loves. Obviously they're not committed to that statement or they'd let her stay. She wondered if they discriminated the love they showed giving it to the people who did right in their eyes and not giving it to those who needed it. The conversation had left her frustrated and upset, she determined in her heart that she was going to find that girl and show her what real love is. During school Anika forgot about everything at home. But, the girl had stuck with her. She didn't know what she would say to her but she needed to talk to her. She spent the day thinking about how to explain God's true love to her.

  After the final bell Anika goes to gather up her siblings so they could go home. As she walks she checks her phone. As soon as she turned it on she saw messages from her mom and dad asking where they were (as if it were not a school day) and making disturbing threats. Her heart stopped something was very very wrong. She decided she wouldnt take her siblings home. She felt tears of confusion and fear boiling up inside her, but she forced herself had to keep it together no one could know what was going on, especially her siblings.

  While Anika was on the edge of a nervous break down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were having fun at home. Ea
rlier that day Paul and Martha decided to take off early. They hadn’t told each other their plans.Paul arrived home first with his lady friend and within a few margaminutes ( they were drinking if you didn’t get that), things start to escalate. Martha walks in after Paul and hus friends furst round with her little friend. She brings him into the living room unaware that's where Paul and his little friend are. They are shocked to see each other they stared at each other for a minute. They’re “friends” try to exit the situation but Martha suddenly grabs her friend and throws him on the couch and they go at it right in front of Paul! Paul sees this as a challenge and commences round two with his lady. It’s a race to see who finishes first. Not to mention the acohol and drygs that their partners had brought.

  Anika has no idea what is going on with her parents. But she knew she had to calm down before she went any further. She took a deep breath and put her hand on her heart, a tricked she had invented to krep her from crying. She opens her eyes ready to face whatever is next hoping she wouldn't crack under the pressure. She walked over to the middle school building first to get Emmy, Dan, Reese, and Zephaniah. She gives them the keys to start the van and goes to get Marcy and Jada.

  When everyone is in the car Anika tells them that she wasnt tsking them home right then, which starts a storm of “why? I'm hungry! I want to go home!” "Hey!" she yelks over them. "I'm going to take y'all to drumroll please... Playland!!" she exclaims. "Y'all can eat and then play for a little while," she says hoping that would settle them down. Happy chatter breaks out among them as they discuss what they're going to play. Before Anika pulls out the parking lot she texts Anderson to meet her at Playland in 20 minutes.

  All the way to Playland her brothers and sisters devise plans on how to get the most tickets so they can get a big prize. By the time they arrive they are bursting with excitement which makes Anika happy. They get inside and Anika buys their tickets. Her siblings gobble down their food like werewolves and hurry to play. Anika sits in the booth and closes her eyes. She goes into the place between consciousness and subconsciousness, she almost falls asleep when she hears the most beautiful "hey" she has ever heard in her life. She opens her eyes to find Anderson sitting in the booth. Once her eyes adjust she notices he's cleaned off the table and brought her something to eat (Anika didn't get anything for herself when she bought the tickets because 6 tickets were already half her paycheck and who knew when she'd need it again). She hadn't even told him that she hadn't eaten. "Thank you," she said with tears in her voice. " No problem," he said smiling. Anika had never had someone actually take care of her like that before. The two didn't need to talk much they just watched her siblings play for a little bit.