Twelve: Part Two

     As I pumped peddles, my legs burning, I suddenly heard whistles and other expletives. Foul words coming out of dirty mouths. I felt dirty. Unclean. Naked. I was passing the enlisted barracks. Not looking to see where the voices were coming from I peddled even faster. I blazed by stucco house after stucco house after stucco house; all with carports. Beige world. Everything, the same. And yet I knew that nothing would ever be again. I felt sick.

I had just sped past the commissary, so I knew I was getting closer to the church. And there it was, like an oasis; barrack-like buildings clumped together to make up one building which housed the Protestant, Catholic and Polynesian churches, chaplin offices and sunday school classrooms. I road down the long breezeway which ran the length of the building. I dropped the bike in front of the church doors. Panting like my dog, I hesitated. I suddenly felt hysterical. I was hyperventilating. I bent over, knees bracing my hands. I couldn't catch my breath. I was here, I'd made it. Now what? I began to cry again. Now what? Now what? Now what? But I knew he was coming. I could feel him getting nearer. I made my way inside.

My legs felt like they were going to buckle under me. I tentatively walked toward the nursery room. I could feel my heart pounding into my throat. My whole body shook. I was walking in quicksand. Finally, I made it to the room in the back of the sanctuary that's used for daycare during church services. Choir rehearsal was going on and I could hear His Eye Is On The Sparrow being sung. My mother was somewhere out there in the sanctuary. Her high soprano voice stood out among all the other voices. I saw my sister through the glass of the nursery room playing with a red-haired, toe headed short person. I stood there staring at my sister. She was 2 1/2 years older than I and yet in comparison to me she looked so innocent sitting there playing with the children. I yearned to be sitting there with her now, innocent.

I opened the door and stepped inside. I must have been a sight standing there with my bleeding feet, wearing my green and pink baby doll pajama's, my hair wild. My sisters jaw dropped when she noticed me.
"Erika?" My sister Donna whispered.
I murmured, "Daddy."
"What?" Donna asked, panic rising in her voice.
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" I began screaming his name over and over again. I couldn't stop and didn't know what else to say. I was losing my grip. I was unraveling.

"Did something happen to Daddy?!" She was now screaming.

Swiftly jumping over toddlers, Donna ran out of the room to the front of the church where the choir was huddling together. I saw her saying something to mama through the glass wall at the front of the nursery which looked out over the sanctuary. I watched them turn around and look my way. They immediately were seen running toward my direction. My pounding heart sounded like the running giants of yore.

Now what?