Prince Tennyson

by Jenni James

  ***

  At the park, Mom found a really nice shaded spot under a big tree. We sat on the bench together and watched the old people walk their dogs and some moms push their babies in strollers. It was strange to see what people did when I was at school. It was like a whole other world.

  After a few minutes of silence, my mom sighed and put her arm around me again, like at breakfast. She pulled me close to her and I rested my head on her shoulder. It was nice. Then she started to draw lazy circles on my shoulder with her fingers, and that felt really good.

  “Chelsea?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled into her shoulder. I didn’t want to get up, which was nice because Mom didn’t make me. Instead, she just kept rubbing my shoulder and arm.

  “How do you like school?”

  “School?” I shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.”

  “Is your new teacher always mean?”

  “Mrs. Sheridan? No.” I didn’t know why my mom was talking about my teacher. I hoped it wasn’t because she was still sad with me. “Well, I mean, yesterday she was mad, but usually she’s nice.”

  My mom nodded. I know she did, because her hair brushed up against my face. Up and down. Up and down. “I’m sorry she was mad at you,” my mom whispered, and then kissed the top of my head again.

  That was two head kisses in one day. I liked it.

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “It’s okay.”

  “Well, she didn’t understand, honey.” She rested her chin on my head and tucked me closer to her. “Your teacher didn’t understand how special your dad was.”

  I waited for my mom to start crying. She always started to cry when she talked about her prince. After a couple of seconds of silence, Mom took a deep breath and her voice got all wobbly.

  “She didn’t know what a good man he was. And what an awesome father and—and husband he was. If she knew, Chelsea, if Mrs. Sheridan knew—like your old teachers did—then she wouldn’t have ripped up your paper. And she wouldn’t have told you to stop reading about him, honey. She wouldn’t have.”

  My heart started to hurt again. I missed my dad so much.

  Mom rubbed her chin on my hair, and I felt a little spot of wet hit the top of my head. She was crying.

  “She just didn’t know your dad. If she did, she would’ve called him a prince too. Right in front of the whole class. She would’ve told everyone he was a prince—just like your old school, remember?”

  I nodded. I could remember. I could remember all the ladies at the old school—even Mrs. Tibbets, the grouchy librarian—all those ladies called my dad Prince Tennyson. They liked it when he came in his uniform and opened the doors for them and quickly ran to catch them if they were carrying something heavy so he could hold it instead. They liked it when he smiled and waved at them, even when he was super busy, or super late. They liked it when he gave me piggyback rides and carried me out to the car. All the kids liked that. Everyone wanted a dad like Prince Tennyson.

  I missed my dad.

  I could feel my eyes getting wet too.

  “Chelsea, I want you to really listen to me, okay?”

  I nodded my head again.

  “No matter what anyone else ever tells you, your dad was a prince. Okay, honey? Don’t you listen to anyone else telling you that it was made up and a fairy tale. Your dad was the most special prince in all the world. And he loved you, and loved our family more than anything else. Everyone saw it too. They saw your dad was special. Just like Mrs. Sheridan would’ve if she had met him.”

  Mom brought her arms up closer and squeezed me to her as I brushed at my wet eyes. Then she whispered really quietly, “I love you, honey. You are very special too, just like your daddy.”

  I cried then. Two big tears came down my cheeks. I didn’t even try to stop them.

  “I just wish to God that he didn’t leave us,” Mom said.

  Chapter Four

  I SNIFFLED ONCE AND wiped my eyes. Then I pulled back and looked at my mom. There was something I needed to know right then. “I know I asked you this before, but I want to ask you again. Can I ask you something very serious, please?”

  Mom looked at me real quiet for a minute, then she said, “Um, okay. What’s up?”

  All at once, I couldn’t look at her. Instead, my hands played with the button of my new jacket. “I was just wondering if you thought—maybe even the tiniest bit—that God was real. What do you think, Mom?” I glanced back up. “Do you think He’s real?”

  “God?” Mom pulled me close to her again. This time I felt her rock gently back and forth. She waited a long time before she asked, “You really want to know, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded my head, because I really did want to know.

  “Well, I—I…”

  I held my breath and waited. It took a while, but Mom finally answered.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think He is, honey, but I just don’t know.”

  I let my breath out in a loud swoosh. This wasn’t good. It didn’t make sense. I pushed myself out of her arms. “Well, how do you find out if He is or isn’t?”

  “I—”

  “There has to be a way to know the Lord is real, right?”

  “Uh, maybe. Why does it matter so much?”

  She didn’t get it. I couldn’t believe that my own mom didn’t understand why it was so important for me to find out if God was real or not. I thought that would be obvious to anyone. I guess not.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. I will not cry. I will not cry. After I had talked myself into being rational, I opened my eyes again and looked right at my mom. Right into the same big brown eyes that I had.

  “When people die, where do they go?” I didn’t wait for my mom to answer me. Instead, I just kept talking. “They go to heaven, right? Heaven is where God is, right?” Mom’s eyes flashed, but I kept talking fast so she wouldn’t say anything. “So if God is real, then Dad is with Him, right? Then if Dad is with Him, then when I’m old and I die, I’ll go there too, right? So then I’ll be with Dad again. Then I’ll see him and he can hold me again. And he can dance with me and give me piggyback rides and read me funny stories—right, Mom?

  “Except—except, if it isn’t true, and there is no Lord, or God, or Jesus, or anything, then where is my prince? Where did he go? See, Mom? See? I have to know if God’s real or not. I have to find out. I have to. So that way I know what happened to Dad. And—and, I bet once I do, you’ll be happy too. Because I’ll tell you, I’ll show you, and then you’ll know with me, and then you’ll—”

  Mom smushed me to her really hard and really tight. It knocked the words right out of me. But it was okay, because she had begun to rub my back.

  “Shh… honey, it’s all right…” She said that over and over again until I stopped crying. I didn’t even know I was crying that time until I was done shaking and could breathe right again. Then I began to see that I’d been really emotional. It felt like a huge river had just broke right through the wall that was holding it—a huge, gigantic river.

  Once I calmed down, Mom held my hands and said very softly, “Okay. Let’s see if God is real.”

  That’s all she said. But I couldn’t believe she’d said it.

  She must have really loved me, and she must have wanted to remember her prince again. I took that as a very good sign. “Okay.” I smiled.

  Mom smiled too. It still didn’t reach her eyes, but she smiled. Then she said the best thing ever. “Want to go to McDonald’s? I bet you’re starving.”

  I laughed. I was. “Yes!”

  “Great!” Mom got off the bench and held out her hand for me, just like she used to when I was a little girl. “Come on, let’s go.”

  I bounced off and took her hand. It felt soft and strong. It was fun to hold her hand while we walked back through the park.

  I liked it.

  ***

  The rest of the day was really good after that. Mom and I even got to eat ice cream and go to a movie. Th
at was my favorite part, sitting in the movie with her. Mom didn’t laugh out loud like she used to when she watched a movie, but she watched the whole thing with me.

  For a long time now, Mom hasn’t watched a whole movie. Usually she’d start one in the DVD player and then after a few minutes, walk out of the room. I was beginning to think that she didn’t like movies at all anymore. But at the theater, I kept sneaking glances at my mom. It was crazy. Two times I saw her smiling during the funny parts. Two times! That’s amazing, because my mom doesn’t smile at the funny parts anymore.

  Maybe she had a good day with me too. I hoped so. She needed those kinds of days. Maybe she’d start coming out of the house more, too. Even come to the soccer games Grandma Haney made me and Hannah play. That would be so cool to see her happy and cheering at our games like she used to.

  It was late when we got home. Almost time for dinner. Grandma Haney didn’t mind, though. She had a big grin on her face when we came through the door. Cameron was in her arms, and he was grinning too. “Look! Look who’s here! Your big sister and Mom,” she said in a really excited voice.

  “Mama!” Cameron lunged and kicked to get out of Grandma’s grasp. My mom smiled and held her arms out for him. It was cute when he climbed up on her hip and hung onto her like a monkey.

  Then Grandma said something I wished she wouldn’t have. It took Mom’s smiles right off her face. I don’t think Grandma Haney meant to hurt Mom’s heart, but she did.

  You never know what will hurt Mom’s heart and make her sad and make her put her baby on the ground and say, “I don’t think I’m very hungry. I’m going to my room now. Chelsea, help Grandma with Hannah and Cameron, okay? I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I looked at Grandma and she looked at me. I knew we were both thinking the same thing.

  She shouldn’t have told Mom how much Cameron was beginning to look like his daddy.

  Chapter Five

  I WENT TO CHURCH on Sunday. In the end, I figured it was the best place to start to find out if God was real. During Sunday School this time, they told us to read the Bible to gain a testimony. I wasn’t sure what a testimony was, so I wasn’t going to even look in the Bible until the teacher said as we were leaving—

  “Don’t forget, class. The only way to find out if God loves us is to get our own testimony of Him.”

  I stopped putting on my jacket when I heard that. Instead, I stared right at the teacher, hard. I couldn’t believe what she’d just said. My brain worked overtime trying to figure it all out.

  If I read the scriptures, then I would get a testimony. If I had a testimony, then I would know that the Lord loved me. So if I knew that the Lord loved me, then that meant He had to be real, right?

  My heart started to beat faster. My hopes were getting up, I could feel them. Quickly I buttoned up my jacket and ran out of the room, right past the teacher. Grandma Haney was waiting for me in the hall. She was talking to two other ladies, but she smiled when I zoomed up to her.

  “Well, did you survive again?” she asked.

  I nodded my head and then looked really curiously at the two ladies.

  Grandma turned to them and said, “Oh, sorry. Chelsea, this is Mrs. Chavez and Mrs. Livingston.” She put her arm around my shoulders and brought me to her side. “And this is Chelsea Tennyson, Tiffany’s daughter.”

  “O—oh …” The women looked at me sad for a moment, and then smiled funny at my grandma. “Poor thing, losing her daddy like that, and her mom losing it too,” they said.

  I didn’t like that.

  Grandma didn’t either. I could tell, because in the next second she was all business again. “Okay, well, Chelsea and I better go. We’ll see you later. Goodbye.” Then she turned me around fast and marched me away from there. Even before they could say goodbye.

  The whole way home, Grandma Haney mumbled under her breath, so I just looked out the window. I had almost forgotten completely about the testimony thing until we pulled in the driveway. It’s a good thing my brain remembered about the Bible.

  “Grandma, wait!” I said as she put her hand on the car door handle.

  She whipped her head around fast and looked at me with big eyes. “What? What is it?”

  I giggled. I know I shouldn’t have, but my grandma looked so worried and scared, I couldn’t help it. “Sorry. It’s not anything bad.” I quickly covered up my smiles and blurted out before I laughed again, “I was just wondering, can I borrow a Bible?”

  Grandma freaked out so much her jaw dropped and everything. “What did you say?” she gasped.

  I chuckled. Her face was so funny. I’d never seen her look so shocked before. “A Bible. Do you have a Bible in your house?”

  Grandma Haney’s jaw came back up and her brows went down. “Of course I have a Bible in the house. What kind of question is that?”

  “You do. Then—”

  “And I guess you can read it as long as you take good care of it. But—why?”

  “Because I want to know if God is real or not.”

  “Wow.” Grandma sat back in her seat and looked out the windshield. “Uh, yeah, Chelsea, go ahead and read it all you want.”

  “Thanks.” I undid my seatbelt and pulled the door handle, ready to jump out.

  “I’ll put it on your bed in a little bit and you can look at it while everyone else is watching TV.”

  “Okay.” I was out the door and running up the driveway fast, leaving Grandma to think in the car.

  I had to wait until I’d played with my little brother and watched Hannah change her doll’s outfit about six times and get my soccer uniform from yesterday’s game in the laundry room, and then eat dinner, before I could get a glance at the Bible. I thought I was gonna burst from waiting so long.

  “Wow.” The Bible was a big, very big, book—with small writing, too. And it looked different inside from any other book I’d ever seen. There were lots and lots of numbers all over the place. It was really weird.

  I wasn’t sure where to begin, because once I started reading the beginning, I got confused. I wanted to read about Jesus’s life and stuff. Like where He was born.

  I turned about twenty pages and I still couldn’t find where He was born. Wasn’t the Bible about Jesus? Why were all these funny-named people in here?

  Hmm. I decided to go backwards. Maybe the Bible ended with Him? As I flipped it, I came across the dictionary and then some other part that was called a funny word. But the funny word one was cool, because I was able to look up Jesus and then find places in the book that talked about Him. I noticed there were some boys’ names I could read, like Matthew, John, and Luke and stuff. They seemed to talk a lot about Jesus, so after a while of skimming through the Bible, I started to read the part called Luke.

  I couldn’t understand all of it, because it was written in olden day language, probably like how my grandma used to talk when she was a kid, but I could tell that Jesus was born. Some other things happened, but I wasn’t sure what, really—it talked about taxes and swaddling and glory and stuff.

  After I read to the big number three in the Luke part, I decided to set the book down and see if I felt a testimony coming.

  I waited for a long time.

  Just sat there and looked around.

  After that long time, I still felt the same. It was weird, actually. I wanted to feel different—I really did—and I couldn’t. Ugh.

  “Hey, how’s it going?”

  “Mom?” I was so surprised to hear my mom’s voice behind me, I spun around and fell off the bed. Head and shoulders first.

  Oomph.

  “Chelsea, are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. I wasn’t, but I definitely didn’t want Mom to get stressed out.

  “Are you sure?” Mom lifted the lightweight blanket that had fallen with me. “That looked like it hurt.”

  “Did it?” I rolled around and tried to find the best way to get up.

  “Well, it looked pretty funny, too.”

>   I froze and glanced up at my mom.

  Oh. She wasn’t smiling. I had hoped that she was.

  With a sigh, I heaved myself to my feet and brushed my hands on my skirt. My shoes were still in the same place where I’d left them on the floor by the bed. It was probably a good thing I didn’t have them on. I’m sure they would’ve flown off and broke something.

  That thought made me smile. I know it shouldn’t have, but I found it funny.

  “So, how’s your Bible reading going?” Mom asked as she brought the blanket over to me.

  Ack! I quickly looked back on the bed. “Oh, no. Grandma’s Bible!” Where did it go?

  Chapter Six

  “IT’S THE FIRST THING I picked up from the floor, honey,” Mom calmly said as she flipped the blanket in the air and settled it nicely on the bed. “It’s over there on the dresser.”

  Oh! “Whew.” I sat on the side of the bed that Mom had already smoothed with her hands.

  “So, are you going to tell me about it? Grandma says you’ve been in here a while reading.” She fluffed up my pillow and put it on top of the blanket again. Then she sat on the bed and faced me. “Well?”

  “Well…” My eyes rested on the Bible on the dresser across from me. I didn’t know how to tell her exactly, so I just said, “It hasn’t worked yet.”

  “Aww.” Mom slumped her shoulders and nodded her head. “Well, you never know. It may take a long time to find out if God is real or not.”

  “Ugh.” I threw myself back on the bed. “Why does it have to be long?”

  “I didn’t say it would take a long time—I just said it might.”

  “I still think you’re right, though,” I grumbled up to the ceiling. “I read and read that whole Luke chapter part—all those little numbers until they came to the big three number. I read that whole thing, and I didn’t feel anything.”

  I felt the bed move as my mom got off it. I quickly got up on my elbows to see what she would do. She walked right over to the Bible and picked it up. I watched her thumb through it till she came to the middle. Then she stopped.