Read Then Came Heaven for Free Online

against him and hugged his neck while his throat worked and his face reflected torture. Sister Regina watched the children go up on tiptoe in their brand-new brown shoes, bought for the start of the school year. She watched their daddy’s arms go around their waists and crush the bows on the sashes that their mommy had tied for the last time ever, that morning before they left for school. He kissed their foreheads hard and clung to their small bodies while Sister pressed the edge of her folded hands against her lips and told herself she must not cry. A line from the Scriptures went through her mind:  Suffer the little children to come unto me,  and she committed a venial sin by questioning God’s wisdom in taking their mother. Why a good and young woman like that? Why not someone older who’d lived a full life? Why Krystyna Olczak when she was needed here by her family?
    Eddie sat back on his heels and looked into his children’s faces. “Anne... Lucy... there’s something that Daddy’s got to tell you.”
    They saw his tears and sobered.
    “Daddy, what’s wrong?” Anne asked, her hand on his shoulder.
    “Well, honey...” Against her small back his open hand looked immense. Stained and callused, it covered the plaid cloth of her dress while he cleared his throat, trying to make himself say the words that would alter their lives forever. “Jesus has decided to... to take your mommy to heaven.” Anne stared at him silently. Her mouth tightened slightly. Lucy said matter-of-factly, “No, Mommy’s at Grandma’s making pickles. She said that’s where she was going today.”
    Eddie forged on. “No, sweetheart, she’s not. She... well, she wanted to go there, and she  started  to go there, but she never made it.”
    “She  din’t ?” Lucy’s eyes got wide with bemusement, still no fear. “But how come?”
    Eddie knew Anne would grasp the truth before Lucy, so he looked into her eyes when he said it. “A train hit her car at the railroad crossing, and Mommy died.” The last words were uttered in a ragged whisper.
    Anne’s mouth grew more and more stubborn while she considered her father’s words. Her concept of death came largely from attending requiem Masses. She and her sister, like many children in the parish, had been impressed into the children’s choir, which sang at funerals. But the solemn Latin words and the distant coffin so far below the choir loft left little understanding of what death really meant. Now, for the first time, its true meaning was beginning to dawn on Anne, and with it came denial.
    “She did not!” Anne spouted angrily. “She’s at Grandma’s! I know she’s at Grandma’s!” She looked up at Father Kuzdek, the ultimate authority figure at St. Joseph’s, a man who would set things straight. “My mommy didn’t die, did she, Father? Tell my daddy that it’s not true! She’s making pickles at my grandma’s!”
    Father Kuzdek struggled to lower his considerable bulk down on one knee. His cassock puddled on the floor around the child’s feet as he placed his hands on her shoulders and put his round pink face close to hers. His spectacles had bifocals and he had to lower his chin to peer above them. “We don’t know why Jesus took your mommy, Anne, but it’s true. She’s in heaven now with the angels, and what you have to remember is that she’ll always be there looking out for you, your own special guardian angel who loved you and took care of you while she was here on earth. Only now she’ll keep doing the same thing from heaven.”
    Anne stared into the priest’s eyes. Her chin remained stubborn, but it had begun to quiver. This time when she spoke it was in a whisper, much less certain.
    “My mommy can’t be dead because she’s got to take care of us here. She was gonna make potato dumplings for supper because they’re my favorites.”
    Little Lucy, mystified, glanced from her sister to the priest and back again, trying to figure out what all this