I Believe You | ✓

Chapter III

Chapter III

Beth Myers

My mother places a sandwich in front of me at the kitchen table as I'm leaned over my notebook. Something just doesn't fit right when I think about writing about Dad, and it bothers me a lot. I mean, he's my dad, I should be just fine writing about him. But then there's another part of me that's thinking that there's someone better, more interesting, more inspiring out there, that I just haven't come across yet.

So I put down my pencil and start eating.

"Mom?" I ask, and I know that I most likely won't get any answers from her, but I say it anyway. "What happened to Dad?" 

Her head jerks up from where she's chopping up some carrots and other vegetables to go in a salad. "Hush, Beth, it was only a misunderstanding."

"Yeah, a misunderstanding that's kept him in prison for almost ten years." I take another bite of my sandwich and fiddle with my pencil. "Why has it taken them so long to figure out that he didn't do anything wrong?"

"Beth, you must see their side of it--"

"Yes, but you're his wife. Wouldn't you fight for him more than you have?" 

I have a tendency to speak before I think. Most of the time, it's not good.

Mom's fingers shake, but I can't tell if it's in frustration, or fear. But fear of what, I wouldn't know. She turns to me, and I see something I haven't seen in a long time out of her: exhaustion. She looks truly tired of everything in her life right now. 

"I'm sorry," I quickly cover up, but I know it's not enough. 

"If I were to fight for him, and if I succeeded by bringing him home, it wouldn't be the same, Beth. You think that everything would go back to normal, but we have neighbors, honey, they'd always be judging him, no matter what. His stay in prison is what will follow him for the rest of his life."

"But he's already in there for the rest of his life, Mom!" I've finished my sandwich, and have put down my pencil. 

"Elizabeth, drop it." 

I stop, frozen. She never really calls me Elizabeth, not even when she's mad. It doesn't come out unless I argue with her about Dad. Which I just did.

A knock on the door releases me from my stance, and when Mom nods for me to go and answer it, I do. 

"Hey, Beth," a boy with warm green eyes and shaggy blond hair smiles up at me, a grin spreading over his teeth. "Wanna go to the coffee shop downtown?"

It's Ben O'Neal, my best friend practically since birth. We've done everything together, even walking to the bus stop at the same time. If I got outside early, I'd head over to his house next door and wait for him inside, and vice versa. 

Of course, not everything had been so great in our lives together. He didn't always live next to me, he and his parents were living only a few blocks away when their house started on fire.

I could smell the smoke, and that's when I went running down the stairs, screaming bloody murder. I thought it was our house that was in flames. When my parents (I was six at the time), told me it was two blocks away, I calmed down a fair bit, but I was still worried. I didn't know if there was anyone in the house, and if they were okay or not. 

Oh, god, I had prayed that they were okay. 

So, me being the mischievous little six-year-old I was at that time, I snuck out of my house, even though it was the middle of the day, and I made such a racket. My parents knew where I was going, but they didn't do anything to stop me. They just made sure to follow me, but silently enough that I thought I was a real rebel and escaping from a trap, or something. I was escaping to go save the day.