I can barely feel the middle finger on my left hand or the pointer finger on my right and when they touch I see the connection but I don't feel it. That's where God comes in.

My father lives in a house with my mother that he hasn't known for more than 12 years. A queen size mattress lays on the linoleum of a basement floor and is slept on by a man in a house owned by a woman the law calls his wife. He catches up with the happenings of his children's lives in the local paper and piecing together bits of overheard conversations to more pressing relatives.
 
An empty condom case was code for I'm cheating on your mom and I wanted to end his life with a 12 gage and one full casing. That's where God comes in.

I spent days in high school hoping he wouldn't be home when I came back and spent nights disappointed when he did. And that disappointment didn't disappear when I came home from college the first year…
the second year…
the third year…
that's where God comes in.

It's January 7th and I sit on a couch he brought on credit and ask him if he thought that this was the life that God meant for us?

With a hand full of cracked pecans and peanut shells he looks at me and says I guess not.

He walks away.

I cry.

I guess not.