Book One: Changed
“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death
spread to all men, because all sinned---”
-Romans 5:12
1
Port Wing, Wisconsin
Modern Day
Who am I? I'm Katie, Katie Olsen. On the whole, I’d say I’m your average eighteen year old. I go to school, I play sports, I come home and do my homework. I pass my classes, and get good grades. I want too much out of my life to slack off in school.
During the fall, winter, and spring I’m a student. During the summer, I work and play hard.
I wear make-up, but I’m no knock-out. I have shoulder length brown hair, and a trim, lanky build. I think I walk like a duck. My skin is well tanned, unlike either of my parents or anyone else around our tiny town of Port Wing, Wisconsin. We don’t get a whole lot of sun up here.
I’ve had two boyfriends, and both relationships were far from perfect. I don’t know why, but every time I fall in love, I chicken out. It drives me up the wall. Maybe I’m holding out for true love too much. I really hope it’s possible. What kinda world would it be like if there were no knights in shining armor?
My favorite color is red. It makes me feel active, alive. I feel catlike when I’m wearing red; special, like I can do anything.
I love dogs, and tolerate cats.
My dream date would be pizza and an old horror flick, like Frankenstein. Feeling scared isn’t so bad, and besides, they’re so wonderfully melodramatic. I feel so much pity for the monsters. After all, they have feelings too.
So, see, I’m just your average, ordinary, American girl. Red, white, and blue through and through, that’s me. It’s enough said, right?
Apparently not. You see, God blessed (and cursed) me with two things; a wonderful father, and great talent with a basketball. I prefer to talk about the later.
Basketball is my hope, my great solace. I don’t know why, but it’s always been that way. I love the feel of the dimpled ball beneath on my fingers, the unmistakable squeak of sneakers meeting hardwood, and the rifle-like ricochet of the ball hitting the court. When I play, my heart pounds like a million race horses charging through my veins. It was like that even before I started playing for the school, South Shore.
My hometown is absolutely nuts about basketball. I mean ab-so-lute-ly nuts. Every kid who wants to plays at some point. It’s like some kind of epidemic, only here, no one wants to find a cure. It’s too important for us.
I played my first game in the 4th Grade. I’ll remember it till the day I die for two very different reasons.
First, it was the day I realized that I was better than everyone one else. I don’t mean that egotistically. It’ was just the truth. I had a few gears more than everyone else. The crowd of parents and friends didn’t bother me like it did my friends. On the court, life was so simple. Get the ball through the net, and help as many of your teammates as possible do the same.
The second reason I’ll remember that night is because it was the start of the end. Much as I knew he wanted to be there, work got more and more important to Dad. He’d told me he’d always be there, smiling down at me. But he soon stopped coming to the games.
Dad wrote books for a living, and was very successful at it. I didn’t know what they were about. Mom would never really tell me. If I asked, she’d just shrug and say “Ghosts, witches, stuff like that. Fiction.”
He sure had to travel a lot for a fiction writer. But he was always there when you needed him. Wonderful as he was, his work kept relegated him to the role of a memorable supporting character in my life. He’d wait in the wings, and then come out when I needed him most.
Dad loved basketball. He’d played in college, but was far from the star of the team. I think he always planned for it to be my destiny. Who needed a knight in shining armor if could play basketball like the pros?
To me, he and basketball went hand in hand. Even when I was five, he and the game were the two most precious things to me. Dad had amazing blond hair that stuck up every which way, and his blue eyes always seemed to sparkle behind his wire-framed glasses. He never did anything small. If he came into a room, and the people there seemed a little too down for his taste, he lit it up like the fourth of July. And when he was sad, the sparkle in his eyes grew more intense, and all the pain of the world was in them.
Dad taught me to play ball. On a 20x10 foot strip of uneven pavement in our backyard, he instructed me in the fundamentals. We started with dribbling, and it wasn’t until I was six I could manage it.
Mom has pictures of us out in the backyard from when I was a baby. One picture, my favorite, has Dad holding me in his arms. In my hands, I’m squeezing a tiny plush basketball.
That picture is half of my most prized possession; a silver locket my mom gave me on my twelfth birthday. The other side is her high school graduation photo. The back of the locket reads “Always with love.” I’ll die before I lose that locket.
Basketball soon had some pain associated with it, though. Just before I turned twelve, Dad left. For about a month I couldn’t even touch a ball without crying.
He was on reasearch trip when he disappeared. Can you answer me this; what does a fiction author have to go to Europe for two weeks for, especially over Christmas? He called us at New Years’ from some town in Romania, but after that, there was nothing. Not even the publishers had info for us. It’s like he’d been wiped off the face of the earth.
God, I miss him so much. Sometimes, it’s like there’s a 2x4 smashing my skull. Nothing’s the same without him. I know he’d come back if he could, but it’s been six years. And, I find that I don’t mourn him as much as I used to…as much as I should. I feel like a heel for that.
Mom was always pretty quiet, but much more so after Dad left. She’d lock herself in her room for hours. She just lay on her bed, sobbing. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. Too much of me was just thankful I didn’t look like him. Mom might have stopped talking to me otherwise.
For three years, Dad’s voice still greeted people on our answering machine. We couldn’t bring ourselves to erase it. It would be like officially declaring that he was dead. I knew I couldn’t do it, though.
And then one day, it was gone. Mom had finally done it. She blossomed from her shell and mourning is way that I guiltily envied. To me, this last piece of him leaving was like being stabbed through the heart with a red-hot poker.
Mom remarried four years ago. Tom is great, but he’s just not Dad. We more “hang out” than have father-daughter time. I’ve always called him “Tom.” I think I’ve realized that no matter what, no one can ever replace Dad. It’s just not possible.
Besides, Tom’s too much of a fan to be a really good dad. I have fans. Lots of fans.
(to be continued)
I suggest you change it to: "A year later she remarried."
