Song of Renewal Read Online Free PDF

thoughtful, then sympathetic, and resumed putting away leftovers from their earlier dinner of cold cuts and salad. Troy couldn’t make it for dinner but he’d come over later for cake to celebrate his birthday with Angel. Secretly, she’d banked on Troy’s presence getting her dad’s permission. So much for that.
    In fact, after Daddy had refused to give her permission to go, Troy had cautioned her against pushing her dad too hard. “You’ve got a super father, Angel,” he’d said. “Don’t underestimate his wisdom.”
    “But Troy,” Angel argued, “If I don’t push, Daddy would never let me out of the house.” Troy had simply shrugged and gone off into the den. She knew she’d exaggerated her father’s stringency, but tonight was special and she wanted to go to that concert more than she’d ever wanted to do anything in her life.

    “Why doesn’t Daddy want me around?” Angel asked morosely, swiveling the seat back and forth at the kitchen bar while her mother rinsed off supper dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher.
    Mama turned, hands dripping. “Darling, your daddy does want you around. He simply works all the time and isn’t always there for you. He doesn’t mean it to be that way.”
    But it is. The thought, unspoken, hung silently between them as her mother continued to tidy things.
    “Mama, you sure I can’t help?” Angel’s voice was listless.
    “No, no. You sit right there. You prepared the meal so I’ll do clean up.”
    “Thanks.” Angel replayed her father’s rebuff of her affectionate hug. Did he have to be so…so cold? Tears of rejection and shame pooled in her eyes. She wondered, not for the first time, what had drawn her parents together. She knew her father had not always been so aloof. What gentle, explosive rudiments made their marriage work? Their signals were, at least in recent years, almost always mixed, perplexed. At one time, their passion had been a palpable thing, though at the time she’d not, in her innocence, been able to name it.
    Angel just knew they adored each other, and it spilled over to include her. At least at one time it had been so. In her earlier years. She remembered the looks that had passed between them, so charged with ardor and sensitivity to each other that she’d felt guilty at witnessing them.
    Sadly, she reflected, that awareness didn’t seem to visit the Wakefield home very often anymore.
    If it did, it was quickly doused by arguments over money. Her daddy’s mantra these days was, “I’m the one who keeps this ship afloat, so please be considerate. Turn out lights when you leave the rooms and don’t use the credit card like a wish list.”

    In response, Mama would insist that, “I can’t cook without buying groceries,” and go on about the cost of chicken and beef.
    Angel dreaded when Daddy balanced the checkbook and got the credit card bill. Then there were the utility bills that seemed to climb higher and higher each month.
    Again, she wondered what sinister or magnanimous forces kept her parents together. A real mystery. Would she figure out how love manifested itself between her and Troy, how to engage in it without pain and disappointment? Lordy, she hoped so. She certainly knew that Troy would never be as cold to their child as her father was to her.
    Nearby in the den, Troy watched an Animal Planet special on bears in the wild while wolfing down a huge second piece of fresh strawberry birthday cake, his favorite. “This is delicious, Angel,” he called to her. “You’re a great cook.”
    “Thanks.” Dismally, she pulled the crystal cake pedestal toward her and sliced off another big hunk of the luscious pink, sugary fruit concoction, scooted it onto a small plate, and picked up a fork.
    “Ah ah,” Mama said, lifting a dainty finger of caution. “You’ve already had a slice.”
    Angel’s breath came out in a whoosh. “Mama! It was so thin it got lost between my teeth.” Her fork clattered to the