Free Meteor by Brad Knight Page A

assuage her as she began to mumble indecipherable words through her sobs. Then, she jerked away from her mother and ran upstairs. She slammed the door of the bedroom behind her and collapsed on the bed.
    Troy went to his wife and hugged her. She too began to burst into tears. Brandon, who normally wasn’t very touchy feely ran to his parents and hugged them both at once as he felt the tears form in his eyes.
    “It’s okay,” Troy said, “we are safe.”

Chapter 8
    It was very difficult for Troy or Mary to get their daughter to come out of the bedroom. Brandon began sleeping on the downstairs couch so that he could give her some space and time to get over her grief. She did not eat for several days, despite Mary’s efforts to get her to do so.
    Finally one night when Brandon and Troy were playing chess and Mary was making a tuna casserole, Cordelia suddenly came down from the bedroom and made an appearance. Her eyes looked hollow and there were huge rings underneath, indicating that she hadn’t gotten much sleep in the past few days.
    “Are you hungry, dear?” her mother asked as she came over to where Cordelia was sitting down on the couch. Cordelia nodded her head and Mary went back to the kitchen to continue the preparations for dinner. Troy and Brandon kept playing chess, not wanting to force her to talk before she was ready. It wouldn’t take long before she began to talk on her own.
    “How do you have such an interest in a such a boring game?” she asked Troy and Brandon. They both looked over at her and smiled. They were glad that she actually seemed to be returning to a state of normalcy.
    “It’s not boring to us, dear. It requires a lot of strategy and concentration,” Troy said.
    “Boring!” she said again.
    “Dinner’s ready,” Mary said suddenly, causing the guys to put their game on hold. They got up and went to the dinner table. No one brought up Henry or what happened to him until Cordelia brought it up herself.
    “Do you think Henry suffered before he died?” she asked bluntly. The statement was so jarring, Troy just about spit out the water he was drinking.
    Mary put a hand on Cordelia’s head and patted it. “I really hope not, but I can’t say for sure.”
    “I just don’t understand how God could allow all of this to happen. I mean, innocent people are probably dying all over the world, and for what reason?” she said.
    “I understand why you would feel that way, but sometimes good things just randomly happen to good people. It’s not something that God probably intends to have happen.” Troy attempted to explain it as best he could. It was an odd subject to discuss with his daughter, due to the fact that he himself was agnostic and wasn’t sure how God fit into the picture. Though it was very understandable that she would be asking questions like this, at a time like this.
    “I’m not sure I believe in God, anyway,” Cordelia said. “I mean, there’s so many things that don’t make sense about it all. I just don’t think some merciful God would allow this to happen to all of us.”
    “You are welcome to believe whatever you want, dear. We have always told you that, and we still feel the same way. What you should understand is that lots of people have lost someone since this whole disaster began. As hard as it might be to believe, we are some of the lucky ones. We have only lost one person that we know of,” Troy said, trying to put everything in perspective for her.
    “For a while, I had nightmares about it. I could see Henry over and over again yelling out in pain. Last night was the first night that I didn’t have the dream in a week,” she said. Her voice took on a somber tone. “I miss him so much.”
    “I know you do, dear. It will take some time to get over this, but you will eventually come to grips with it,” Mary said.
    “He was the only boy I ever loved,” Cordelia said, as everything about that horrible day came flooding back into her