Sweet Bye-Bye

by Denise Michelle Harris Narrated by Karen Chilton

Overview

Denise Michelle Harris is an advertising sales executive and a former Christian preschool teacher. Her writing debut, Sweet Bye-Bye, is a reflection of her personal experiences and values. She pens an endearing story of life-altering events. Chantell has it all-a great career, beautiful clothes, lots of spending money, a cool car, and a pictureperfect fiancE. So why is she so unhappy? She promises God that she will become a better person as her father lays on his deathbed. But keeping that promise unravels Chantell's seemingly perfect life.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171054649
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/11/2008
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Sweet Bye-Bye

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By Denise Michelle Harris

Warner Books

Copyright © 2004 Denise Harris
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-446-50008-9

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Chapter One

It was a Tuesday afternoon, I'd say about 12:45, and my next appointment was near my parents' home. I had a little over an hour to kill, and a serious craving for a fruit salad. My stepmother, Charlotte, who I'd known was in Portland visiting her sister, had a knack for picking the sweetest fruit in the market.

I remember a rich Sarah Vaughan-sounding voice flowing through my speakers as I pulled into my parents' driveway. I closed my eyes and listened as the old sounds merged with the new over a smooth melodic rhythm. When I turned off the engine, I was still trying to figure out who was singing. I took my Dior sunglasses from my eyes and placed them atop my shoulder-length mane just so. I walked up the driveway with a click-click sound coming from the heels of my shoes.

The lawn's long blades of vibrant green grass swayed lightly with the breeze. I chuckled because I couldn't believe that my Home Depot-loving, do-it-yourself father had let it grow so long. Daddy was serious about his lawn, but I'd caught him sleeping on the job. I was going to tease him about it too, as soon as I got in the house. I smoothed out my white linen pants with my hands and passed through the garage.

I opened the door and yelled from the kitchen, "Dad!" My mouth started to water as I wondered if there were any mangoes in the fruit bowl. "Dad, it's me, Chantell, your most favorite daughter. You home?"

I walked into the living room, past the pictures on the glass shelf. The picture of me and my boyfriend, Eric, stood out, probably because we were cheesing from ear to ear in front of Caesar's Palace. Eric was holding me over his head, me lying sideways like a lovely assistant in a Siegfried and Roy magic show.

"Daddy, where you at?"

I went upstairs and heard the television on in my parents' room. The bedroom door was cracked, and I pushed it open. "Dad."

Golf was on the TV, but I didn't see him. I walked in a few paces, and immediately felt faint when I saw his brown legs on the floor sticking out between the bed and the wall.

"Daddy!" His feet were still in his house slippers.

It felt like a dream. I ran over to the big almond-colored man in his late fifties. I knelt down and shook him, all six feet and 250 pounds of him, but he didn't respond. "Daddy! Daddy, get up!" My heart beat faster as the reality of that moment set in. "Come on, Daddy, don't do this. Wake up!"

His head was cold, and panic raced through me. "Daddy, please don't die. God, please!" I flashed back to my mother. Her funeral. I remembered sitting down in the front row with Grandma Hattie, some relatives, and my dad. Everyone was wailing, and I sat there looking up at the roof and ignoring the light teal casket with my mom in it. "Oh God no. Not again."

I wiped my dad's forehead. My mind went to the last time my grandmother took me to church before she got sick and passed away. She'd bought me a new green dress and I wore it proudly as I sat next to her on Sunday.

First my mother, then my grandmother, then my best friend Keith ... Then I broke down. "No! Noo! Nooo!" My voice was choking me, and I fought to speak. "What to do! What to do?" I felt under his jaw line for a pulse. There was a slight one.

"Daddy, listen to me," I said. "You can't leave me, okay? Okay?" He had dark circles around his eyes and he looked like he'd lost twenty pounds since I'd seen him a couple of days ago. I reached in my purse, found my phone, and dialed 911. With my father's head resting on my lap, I sat there calling his name until the ambulance arrived.

The prognosis wasn't good. Daddy had had a massive heart attack that required a triple bypass, and they'd found prostate cancer. Apparently, when he fell he hit his head, and he'd been unconscious for over an hour when I found him. As soon as we arrived at the hospital, the doctors rushed him into surgery and tried to clear the valves that led to his heart. A rush of uncertainty, instability, and loneliness came flowing back to me. I'd called Eric several times, but he wasn't picking up.

I asked the doctor what they were going to do about the cancer, and he said that they had to do things one at a time. Once they got Daddy's heart working, they'd get him started on chemotherapy. I was a complete mess, and that didn't make me feel any better.

My father, my compadre, lay unconscious as I sat by his bed. Tubes were sticking out of everywhere, and machines were beeping. I didn't know what to do. I'd called my stepmother, Charlotte, and she said she'd be on the next plane back to California. But why had she left him in the first place if he was sick?

Signs were plastered all over the walls, saying, "No Cellular Phone Use." I picked up the tan phone from the bedside table and pulled it over to the window.

"Eric, it's me, Chantell, again. I wish you would answer the phone. I'm really going through it, Daddy just got out of surgery and he is on a breathing machine." My words felt again like they were choking me. "They have operated on his heart, and he has cancer." I broke down. "Eric, call me, okay? I'm at Summit Medical Center, the second floor, room 231, okay? Bye." I hung up.

The physician attending to my father walked into the room in green scrubs and Reeboks. I asked him what was going to happen next for my dad. When he looked at me and suggested I call my relatives, I just blocked him out. When he hinted that they weren't even sure if Daddy would wake up, I told him off good. Then I marched straight down to the nurses' ward.

"Who is the chief of staff?"

"That would be Dr. Lambert," said a nurse with a smile.

"Well, get him. I'd like to speak to him," I said.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, that is not possible."

"All things are possible!" I screamed through my tears. "Now go get him! Go get him right now!" My arms were outstretched and moving all around limply. "I will not call my relatives! I will not call anyone!" The nurse ran from around the station and put her arms around me.

"Ma'am! Ma'am?"

I cried out, "And I, I, I'm not going to! So you just- So-"

"Ma'am! Dr. Lambert's in Atlanta."

In my father's hospital room, I rested my head on his bed, and thought back. He'd done a good job of raising me. I'd blocked out a lot of my really early years, but I remembered how miserable my father was after my mother died. He was trying to raise me, take care of the bills, the house, and the garage. Folks said he gave me too much, and that I was spoiled. But my grandmother said I wasn't spoiled. She said I just had the gift of gab, like her. My dad would say we were having meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner, and I'd talk him into pepperoni pizza and jawbreakers for dessert.

I laid my head on my dad's bed and smiled. I remembered Grandma also used to say that she thought I'd end up marrying Keith Talbit, an ashy little boy from church. She said we matched like hot and cold. She said that when you put us together, we could surely warm a room. I didn't know about all of that, but we were best friends up until junior high. Then, just like Mom and Grandma, Keith left me too.

Anyway, just about four months after my mother died, my father met Charlotte. They married almost a year later. Charlotte and I got along pretty well. She treated me decent, and I liked that my dad seemed to be getting back to his old self. The three of us, we had our ups and downs, but we made it.

I looked at my daddy in his coma-like state, and it broke my heart. I looked up at the machine that monitored his heart. His life. And that was when it hit me. That's when I remembered. "All things are possible." My grandmother Hattie Brumwick's words came back to me like the north star returning to its place in the sky. When her words registered, I grabbed hold of them. My grandmother used to say, "When all else fails, call on God. He'll never leave you and He'll never forsake you."

I knelt down beside my dad's bed. "God, please. I hope you hear me. Spare my dad. Please. He's all that I have. He's a good guy, God, he loves everybody." I hadn't prayed in years. And I didn't know if I was praying right.

"You won't be sorry if you heal him, Lord. I know you can do it. Because you can do all things." I hoped that God was listening.

"Through you everything is possible. And, God, forgive me for my attitude, and everything that I've done wrong. If you do this for me, and let him live, God, I will work hard to be a better person. I promise you I will. I promise."

Through the tears, I prayed harder, as I'd seen my grandmother do probably a hundred times. "Please, Lord, thank you for your intervention. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus ..."

Then I sort of zoned out, and I was on this consciously unconscious level. And I kept praying my grandmother's words. "Nothing is too hard for you, God. Through you everything is possible. You can do all things, God. Thank you, Jesus ..."

And I'll be darned if when I opened my eyes Daddy didn't turn his head toward me and whisper, "Hey, pumpkin. Whatcha know good?"

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Sweet Bye-Bye by Denise Michelle Harris Copyright © 2004 by Denise Harris. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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