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Leon stumbled into Isabel’s room, head reeling, world spinning.
Immobile for days…hardly responsive. Measles continued to spread; pneumonia slowly stole her life. She was dying. There was nothing anyone could do. Just as Aadelheide had been taken away so soon, Leon’s daughter was being stolen from his arms.
Leon’s knees gave way. He collapsed beside his daughter’s bedside. His cupcake, his pumpkin, his Isabel. His little girl, his daughter who always smiled, who almost consistently remained happy no matter how dark the world around her became. His princess who was one of three lights in his life, his Isabel who, along with her brothers, gave Leon the will to live.
He was losing her. He was losing Isabel.
Leon roared; his fists met the floor.
Nothing more could be done. Nothing, no one, could save her. Nothing…nothing…nothing! What did he have left? What answer could he possibly have? He needed something…anything. Anything at all!
Anything to save his daughter, anything to save his Isabel.
Tears dripped from Leon’s eyes and cooled his cheeks.
He needed something. He needed anything. He couldn’t lose his Isabel.
“Where are you!? Where were you when Aadelheide died? Where were you in the camp? Where are you in my life?”
Silence. Utter silence.
Leon screamed.
How could he have believed for so long? How could he have trusted in something so false? Everyone was wrong. Everyone was…was—“Why didn’t you save me!?”
He had nothing. He possessed nothing. He was nothing. He had no answers. He had no hope. He had no trust. He had no belief.
“I have nothing left! There’s nothing the doctors can do. Isabel is dying, my daughter is being stolen from me,” Leon slowly stood, fists clenched, tears blurring his vision, “my cupcake is leave-leaving me. Do you even care?”
The pain. The abuse. The torture. The starvation. The loss. The abandonment. Where was the God Leon once trusted so deeply, loved so dearly? Where was the God that abandoned him? Where was the God so many spoke of? Where was the God so many promised would be there but never was?
But what did it matter? Why would anyone care? What did it matter to Louisa, to Isaiah, to God if he lived or if he died? What did it matter if he was blessed or if he was burdened? What did it matter if he gained or if he lost? What did it matter if he was happy or if he suffered?
No one truly cared. God didn’t really want to help him. God had already made it crystal clear where he stood.
If he cared, he would’ve answered Leon’s pleas. If he cared, he would’ve stopped the Nazis. If he cared, he would’ve done something to ease the burden. If he cared, he would’ve saved Aadelheide. If he cared, he would save Isabel.
If he cared, he wouldn’t have left Leon…a man who trusted him, loved him, and begged him for rescue that never came.
How cruel to trust a God who was said to be a god of love only to watch him abandon you in one of the darkest places on earth.
“I have nothing left. I have nowhere else to go. You’re my last choice! I would choose anything else over you. I don’t trust you, I don’t believe you, I don’t love you!”
Everything everyone said.
Everything written in the Bible.
Everything Leon once believed.
Everything Leon once trusted in.
The God Leon once loved, the God Leon once thought cared.
He left him. He left Leon. He abandoned Leon. He forsook Leon when he said he would never forsake the ones who trusted him.
God discarded him as if he were worthless, as if Leon meant nothing to him. God abandoned him as if it was easy, as if Leon was easy to leave behind.
As if Leon Wagner had truly never been loved as so many claimed.
Leon’s body convulsed with sobs. He collapsed onto the floor. He trembled. Deep sobs broke free from the confines of his lips, from the cavern deep within where a heart was meant to be.
“Prove that you are who everyone says you are. Prove that you care. Prove that you love me. If you care, if you love me, if you heard all of my prayers, if you never abandoned me, then save my daughter! Heal Isabel!” Leon screamed, gaze up, screaming as loud as he dared, voice hoarse, tone torn.
But Isabel didn’t even stir.
His legs went numb. His head sank. A single hand gripped the side of Isabel’s bed. His body bent over, and sobs shook him from head to toe.
It came. The end was finally upon him. After everything he’d suffered, everything he’d endured, everything he lost, still more was to be lost.
Through every tear, through every aching, trembling sob, Leon whispered, begged, “If you’re here, if you never left me and never will…save her. Please. I can’t lose her too.”
Warmness rested upon Leon’s hand that gripped the bed. Leon rose his head; he rose his tear-blurred gaze, and his breath caught in his throat. Isabel’s small fingers slowly intertwined with his own, tight, closed, finally, blessedly, warm.
Leon scrambled onto his knees, bending himself over his daughter’s frame. He pressed his lips against her forehead and a sob escaped his throat. Isabel’s hand in his own, Isabel’s fever gone, Isabel’s hands warm, alive.
Leon buried his face in the blankets and wept.