Anomaly: Chapter 2 & 3
"An Unlikely Match" and "A Devine Conversation"
Mom and Dad met nine months earlier in Chico, a small college town tucked into the agricultural belt of Northern California. Dad had just turned twenty—fresh-faced, with a Tom Selleck mustache and a full head of shoulder-length black hippie curls—ready to start his freshman year of college playing baseball. He rolled into town without a care, exuding an easy confidence, sporting his classic positive attitude and boyish good looks. He was the kind of guy who made friends without trying, who had a way of making everything seem effortless and everyone around him feel comfortable.
He’d been the pride of his close-knit Catholic Italian family—the oldest son, one of six kids, and the star pitcher at his high school in Palo Alto. His childhood was a blend of structure and spirited chaos, the kind that only a big, deeply connected family could create. He grew up in a sprawling, well-kept home that was never quiet, filled with the constant hum of siblings, the laughter of friends, and the warmth of extended family. It was the house everyone wanted to be at—the kind where the doors were always open, the dinner table was always full, and the phone was always ringing.
His parents—cultured, well-traveled, and deeply invested in their children’s futures—had woven a strong sense of duty and ambition into the fabric of their home. They valued education, faith, and family above all else, but they also believed in exploring the world beyond their own. Their expectations were clear: their children were meant to be accomplished, well-rounded, and driven. And as the eldest son, Dad carried the weight of those expectations with a natural ease. He was bright, charismatic, and athletic, the kind of person who seemed to glide through life, always landing on his feet. From an early age, it was understood—spoken or not—Dad was meant for big things.
His father (who we all called Nono) was a successful vice president at a Fortune 100 company, a man who had built his life on discipline, quiet authority, and the unshakable values of his immigrant roots. His family had come from Southern Italy to Boston when he was just a baby, carrying little more than their traditions and an unrelenting belief in hard work. He grew into the movie version of the Italian patriarch of that era—the reserved head of the household, who left most of the childrearing to his wife, preferring instead the quiet comfort of a well-worn armchair, a cigar in one hand, and a cocktail in the other as he watched football in the evenings.
His mother (who we called Noni), by contrast, was a force of nature. A college graduate—an achievement still rare for women of her generation—she loved fiercely and lived fully. She was the heart of the family, always positive and upbeat, a woman who believed that life was meant to be explored, that her children should see and experience the world beyond their doorstep. She packed their lives with adventure, with books, with travel, and interesting conversations. Where their father provided the structure, she provided the spark.
They had met and fallen in love in Europe during World War II, drawn together in the midst of history’s chaos. Both had volunteered to aid the war effort for the Allies, their paths crossing in a world far from home, shaped by urgency, loss, and a shared belief in something greater than themselves. Their love story wasn’t just romance; it was a partnership forged in purpose, in action. And that, perhaps more than anything, defined the foundation of the family they built.
Instead of heading straight to college after high school, Dad took a family-encouraged detour—a year abroad. He spent his gap year backpacking through Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, making new friends at every stop. He slept in youth hostels and under the stars, lived on a kibbutz in Israel for a time, and learned to navigate the unspoken rules of each country as a foreigner. He immersed himself fully in every experience, attending Mass conducted by the Pope at the Vatican, pressing his forehead to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, wearing traditional garb and eating with his fingers in Morocco, and getting drunk on cheap champagne in Paris. He had seen grandeur and poverty side by side, felt the weight of history in ancient cities, and learned firsthand the difference between studying the world and truly living in it.
By the time he landed in Chico, he carried the unmistakable glow of someone who had seen the world, tasted adventure, and proven—at least to himself—that he could go anywhere and figure it out. He had left home as the golden boy, but he returned with something even more powerful: the conviction that life—and the opportunities it offered—was meant to be seized, not meticulously planned. And, more than anything, he believed that things always had a way of working out for him in the end.
And then he met Mom.
Mom, on the other hand, was actively praying for a savior. And at twenty-six, with two failed marriages and three kids hanging to feed, she needed one. She had spent her life running—from her past, from her mistakes, and the aching loneliness of abandonment and disappointment. But she could never outrun trouble.
She ended up in Chico after following Ricco, the boyfriend who had saved her from Bob, Andy and the twins' father—the drunk truck-driver husband with a mean streak. She knew it was time to leave when Bob stumbled through the door one night, reeking of whiskey, and woke her from sleep with the cold barrel of a gun pressed against her cheek, rattling nonsense.
That night was the first time she had ever prayed. With the metallic scent of the gun in her nose and her heart pounding, she begged God for help. “If you get me out of this, if you let me live,” she whispered, “I’ll leave him.”
When Bob suddenly rolled off her and passed out, she knew—without a doubt—that God was real. He had answered her prayer.
This was her first religious experience.
Ricco was a regular at the Denny’s where Mom worked the graveyard shift, refilling lukewarm coffee and slinging Grand Slams for truckers and college kids trying to sober up after a night of cheap beer and bad decisions. He was smooth-talking and sharp-dressed, with a cocky grin that hinted at trouble, but she had always been a sucker for a handsome face. She could tell Ricco liked the way she looked, even in her polyester uniform with grease stains she couldn’t scrub out. He flirted shamelessly, lingering at the counter long after his eggs had gone cold, and she let him because it felt good to be seen, to be wanted. Maybe he was the one to rescue her from her abusive marriage, the exit she’d been praying for.
Ricco was the kind of man who could make you forget your troubles and make you feel beautiful, and mom craved both. So, when he asked her to leave with him, she didn’t hesitate. She packed up her kids and whatever would fit in his van, leaving Bob behind and chasing the promise of a better life with Ricco.
As a kid, I hated when she told stories about Ricco and his chiseled face. First, because I could tell it was probably disrespectful to Dad, but he never seemed to mind, so I minded for him. Second, because something about Ricco just gave me the creeps, even if it was only through the secondhand retelling of events. These weren’t the sometimes funny, wild tales she boisterously shared to get a laugh or garner the attention of a room. They were the kind that made your stomach feel like something bad was about to happen.
Ricco sounded like a real piece of work—a drifter, a predator, a wannabe commune leader. He had this strange, magnetic pull over people, and Mom, unfortunately, was an easy target.
They moved into a shabby pink house on the outskirts of town, a place so run-down and chaotic it seemed to attract every kind of trouble. It was the kind of house where nothing good ever happened, where the air was thick with tension and the weight of bad decisions. Mom started to second-guess herself. What had she gotten herself and the kids into? This was not the white picket fence, happily-ever-after life she had imagined. It felt unsettlingly familiar, and not in a good way.
It was the mid-70s, so the rules were loose, boundaries were nonexistent, and anything went. Tarot readings? Totally normal. Drugs? Almost guaranteed. Sex among housemates? Probably. Abuse? Inevitable. And as for devil worship? Apparently, that was also a thing.
It was that last part—devil worship—that pushed Mom to the brink. For all the dysfunction and madness that had consumed her life, it was the idea that she might be living with actual devil worshipers that finally shattered her blind devotion to Ricco. If there was one thing that genuinely terrified her, it was the threat of the devil. Desperate, she found herself praying again, begging God to get her and the kids out of that house before someone truly became a human sacrifice.
But this time, either God wasn’t listening, or her prayers were being answered in a way she dreaded most, because soon after, child protective services knocked on their door. Things had undeniably spiraled out of control. A concerned neighbor had tipped them off to what was happening in that house, where three small children were living among numerous unaccounted-for adults. When they stepped inside, they found my twin sisters lying on a bare mattress in the back room, their tiny bodies weak, dehydrated, and malnourished. The neglect was impossible to ignore, the abuse too obvious to overlook. Then, in the backyard, they found Andy. He was unsupervised as usual, smashing things against the fence and trying to set it on fire.
It was more than enough for the state to step in. Social workers arrived, packing up the kids and placing them in foster care.
Yeah, Mom desperately needed a hero.
Chapter 3
“A Devine Conversation”
One morning, before Ricco could catch her whispering her morning prayers, Mom slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb their strange housemates. She padded silently across the cold floorboards and into the dirty, dimly lit kitchen. There, she made herself a cup of tea, the steam rising and warming her hands. She settled at the wobbly kitchen table with her Bible open in front of her. Its pages, soft and fragile from frequent use, seemed to hold the answers she so desperately sought. She thumbed through them like a game of spiritual roulette—hoping, praying for a sign, a verse, anything that might bring clarity to the swirling chaos in her mind. She needed something to give her direction.
And then she heard it—a voice. Soft, yet unmistakable.
“Go check the mail.” Clear as day.
It was so distinct, so real, that she froze, her fingers still gripping the Bible. Was it a sign? No one else was in the room—had it been in her head? Maybe it was some sort of test. She sat perfectly still, afraid to breathe.
Mom always pauses here in the telling of this story, for dramatic effect. Her voice low and shaky from the emotion it still conjures, as she explains what it felt like to hear God speak to her for the very first time. She marvels at the weight of it, drawing in her skeptical listener with a curiosity they never seemed to resist.
“It wasn’t like the booming, thunderous voices you hear in movies,” she explains. No, God’s voice was different than she’d expected. It was calm, conversational, familiar—like the voice of someone who’d known her for a lifetime. A voice that could both comfort and command, without ever raising its tone.
Mom says God talks to her because she listens and does what He says, even when she’s not happy about it. On this day, she wasn’t thrilled. Instead of being in awe of this sudden divine conversation, she wanted to know why. She shook her head and spun the Bible pages again. “That’s stupid,” she muttered. “Why should I check the mail when I’m busy praying for a husband?” She needed real answers to real problems, not some silly heavenly voice giving her random, pointless instructions. She was annoyed.
But then, there it was again. “Go check the mail.” It was insistent, and she realized it wasn’t going to leave her alone unless she followed its command.
Still in her pajamas, she stepped outside barefoot, the cool morning air prickling her skin, her tea now lukewarm in her hand. Her toes sank into the uncut front lawn as she made her way to the mailbox. The rusted lid creaked as she pulled it open, revealing a stack of junk mail resting on top of a thick copy of the Chico State fall class schedule. She grabbed the mail and walked back to the house, setting it down on the table.
“Now what?” she asked aloud, not bothering to hide her growing irritation. “Okay, here’s the mail! What am I supposed to do now?”
As a high school dropout since her sophomore year and someone who’d struggled with dyslexia, reading had always been an uphill battle for mom. She’d been sounding out the words in the Bible every day for months, trying to teach herself to read. But college? That was absurd. She had no desire to go to college and no means to pay for it. It felt like God was toying with her, and she didn’t like it.
The voice came through again, steady and unbothered by her impatience: “Pick up the class schedule and flip to the sports section. Look up the tennis class schedule.”
For a moment, she just stared at the catalog in front of her. “What?” she groaned. “Tennis? You can’t be serious.” Now she was becoming genuinely pissed. This was a ridiculous waste of time, and Ricco would be up soon, wanting to know who she was talking to in the kitchen.
This was absurd. She had never, not once in her life, stepped foot on a tennis court. Not even all the times her mom tried to get her to take lessons from the tennis pro at the country club. Tennis was for people like her mother, bored rich housewives. Not her. She shook her head. She wouldn’t do it.
She sat at the table, staring at the catalog, then glanced around the house to make sure no one else was up, watching. Reluctantly, curiosity got the best of her, and she flipped through the pages. She found the sports section and located the tennis class listing. Sure enough, a beginner class starting that very evening. That’s a strange coincidence, she thought.
“Take the class tonight,” the voice instructed calmly. “Tonight, you’ll meet your husband.”
And that was all He said. He must have gone about His business after that, because Mom still had questions: How was she supposed to register with no money? What would she wear to make the best impression on her future husband? And oh yeah, how would she get a ride to class?
But there were no more answers.
She was nervous, but also a little thrilled. Mom’s heart sped up. This was crazy, but exciting at the same time. All day, she imagined what her new husband might look like and how she’d know which one of the tanned, athletic college guys on the court he would be. She even tried on her limited outfit options several times, just to make sure she’d catch his eye. She couldn’t help the rush of anticipation.
But what if he didn’t like her? Or worse, wasn’t attracted to her? She hadn’t even realized she was capable of this kind of self-doubt. It was new—and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it. She’d never been the smartest girl in the room, and she definitely didn’t have a job or money to offer. But she did have her looks. Her legs were long, tanned, and toned—she made sure to flaunt them whenever possible since they were undeniably her best feature. Every night, she brushed her straight, dark hair until it shone, silky and smooth. Even after four kids, including twins, her figure had stayed great. She knew she was attractive, with an alluring way about her that always drew men in. All she had to do was catch his eye. Once he did, she was sure she’d have him.
She hopped on the city bus at the stop just down the street, her stomach full of butterflies as it wound its way through town to the college campus. So worried about being late and missing her “husband window,” she arrived much earlier than expected.
When she reached the empty court, she decided to grab a loaner racket from the bucket at the entrance along with a tennis ball and started practicing her serve. Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty, and still, she was the only one on the court.
“Okay, God. I’m here. Where is he?” she asked aloud, hitting another ball over the net with accelerating force and frustration. Her butterflies quickly turning to stones of disappointment in the pit of her stomach. Maybe it wasn’t God talking to her this morning. Maybe she’d imagined the whole thing. This was so stupid. What was she thinking? Meeting her husband at college when she was a twice-divorced single mom of three, soon approaching thirty? It was embarrassing.
All this she mumbled under her breath as she hit and chased balls, talking out loud to herself, more annoyed with each swing.
“Do you need a partner?” a voice behind her asked.
Mom turned around and stared into the eyes of the most handsome man she’d ever seen, and said, “You must be my husband.”
These three things are a FREE way to get this book seen and they are critically important to a writer on this platform. Please take a moment to give back, thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Like this post (and chapter 1)
Comment your thoughts below
Share this post.
About the Author: Sarah Centrella is a multi #1 best-selling author, master life coach, executive coach, speaker and the Founder of VIVIAMO.
This work is copyright protected 2025 Centrella Global LLC
Ohhh I am left hanging for the rest of the story - ❤️
More chapters please!