Chapter Twenty

The two days passed by in a blur.  I don’t even remember if I did my homework during that time.  My world was consumed by the upcoming trip.  All of my teachers knew before I told them that I was leaving.  I suspected Mike had something to do with it.  I didn’t even have to get my homework from them.

Mike silently walked up to me before lunch.  We went to Rudy’s Pizzeria with Kayla and Hannah and Jack, ate what little I could, and then we left.

The drive down to the Cities was a quiet one.  Sure, we listened to the radio and when that didn’t work anymore we put in a couple of CDs, but we didn’t talk at all.  It was four by the time we got there, and it was getting dark.  Sun went down by five at that time of year.

“Brad said he’d meet us at the Olive Garden on Snelling and Country Road B2.  You hungry at all?”  I shook my head.  “We can just get the salad.”  When I stayed silent he said, “We’re staying at a Comfort Suites hotel in Rochester when we get there.  We only have one room, but the couch pulls out I think, so we’ll each have our own bed.  I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“You don’t have to do that.  I’m not used to nice beds anyway,” I finally said.

“No, I want to.  You’ll sleep better on a nice bed, whether you think you do or not,” he said.  I stayed quiet again, not able to think of anything to reply to that.

We pulled into the restaurant, which was full since it was a Friday night.  Brad had gotten a table near the front so we could see him, and he waved to us when we got through the door.  He’d even already ordered a Root Beer for Mike and a Diet Coke for me.  And a salad.

“I thought that this would be all we’d be eating, but I brought snacks for the hotel just in case,” he said as he hugged me.  “It’s good to see you again, Katie.  You’re thinner.  You need to eat.”

“I’ll have a breadstick,” I replied as I sat down.

Mike laughed.  “I’m ordering pasta and you’re going to have part of it.”

Brad smiled.  “Good luck getting her to do that.  I tried it when we were little and I ended up having to clean the entire kitchen.”

“But I didn’t like it.  It tasted funny, like you had cooked it for too long.”

“I probably had.  I was eight and you were five, what else do you expect?  And mom was fifteen when she had me.”  He stayed quiet, regretting what he had just said.

I smiled, trying to make them happier.  They were worried about me and I wasn’t helping anything by being all sad and depressed.  “How have you been?  Do you have a girlfriend yet?”

“Not yet, but I’m working on it.  It’s hard to find one in my school who doesn’t drink or do drugs when they’re not in class.”

“If you don’t like the school why don’t you transfer?” I asked.

“They do actually have a nice program, and it’s cheap.  I’m not going to transfer so far into the program.”

“Haven’t you only been gong there for a year and a half or something?” I asked.

“Yeah, but that’s too far for me.  If it was a month or two, or a quarter, then it would be fine.  But no, I’m about a third done with it and so I’m not going to give up,” he replied, glancing at Mike.  I couldn’t even begin to guess why.

We finished eating and left.  Brad had been taken there by his friend and had had his backpack full of clothes under the table.  We got in the car and started driving.

Brad decided he wanted to drive to Rochester, since he knew the way and had been there frequently during college.  I didn’t know why, but I didn’t ask.  I just sat in the backseat with Mike and napped.

We got to the hotel at six and decided that it would be best to get a good night’s rest and visit Mom in the morning.  We knew what room number she was in and on what floor, we just weren’t sure what the visitation hours were.

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” I told them.  Mike sat down on it and refused to move, not saying a word, and I eventually gave up and slept on the bed.  Just a few minutes after I had sat down I could hear both of them snoring.  It was a loud night and either way I didn’t get sleep anyway.

In the morning I was the first one up.  I got breakfast, just a bowl of cereal, and watched TV with the volume on mute.  Brad got up next and was taking his shower when Mike got up and went down to breakfast.  We didn’t say a word to each other, and we still hadn’t said a word when we were ready to go to the hospital.

Brad drove again.  We found parking and asked a nurse where the room was.  She gave us detailed directions, even telling us which wing it was in and what turns to take and the best elevators to go by if we were in a hurry.  Thanking her, we went on our way.

When we were almost there I started getting nervous.  I was just getting used to Mom on Meds, and I didn’t know what she was like now.  Would she be all doped up and loopy, would she be normal like before, or where the meds even working this time around?  There was no way to know.  But I went into her room anyway.

“Katie?  Oh, dear, it’s so good to see you!  But I haven’t brushed my hair yet,” she said, laughing.  Normal Mom it was then.

“We just had to see you, Mom.  I brought my violin.”

“Oh, I’ve been telling the nurses about it.  Play something for us.”

“The bird song or Für Elise?”

She smiled.  “The bird song.  You know it’s my favorite.”

I took out my violin and started playing it for her, and a lot of nurses and doctors and patients and visitors came to watch.  It was distracting, but I had been through worse.  I finished the song in only a couple of minutes, and many people started applauding.  Finally Mom’s nurse shooed them all away to give Mom some medications that I don’t even want to know the name of.  It was painful to watch her, but I did, smiling.

Not much happened for the rest of the day.  We sat in the room and talked, went shopping a little bit with the money that Mike had thought to bring, since my brother and I were both dirt poor.  We didn’t buy much.  I bought another violin book.  It looked deliciously challenging.

An entire week passed like that.  It was Saturday afternoon and Mike and Brad were in the cafeteria when Mom told me, “I don’t want you to go back to living with your father.  Ever.”

“He kicked me out, remember?”

“He started regretting it when he had to make his own food.  And get his own beer.  And I don’t want to go back with him anyway.”

“Do you think that you and Brad could get an apartment and you could move in with him for a while?”

She shrugged.  “I might be able to.  I was only a freshman when I had him, but I did finish high school.”

“Mom, if you wanted to you could still go to college.  No one would mind.”

She shook her head and replied, “It would be too stressful for me.  The doctors said not to do anything that was too stressful.  I’ll get a job and get an apartment, whether it’s with your brother or not.  But since I’m not going to be there anymore I want you to move in with either Kayla or Mike.”

“Kayla.  She’s my best friend, and I like Mike’s parents but they don’t have a room for me.  Kayla already has a room for me.”

Mom sighed.  “I wish I could do more for you than I am, but I can’t.  I want you to finish school up there, but that means that I won’t be able to see you and hear you play the violin.”

“I can make CDs for you.  Kayla’s parents already said that they’re getting me a computer for graduating the tenth grade.”

She knitted her eyebrows together.  “That just makes me feel like we’re going to have to pay them back someday.”

“I know, I was planning on doing that in college.  But they don’t mind.  We’ll have our entire life to pay them back,” I told her, sighing.

The boys decided to come back then.  They had snuck a hamburger for me and some juice for Mom.  “Thank you,” we said at the same time, laughing.  We weren’t able to talk like that for the rest of the time that we were in Rochester.

Mom promised that as soon as she got out she would find an apartment, and maybe she would even have to live with me in Kayla’s place, but Mike said that his parents would let her stay with them if she had nowhere else to go.  Brad promised that he would stat looking for a nice apartment, but he was living in the school dorms and they didn’t let family stay with them.

“I’m going to miss you all so much.  Oh, and thank Mrs. Sylvia for me, Katie.  She’s still paying for this, right?”

“I’m still getting good grades, so yes she is,” Katie replied.

Mom sighed.  “I wonder what we would do without her.  Bake her some cookies for me, too, and put them in a nice basket with a handkerchief over them.”

“I will if I have the time.  Kayla and her mom will help me.”

“Don’t forget me!” Mike pouted.

I put my hands on my hips.  “Michael James Wavota, if we let you help they would survive for half an hour.”

“Well, Kathryn Amanda Hyland, I’m sorry if I have a large appetite!” he argued back.

Mom laughed.  “Play nice.  It’s almost nine.  You’d better get going now.  It’s almost ten and I don’t want you driving in the dark too much.”

“Yes, ma’am,” we laughed, leaving.  Mom was fine.  Everything was good.

Brad drove us to his dorm, where we dropped him off and Mike started driving.  Neither of them would let me drive, even though I had my license.  I didn’t have a car to practice with, though, so it sort of made sense.

We got back home by three-thirty, what with Mike’s speed-demon driving.  We hung out at Kayla’s place and he helped me finish my homework so I could turn it all in the next day.

That’s when I got the phone call.