Katie's Angel

by Tabatha Akers

  “Well things are bound to get better. That is all we can hope for,” mom said, always the optimist.

  “How was your day?” dad asked mom.

  “It was slow so I came home early. I figured there was no reason to run up the hours for doing nothing. I came home and ended up spending most of the day with Katie, and I did all the laundry,” Mom said.

  Katie was surprised, expecting mom to tell dad right away what happened today. In some way she was happy to avoid the conversation at dinner, but she knew that her parents would be discussing this later. That worried her a little more because that meant they would make decisions for her, and that was something she was truly starting to dislike.

  Taking another bite of her salad her thoughts drifted to her picnic with Jack tomorrow. She had never been very comfortable with boys, but Jack was different. She had never talked to anyone about Jackson and when she felt safe enough to open up to him, it actually shocked her. She found herself wanting to share more and tell him exactly what happened. That wasn’t something that she had ever really wanted to do with anyone, including her parents.

  Drifting back to the dining room, she heard her dad talking about his day. She tried hard to listen to what he was saying but she was distracted by what happened earlier and it made it extremely hard to be there in the moment with her parents. She knew that if her parents figured out that she was hanging out with Jack, they would ban her from being anywhere near him. They just wouldn’t understand. They would think this was her way of acting out and would ground her just to keep her from seeing him. Although she was surprised that no one had told them about her having lunch with him. Her day had gone from being a great day, to a horrible day in just a few hours.

  She still wasn’t over getting that note but she did not really want to talk about it just yet with her dad. She was still trying to wrap her head around who would have been so mean to send something like that to her at all.

  “Katie, are you going to answer your father?” Katie heard her mom ask as she snapped back to reality.

  “I’m sorry mom, I must have been day dreaming. What did you say dad?”

  “I was just asking if you have started reading to the kids at the library.”

  Thinking about how exactly to answer her dad without it coming out that she just went to the library to pick it up today. “No, I will do my first reading of the summer on Tuesday.” She said catching a glance at her mom to see just how much trouble she was in.

  “Well that is great, honey. It is nice that you have something to do this summer. It will make it pass by faster. Have you talked to any of your friends yet?”

  “I have seen them at the park, but we just say hi in passing. I just don’t feel the need to hang out with anyone just yet.”

  “Well just don’t put it off to long. They are all concerned about you and they just want to know exactly how things are going with you.”

  Rolling her eyes, already tired of this conversation, Katie reluctantly replied “I know dad. I will when I am ready.”

  “Ok honey, I know you will.”

  Looking at her mother with the look of displeasure on her face, she decided to do her best to change the subject of the conversation. “So I was thinking that we should do something this weekend. What do you think?”

  “And just what do you think we should do?” her mom asked knowing that Katie was just trying to change the subject. Little did she know that her dad would know everything that had happened that day soon enough.

  “I don’t know. Maybe see a movie or something. Just do something as a family.” She said as she thought to herself “well as family as we can get since we are missing one.”

  Dad looked at mom and shrugged his shoulders. It would be nice to spend a little time doing something they all would enjoy and not sit at home thinking about the missing piece in their lives. Things at home are so tense and the happiness isn’t like it used to be. No one really laughs like they all did when Jackson was there. He always made sure there was something to laugh about at least a few times a day. “Okay, pick a movie and a time and I will be there. Maybe afterwards we can get dinner somewhere.”

  With a smile on her face, Katie felt triumphant to get through dinner without any news of her not telling the truth being said. “Great I’ll get online in the morning and find out what is playing.”

  “That is a great idea.” Mom replied giving Katie a knowing look that said “you’re not out of the woods just yet.”

  Katie ignoring the look for now stood up and started to clear the table. She took all the left over salad and put it in an air tight bowl and put it in the fridge. She turned on the hot water and rinsed the dishes, and loaded the dishwasher. She just wanted to get upstairs and lay in the tub. It had been a long, stressful day and she just wanted to forget everything for a little bit. After wiping the counters off, she walked back into the dining room. Mom and dad were just getting up from the table. She walked over to dad and hugged him, and then hugged mom.

  “I am going to lie in the tub and then go to bed. I love you both.” Katie said as she turned towards the stairs.

  “Okay honey, thank you for dinner and for cleaning up. That was a nice treat. I will see you when I get home tomorrow night,” her dad said.

  With that Katie went upstairs happy to be finished with the day. She knew tomorrow was going to hold a day of worry, but right now she just wanted to sit in the tub and think about Jack.

  With Katie upstairs, her mom and dad went into the living room to relax for a while. When they got settled her dad asked her mom, “What was with Katie tonight?”

  “Well I found out some interesting things today. When I got home, Katie wasn’t home. I went upstairs and grabbed all the clothes to wash, and when I was walking back down the stairs, I saw her walking up the sidewalk. She was walking with that boy that got himself arrested for breaking and entering towards the end of the school year.”

  “Why was she walking with him? It isn’t like they are friends or anything. She has never even mentioned him before,” her dad said as he let his head drop into his hands.

  “I know. Anyways, I didn’t tell her I saw that so she doesn’t know. When she came in we were in the kitchen and we were talking. The phone rang, and I bet you can’t guess who was on the other end.”

  Dad just shrugged still in shock that she was hanging out with a boy who had a bad reputation in the neighborhood.

  “It was, Mrs. Smith, the librarian asking if Katie would be willing to read to the kids this summer.” Mom stopped to take a sip of her drink.

  Dad looked at her and said “I thought she went to the library before and talked to Mrs. Smith. What is going on with her? She never did anything like this before.”

  “I know. The weird thing is that when we went down to the library Katie couldn’t seem to get herself to go inside. I had to pretty much tell her to get inside and stop playing. Then when we left we went to the post office. I came out with a letter for Katie. It had no return address or anything on it. She didn’t open it at first, but after she did she came down here yelling at me about how it was not a funny thing to write a letter like that.”

  “What letter?”

  “That is just it. I didn’t write this letter. It was a letter that sounded like Jackson had written it to her telling her to live her life and stop acting out. She didn’t take it very well. I told her to stop freaking out. She got mad and stomped out of the house and was gone for almost two hours. I am really getting worried about her. She is not willing to admit that she needs help. She isn’t talking to anyone and she is hanging out with the wrong people.”

  “Well I don’t know what we are supposed to do but I know that whatever it is she is going to fight us on it,” her dad replied shaking his head.

  “I don’t know either, but I think I am going to stay home tomorrow and spend the day with her.”

  “I don’t know if that is what we should do. I think we should try another way.”

 
“And how exactly are we going to handle this?”

  “I think you should go to work. I am going to go to work and instead of you coming home, I am going to come home early. This will give her and I some time together and maybe she will talk to me. If she doesn’t want to open up then we will force her to go to counseling. Maybe that is something that we should all consider,” he said without looking at his wife. He was against talking to professionals himself, but if it meant that it got Katie some help, he was willing to do it.

  “Okay that sounds good to me. She doesn’t listen to me anyway. I just hope this doesn’t blow up in our faces,” she replied completely out of ideas on how to fix this situation. She just wished that Katie would talk to them. It would probably do all of them some good to talk as a family.

  Chapter 13

  The next morning Katie got up, opened her curtains and her window. She saw the sun shining and heard the birds chirping. She soaked up the warmth on her face as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had slept very well last night considering everything that took place yesterday. She didn’t want to think about the previous day, because it still struck her in a way that bothered her in an extreme way.

  Shaking her thoughts away, she turned and walked towards the bathroom. Along the way she noticed that her brush was lying on its bristles and not on its back like she always put it. She stopped to fix it. Picking it up she couldn’t help but question how it was turned that way. She was way too much of a perfectionist to have left her brush like that. Maybe her parents came in this morning and she didn’t hear them, since she was sleeping so well last night. That didn’t seem like it was a plausible answer to her, so as fast as it came into her mind she shook it out. This was just another one of those instances that made her wonder if she was alone. These days she was still feeling as if she was being followed all the time. It seemed like there was always someone or something there watching over her. Yesterday at the library, proved her point. She couldn’t figure out who or what it was that was pushing her towards the library door.

  Laying her brush back on her dresser, Katie once again blew off her thoughts, and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, and get ready for her picnic date with Jack. It was so nice to have someone around her that didn’t want to constantly know exactly what she was thinking all the time.

  After brushing her teeth, Katie came out of the bathroom to her closet and pulled out a shirt and a pair of jeans. After throwing her clothes on, she walked over to her bed and made it quickly. She couldn’t leave her room without having her bed made. After making her bed she walked over to the dresser and ran her brush through her long blond hair. Pulling her hair up in a ponytail, she walked out of her room and down the stairs to the kitchen.

  In the kitchen, she went to the fridge and pulled out the crème cheese and a bagel. She took the bagel and put it in the toaster. She then grabbed a small glass and filled it with some orange juice. Grabbing a knife from the drawer, the bagel popped back up. She walked over and grabbed it out of the toaster and laid it on a paper towel. She generously applied crème cheese. This had always been one of her favorite things for breakfast.

  Taking a bite she thought about Jackson. Every year on her birthday, he would get up early and make her breakfast. He would always make sure that he put the perfect amount of crème cheese on there, and always brought two glasses of orange juice. He would bring it up to her room and they would sit on her bed, her eating one half, and Jackson eating the other half. It was the one thing that she would never forget about Jackson.

  There was a knock at the door that made her jump. She looked at the clock, and it was only nine fifteen. It was too early for Jack to be here. Walking to the door, she swallowed the bite of bagel she had just taken moments before the door bell rang.

  Opening the door Katie saw her best friend Amy standing in front of her. She had not talked to Amy since Jacksons’ funeral. She and Amy have been friends since preschool and over the years became completely inseparable. They generally were at each other’s houses every day. That is until Jackson died. When Jackson died everyone including her best friend Amy stopped coming around. It was something that Katie couldn’t decide if she was really mad about, or happy that it meant one less person asking her how she was doing on a daily basis.

  “Hi Katie,” Amy said nervously, with her hands shoved in her back pockets of her shorts.

  “Hi,” Katie replied, not really sure what to say or why Amy was there.

  “How are you?”

  “I am okay. How are you?”

  Brushing her long brunette hair behind her ear, Amy replied without looking at Katie, “I’m good. It has been a while since I have seen you, and I just wanted to check up on you.”

  Katie felt like all her friends just abandoned her when everything started happening with Jackson in his last few months of life. They all seemed to distance themselves from her. They would often stop talking when she came up to them. It made her feel like an outsider and she didn’t like that at all. She only wanted everyone to treat her like she was normal.

  “Katie, are you okay?”

  “I am fine. Thanks for asking. If that is all you wanted I am busy.”

  “That isn’t all I wanted. What is wrong with you Katie? You don’t talk to anyone, and you do not associate with any of our friends from school. This is not normal Katie, and I am really worried about you.”

  “Well,” Katie responded in a snotty tone, “you can stop worrying your pretty little head off about poor little old me. I am no one anyone should worry about. If I needed you to feel sorry for me or worry about me I would have let you know already. But then that would mean that I would actually have to talk to someone who talked about me behind my back, and I just don’t have the time to deal with anyone like that.”

  Standing there in shock Amy couldn’t say anything. She was so baffled by the way that Katie was acting that she couldn’t understand what exactly was happening. This is not the Katie that she had grown up with. She never would have talked to anyone like this, much less Amy. Trying her hardest not to cry, Amy took a deep breath, and said “I don’t know what you are talking about. I have always been your friend, Katie. You became secluded and you didn’t want to talk to anyone so I gave you the space that you seemed to need. And I wasn’t talking behind your back. I was trying to keep everyone else from asking questions that I knew would hurt you in a way that I knew you didn’t need.”

  “Well I didn’t need your sympathy then, and I don’t need your sympathy now!”

  Amy had tears streaming down her cheeks now. She had never been so hurt by someone and she couldn’t believe that the person hurting her so fiercely was her best friend. The one person she considered to be her sister. Deciding it was time to go Amy looked at Katie, shook her head and without another word, walked off.

  Katie watched Amy as she walked away and after she reached the sidewalk, Katie closed the door. This definitely was not how she expected her day to start. Balling her hands up into a fist she walked back to the kitchen, furious that Amy refused to take any responsibility for her actions.

  Katie finished her bagel and her orange juice. She grabbed her jacket and then headed to the one place she knew she would get some peace.

  As she got to the cemetery she noticed that the grass smelled freshly cut, and there were fresh flowers on Jacksons’ home. That meant that mom had been there early this morning. She always knew when mom had been there because she always left Jackson some flowers. While she was looking at the headstone, she realized that she still had not brought the one thing that would make this non-homey place more like home for Jackson. She decided that she would remember to bring it with her the next time she was there.

  Sitting down she did her usual kiss of the headstone, and started immediately talking about how dinner went and how nervous she was about her mom and dad deciding what she needed to do and what she did not need to do.

  The more she talked, the madder she got about the w
hole thing. She just didn’t understand it at all. Sometimes she just couldn’t wait to grow up so that she didn’t have to worry about anyone telling her what to do.

  After venting to Jackson for about twenty minutes, she decided that it was almost time for her to get home so that she could get ready for her lunch date with Jack. She kissed the headstone again, and said goodbye. Then she got up and walked away, reminding herself to bring something with her the next time.

  As she hurried home, she tried to decide what she was going to make for the picnic. She finally decided that she would make turkey sandwiches.

  When she got home she started getting everything out for the sandwiches. She grabbed the meat and the bread. Reaching into the drawer by the sink, she pulled out four sandwich bags. She wasn’t sure how hungry Jack would be but she had decided that she would make sure there was enough in case he was very hungry. She pulled out the condiments and sat them on the counter. She wasn’t sure exactly what Jack liked on his sandwiches so she decided that she was going to put a little bit of mayonnaise, mustard, and ketchup in a snack bowl that mom always used when they would go on road trips as a family when they were kids.

  Then she grabbed the chips out of the cabinet that they used just for the snacks. There was always a wide variety of snacks in the house. She put a handful of chips in two separate Ziploc bags. Then she decided that a picnic wouldn’t be complete without some sweet tea to drink. In a thermos that she has had since she was in grade school and filled it with some sweet tea. Remembering that Jack drank milk, she grabbed Jackson’s Spiderman thermos and filled it with milk. After putting some lettuce in a bag and some turkey meat, she decided that should be enough, she grabbed the picnic basket that her mom bought at a yard sale, and added everything in it.

  When she was sufficed that everything was set to go, she went up to Jackson’s room. As she turned the knob she had to take a deep breath. As she walked into his room, and looked around, she realized that she had not been in his room since before he died. She stood there and looked at how everything was the same. She thought mom had come in here and put some of his stuff away. She didn’t realize that mom was just coming in his room for something else.