I reach into my chest of drawers and pull out my usual pajamas of a concert T-shirt and shorts. “Don’t worry about tonight, Violet. I don’t know much about Greek life, but I don’t think the point is to make anyone miserable. Just have fun with it, and if you’re still unhappy at Christmas, maybe talk to your mom about quitting.”
Violet laughs bitterly. “There’s no ‘quit’ in Alison Carrington Newbury’s vocabulary.” She smooths the vanilla-scented lotion over her elbows. “Your phone’s been buzzing for hours. If you think Jemma didn’t document each occurrence in her Notebook of Roommate Infractions, you are mistaken.”
“There’s a notebook of infractions?”
“There is now.”
I’d left my phone on my bed, not even willing to take the risk of it on silent during the audition. One ill-timed alarm, tweet, or chirp, and I’d be nothing but a nameless girl who hands out play programs. “Probably my parents or Tate wanting an update.” I check the screen. “Three calls and ten texts is a bit much.”
There’s one text from Tate. A generic, “What’s up?”
What’s up? My audition! Did I need to set a calendar event on his phone for him to remember this?
There are numerous calls from my parents, and my unease grows.
I don’t bother listening to voicemail but skip straight to a FaceTime call.
“Hi, sweetie.” Millie’s face appears on my phone, and I watch her wave over James. “How did it go?”
“Phenomenally well.” I hate to oversell this audition, but come on. It was ideal. “I think I gave the performance of my career. You guys should probably go ahead and pick out what to wear for my Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony. James, no tube socks or Hawaiian shirts.” My parents both smile, but I know fake enthusiasm when I see it. “Is everything okay?”
They exchange another look, and that cafeteria stir-fry cartwheels in my tummy. Oh, no. Has Millie’s cancer returned? Is it Maxine? Has she fallen in salsa class and broken a hip? Has James been fired? Transferred? Were they finally making good on their threat to retire?
“Katie, we got a call tonight,” Millie says. “Your mom somehow got a hold of some drugs in prison. She overdosed. Hon, she’s not okay.”
James clears his throat. “She’s in a coma in ICU, and they thought you might like to see her.” His stoic face dominates the screen. “In case she doesn’t wake up.”
Chapter Eight
The dilapidated Stafford County Hospital sits on thirty acres of dried grass and buzz-cut weeds almost three hours from Hendrix, nearly two hours from In Between, and a million miles away from my technicolor life. Driving up to it looks like the opening scene of one of those Netflix movies you watch out of sheer boredom; but when it’s over, you feel sad, desolate, and in need of some classic Disney.
I took off after my last class, deciding to navigate this one alone despite repeated pleadings from my parents to wait for them to accompany me. Still mad that Tate has yet to ask about my audition, I didn’t even bother telling him.
Some things you gotta do alone. Like visit a dying parent. Whose room will be protected by prison guards.
My bio-mom is serving ten years for child endangerment, selling and manufacturing drugs, plus a little robbery. If I have any entrepreneurial skills at all, it’s thanks to Bobbie Ann Parker. You’ll understand if I don’t seem inclined to join the family business. I haven’t seen Mom in two years. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but when my mother got put away and permanently lost custody, I slept through the night for the first time in my life.
I park my car at the end of a row, letting a song finish from my playlist titled “You’re Having an Angsty Month.” After a lengthy heavy metal finale, I exit the car and begin my trek to the hospital’s front doors. So great is my desire to be anywhere else, I have to will my feet to move.
My objective is to get in, confirm my mother’s having another bout of attention deprivation, then get out. We’ve had a few false alarms with Bobbie Ann Parker’s health already. During her incarceration, she’s emailed me about her life-altering head trauma (three stitches after a run-in with a mop handle), as well as her impending dialysis and request for one of my kidneys (she had a bladder infection and needed some cranberry juice and antibiotics). And I can’t forget her last bid for my sympathy when she swore she had a ten-pound ovarian tumor. (They gave her Midol and a heating pad.)
After checking in with a vest-wearing volunteer at the front desk, I walk past the deserted gift shop and step into an elevator that smells like wet clothes left too long in the washing machine. While it shakes and shimmies toward the third floor, a neon light above me flickers off and on like a creepy omen to get out. A poster on the wall asks me if I’ve had my flu shot and warns of imminent death and destruction if I don’t.
Exiting into the hall, I find there’s instantly less hustle. Significantly less bustle. A sign tells me we’re in the ICU.
An armed police officer stationed at Mom’s door eyes me like an imminent threat.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m Katie Parker Scott.” I incline my head toward the room and repeat a phrase that, for years, has brought me a mixed bag of embarrassment, shame, and confusion. “Bobbie Ann Parker is my mom.”
After a full minute of a space-invading security check, I leave my purse with Officer Marks and walk inside my mother’s room. I blink twice before I realize the patient in the bed is Bobbie Ann Parker. If she’s playing for sympathies this time, she’s seriously outdone herself.
“Mom?” I approach the bed, struggling to process the sight before me. An oxygen tube sits in her nose, while an IV connects to her pale, papery hand. A monitor beeps and clicks, speaking an impersonal language I don’t understand. Asleep, my mom looks every bit a patient who doesn’t have long to live. Her skin’s gray, purple circles color the space beneath her closed eyes, and she looks to weigh no more than I did in junior high.
“Are you Katie?”
I turn at the new addition to the room.
A man wearing khakis and a charcoal gray polo gives me a hesitant, gentle smile. “Lawson Rashad. One of the prison chaplains.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“We have a few folks in here, so I’m making my rounds tonight.” He nods toward my mom. “Your mom and I have had lots of conversations over the last few years.”
I can’t say the same. “Is… is she dying?”
His voice is soft and kind, modulated to comfort, or introduce a slow song on the radio. “A prison guard snuck in cocaine and passed it on to Bobbie. She was found unconscious. I’m very sorry, Katie.”
That doesn’t exactly answer my question.
Or maybe it does.
“Bobbie Ann’s talked about you a lot,” Mr. Rashad says.
My mom and I hadn’t left things on good terms. Two summers ago, she got custody back, only to leave me in a trailer without electricity while she went on a bender with some guy, ending in a high-speed chase after she robbed a pharmacy. I will never forget seeing grainy footage of Mom on the news that night. For her, it was documentation of a crime. For me, it was confirmation that my life with her was finally over.
“I was adopted by my foster family,” I say by way of explanation. “And then I just started college. My mom and I weren’t exactly close. I wasn’t safe with her and—”
“You have nothing to defend.” The chaplain sits down in the chair nearby, his face so serene it makes me wonder if he does yoga like Millie. “I know Bobbie Ann’s story. She’s expressed a lot of regrets the last few months.”
My eyes cloud with tears. “But, I guess not enough to truly kick her addiction.”
“Addiction is a monster with claws and fangs and endless empty promises. It had its hooks in your mom and refused to let go.”
“But it’s a choice, too. She was never willing to do the work to get free.” Now I sound childish and petty. The woman is clearly on the losing end of life. “This isn’t what I wanted for her.”
&
nbsp; “She’s not in any pain.”
“I guess I meant all of it—prison, a tragic end, a life of regrets.”
“Bobbie Ann’s quite proud of you, you know.”
No, I don’t know. Manners compel me to say something complimentary in return, but since I assume Mr. Rashad’s just filling in the space with fluffy words he thinks I want to hear, I’ve got nothing. “Thank you.”
“Where is it you go to school?”
“Hendrix University.”
“Hendrix! I used to work there years ago. They have a lovely chapel on campus. Did you know about that?”
“I pretty much stick to the dorm, cafeteria, and my classes.” If I veered off the path, I might get lost.
“That chapel’s been there over a hundred years. It’s open round the clock and manned by volunteers. You should stop in.”
“I stay pretty busy with school stuff.”
“Oh, sure, but it’s worth going in and seeing the stained glass. And if you ever need someone to talk to, their staff are trained kind of like me. Just friendly ears to listen.”
Yeah, I listen to too many serial killer podcasts to pop into a campus church at three a.m. for a chat with a total stranger.
“It’s behind the Burnett building,” Mr. Rashad says. “Know that place?”
“Where the theater is. I hope to know it very well.”
My mom stirs, her feet rustling beneath a white cotton blanket., She wears a single handcuff, tethering her to the bed, though she’s about as much of a threat as the newborns in the nursery downstairs. I guess Bobbie Ann will always be considered a flight risk.
“Do you have any questions?” Mr. Rashad asks.
I give a small shake of my head. “No, sir.”
He glances back at the door. “Do you have family here with you today?”
“It’s just me.” The words echo in the room, bounce off the walls, then burrow into the recesses of my heart.
“If it means anything to you, Bobbie Ann has made peace with her Lord.”
My brain is so overloaded, it takes me a moment to respond. “That’s…nice.” I sound like the chaplain’s just told me my mom finally gave up her resistance to eating green vegetables. “Did she…” I lick my parched lips, mustering up courage. “Did my mom ever tell you she was sorry for what she did? For how she treated me?”
Larson’s eyes briefly close, and his exhale is loud and magnified over the beeps and clicks. “She definitely has regrets. Bobbie—”
“But did she specifically say she regretted how she treated me?” I gesture to the woman lying motionless beside us. “Did Mom ever tell you she was sorry for all the ways she hurt me?”
He studies his leather shoes, scuffs a mark on the floor with his toe, then finally meets my gaze. “No.”
“Thank you. For your honesty.” I turn back to face my mother. “I want to be alone with her now.”
“Would you like me to pray with you before I go?”
“No.” Tears fill my eyes. “Not today.”
His kind smile returns. “I understand. But Katie, know that hurting people hurt people.”
How many times have I heard that? It never fails to sound like fortune cookie wisdom.
“Your mom operated from a place of pain, and I’m so very sorry she extended that to you. I hope one day you can forgive Bobbie Ann.” He pats my cold shoulder. “Not for her sake. But for yours.”
I sit in Mom’s room another half hour, replaying my life with this complicated woman. I scan my memory for things I could be grateful for, plucking them out like thorns, using gloved hands, fearful of direct contact. When I’ve come up with a few positives of knowing Bobbie Ann Parker, I tug her blanket around her shoulders and quietly leave.
I cry all the way back to the dorm.
For what is.
For what was.
And for what could’ve been.
I think of calling Tate.
But when I reach my room, I silence my phone and go to sleep instead.
Chapter Nine
I believe loft beds are the college’s way of weeding kids out by survival of the fittest. I’m not used to sleeping in the air. I fear it’s just a matter of time before, in the midst of a deep slumber, I roll right off. Last night I woke up with a leg hanging over and assumed the end was near. And by the end, I mean the floor.
This morning I let the shower run hot over my hair as I stand there, dazed and exhausted. I slept very little last night, alternating between turbulent thoughts and intermittent slips into a dreamland where my mom flit in and out of each scene.
Rinsing out the conditioner that’s been curing for half an hour, I close my eyes and thread my fingers through my hair, attempting a small prayer.
God, I’ve got no words. Or more like I have too many, but none of them want to align in ways that make sense. Why did this have to happen now? Why is college such a crapfest of terrible events?
I want peace for my mom. And for me.
I don’t know what to say to her or how often I should visit. Does she have long? Will she be gone next week, or will I still be making trips to the hospital three months from now?
It’s times like these, I hate being an only child. I wish I had someone to walk through this with me. Someone to hold my hand and say, “Let’s do this together.”
My prayer comes to a jolting halt at the loud knocking outside the bathroom door.
“Katie, you’ve been in there forever!” Jemma calls. “You’ve gone way over your time!”
I pour shampoo in my hand and lather my hair again, not ready to face the outside world. My phone rings from the small counter, and I ignore it as well.
When I reluctantly step out of the shower, my skin looks wrinkled and steamed, like I’m auditioning for the role of prune. I wrap myself in a fluffy towel and go through the motions of putting on my makeup, my hands operating on autopilot. I skip drying my hair and settle for a damp, artless ponytail. Plus, if I take up any more of Jemma’s block of time, she’s liable to break down the door and call the campus police for a schedule violation.
“Finally.” Jemma stands outside the bathroom when I appear, her hands on her hips. The smell of her disdain is stronger than the remnants of my shampoo. “Your abuse of our schedule is completely selfish and totally derails everyone else’s morning routine.”
I slip by her. “Sorry.”
She gives a small gasp of outrage. “That’s all you have to say? You think a simple sorry is going to make up for how late I now am? I needed to be at the lab early for a study session, and, not only did you take part of my bathroom time, you went way over.”
Reaching into my bottom drawer, I pull out the socks I’d forgotten to grab, doing my best to ignore her. I just need to get out of here. I have a breakfast date with Tate, assuming he shows up this time, and I’m dying for a cup of coffee.
“Is everything all right, Katie?” Violet asks, her forehead pinched in concern.
“I’m fine.” Somehow I manage a meager smile for her as I stuff a few books into my backpack.
“You were pretty quiet last night,” Violet says. “If there’s anything I can help with—”
“How about she helps us by respecting our morning shower rotation?” Jemma plants herself in my path as I head for the door. “I don’t want to turn you into the R.A., but I will.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“And last night I could hear your music. You were playing it way too loud.”
“I had my headphones on.”
“But I could still hear it, and I was trying to sleep.”
“You should’ve said something.”
“You should’ve known it was too loud. Do you want to be deaf before you graduate?”
“No, I want to go to breakfast.” I’ve got a few inches on Jemma, so I stare her down and give her my look I call “I Used To Be A Punk.”
Violet scurries to stand beside me. “Girls, how about we all take a nice, deep breath? Who wants a morning r
edo, huh?”
“This living situation isn’t working.” Jemma crosses her arms over her boxy t-shirt, not backing down. “You’re disrespectful, you’re loud, and—”
“My mom is dying.”
Violet’s pink mouth forms a perfect O.
Cyborg Jemma doesn’t even blink.
“I was at the Stafford County hospital last night visiting my mom. I don’t want to talk about it, I’m sorry I hogged the bathroom, and I check every day if Conway Hall’s finally repaired. So you can talk to the R.A., Jemma. Go for it. But they’re not going to move me. We’re stuck with each other, and I can assure you, I’m not happy about it either. I don’t want to be in this dorm, and right now, I don’t even want to be at this college. What I want is to go home.”
And with that, I make my dramatic exit.
I find Tate sitting at a table in the cafeteria. He looks like he could be a model for the campus website. He wears a fraternity t-shirt, artfully rumpled hair, and a smile meant to charm the cafeteria lady out of an extra cinnamon roll.
He stands as I approach, giving me a quick kiss on the lips.
I sense his frown before I see it.
“You look tired.” He passes me his mug of coffee.
I take a sip even though I know it doesn’t have my necessary milk. “I am.”
“Are you okay?”
I consider telling him everything but find I don’t want to. I get some perverse sense of satisfaction knowing this is one solitary thing I can control. “I’m fine.” Grabbing a piece of limp bacon from his plate, I try to ignore the faint stench of bleach in the air.
He gives me one last assessing look. “I’m tired too. We had a water gun fight all over the city that went to three in the morning. Did you know there’s a haunted forest on the outskirts of town?”
“Huh.” Oh, to be young and carefree. To have nothing else to occupy your pretty little mind but parties and frolics through the flora.
Something to Believe In Page 5
