When he thought of her, in fact, that was the image that most often came to mind – her, huddled under her covers and staring blankly at the wall, sniffling, tears flowing unchecked from her eyes for no apparent reason.
But...then there was this whole other side to her that came out sometimes. She would come into his room in the middle of the night, wake him up, and they would go out and catch fireflies together. Or he would come home from school and find that she had baked a cake, and they would sit there and eat the whole entire thing together, just the two of them.
One time, she had been taking him to school when she suddenly turned to him, eyes lit up with a fiery glow, and said, “Let's blow this Popsicle stand. You wanna?”
Of course, being a very young child, he had just nodded. With no set plan in mind, she just started driving out of town. They hadn't come home for three days. His father was worried sick when they walked in the door and had shaken 6-year-old Jason by the shoulders, shouting, “Don't you ever do that again! Do you hear me? DO NOT EVER leave and not tell me where you're going!”
Jason noticed that, although his dad was definitely furious with his mom, he didn't even bother telling her never to do it again.
It had, obviously, never even occurred to Jason on their impromptu vacation that no one knew where they were, or that he should call his father. It was the first inkling he had that, despite his young age, HE needed to be the responsible one in charge.
He didn’t have any memories at all of his mother doing normal ‘Mom’ things like cooking dinner, tucking them into bed, helping with homework, or taking them to the park. Those were too mundane and stifling for her during her manic phases, and far too much for her to handle during the depressed times. There were no pictures from Christmas with his mom in them, even during the years that she still lived with them.
Now that Jason was an adult, he knew and understood that his mom suffered from bi-polar disorder. All of those crazy, spontaneous things she had done with him hadn't been driven by a sudden, passionate need to get in some 'mother-son bonding' time with her middle child, after all. They had been the product of her illness. Intellectually, he got that. Emotionally...he couldn't help it. He still treasured them. In her manic, fevered way...they HAD bonded. She could have gone off on her adventures alone. She hadn't. She'd brought him along, creating a weird and wonderful world that only 'Jason and Mommy' understood. Even in the throes of her illness, she had reached out to him at times. That had to mean something. Right?
After Cheryl left their family, she had moved in with her parents. About a year after that, she was placed in a psychiatric treatment facility as a result of attempting to take her own life. At the time, Jason was just told that his mom was in the hospital because she was “sick.” Jason didn't understand entirely, he just hoped that she would get better. Maybe if she wasn't sick anymore, she'd want to come home.
Well, rather than improving, she got “sick” four more times over the next four years. It got to the point that the whole thing seemed so abstract to Jason's young mind that he couldn't even bring himself to feel all that upset anymore when he was told about her hospitalizations.
Finally, the 5th time she “got sick” she did not recover. Jason was ten by then, and by that point knew what “getting sick” was a euphemism for. They were talking about the crying jags, the outbursts, even the 'crazy fun' times...all the things that made her not like other moms.
Jason didn’t cry at her funeral. His older brothers, Seth and Riley, did. Bobby and Alex did not. They were too young, they'd never really known Cheryl. The boys never spoke about it with each other and their dad never talked to them about it. In fact, the only person that Jason had ever spoken about his mother with was Katie.
1
8 Years Ago
There were a lot of people at his house after his mom’s funeral. All the adults were speaking in hushed voices, saying how young Cheryl was, how beautiful, what a shame that this had to happen.
Jason sat on his living room couch listening to all the voices surrounding him, and with every passing moment, it felt more and more like the walls were closing in on him. The whole room was spinning. Everything kept going all blurry.
Then, all at once, he was saved. He felt a soft hand tugging on his elbow, pulling him up and off the couch. His body felt heavy as he was dragged through the house to the front door. The cold air hit him like a slap in the face as he stepped out onto the wooden porch.
He tried to breathe in the fresh air. He took a deep breath and then another deep breath and then another. But soon his breaths started coming too fast and hard. He fell to his knees and tried even harder to slowly breathe in and out.
The wind was completely knocked out of him. He couldn’t get control of his breathing. He was starting to feel lightheaded, and a sensation swept over him like he was falling.
He began to panic and squeezed his eyes shut, willing the rest of the world to just disappear. Or maybe he was willing himself to disappear.
He was shaking his head back and forth, trying to make everything go away, when he felt his face being cradled by two of the softest hands he could ever remember feeling.
His whole body stilled immediately at the sensation of her hands on his face. He opened his eyes to see Katie kneeling on the grass in front of him, looking into his eyes. She was talking, but he couldn’t hear her. All he could hear was a loud buzzing.
He tried to concentrate. He tried to focus.
Slowly the buzzing faded out, leaving room for her voice to come through.
“That’s good Jas. Just look at me. Don't think about anything. Just focus on me. That’s good, now. Just relax.”
He didn't even try to process what she was saying, he just held on to the soothing patter of her voice.
He felt as if he was coming out of a deep sleep. The world around him started to gain clarity, bit by tiny bit.
Just when he was starting to get his bearings and feel like himself again, Katie removed her hands from his face and plopped down on the wooden porch beside him.
Jason wasn’t sure what had just happened. He didn’t know if he needed a doctor, or...? He felt confused and embarrassed and he didn’t want to turn his head and look at his great savior. He had no idea what she must be thinking about him. He was still battling with this quandary when he felt her slip her slim, soft hand into his and lay her head softly on his shoulder.
Jason felt the silkiness of her hair as it brushed down the side of his arm. He smelled the strawberry scent of her shampoo as she nestled against him. They sat like that for what felt like hours, neither of them saying anything.
He forgot about the funeral, the people’s whispered voices in his home, about his dad seeming sadder than he had ever seen a man look, his older brothers acting angry at him, and his little brothers looking confused and lost. Basically, he forgot about the rest of the world.
It was just him and Katie in the little bubble of the front porch, and an incredible sense of calm came over him. He wasn’t sad or scared or confused or upset. He just WAS.
When people started emerging from the house and making their way down the porch steps, the exclusionary bubble that had formed around the two of them burst. As his Aunt Lois came to say goodbye to him, he stood and felt the small hand that had been his anchor fall from his grasp. He said goodbye to several other relatives, friends of the family, and even some people that he didn’t recognize. All the while, Katie stood beside him quietly offering support.
After a few minutes, she grabbed his hand once again and dragged him over to the side of his garage. Picking up his bike, which was leaning against the wooden door, she shoved it towards him and then gracefully swung one leg over her own bike and began riding down the driveway.
He did what any 10 year old boy would do and just followed her.
She rode through town, and he was right behind her the whole way. She rode over Craw Bridge, through old man Giblers’ field, and up and over Pickler Hill until she reached the river.
He was breathing heavily as he skidded to a halt next to her. When he looked over at her, he saw that her face was flushed and pink. She dismounted from her bike, setting it to the side and walking out to the edge of the river. She slipped her sandals off and sat on a flat rock while her feet dangled in the water.
Jason hopped off his own bike, took off his shoes, and sat down on the rock beside Katie. Rolling up his dress slacks, he put his feet in the water beside hers. He didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. They sat in that silence for a few moments until Katie broke it, her voice matter of fact.
“My mom used to hyperventilate a lot” she said and shrugged, “It started right after we moved here, actually. It would happen one or two times a week. Usually Aunt Wendy was there and she would talk her through it, but I had to do it a couple of times when Aunt Wendy wasn’t around. If it gets really bad then you have to breathe into a paper bag and that usually does the trick.”
Jason was amazed. He had just experienced one of the strangest, most embarrassing episodes in his short life – and the girl who had not only been witness to it but also saved him from it seemed to think it was as common as a headache!
Okay, well...he guessed that if she wasn’t going to make a big deal about it, he shouldn’t either. Maybe she even knew why it had happened to him. It couldn’t hurt to ask. Attempting to sound as nonchalant as possible, he said, “So why'd your mom have 'em?”
“They were stress-induced,” she said, obviously repeating a term she had heard adults use many times to describe her mother's episodes, and feeling very adult herself now that she was the one doing the explaining.
She patted his hand comfortingly, “Losing your mom is a big deal, Jas. Even if she hasn’t been around for a while. Maybe even more because of that. I know I would be upset if my dad died, and I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Jason sighed, “I mean, yeah. It’s not like she was around or anything, but it’s just weird to think that she is really gone forever. Like...I will never see her again. Like...all the things I might ever want to say to her...I can't now. Even though I couldn't before, because she wasn't here, it was still like...maybe one day she would be. You know?”
Katie nodded sagely.
They sat in silence for a few more moments, and then Katie took his hand again, and leaned her head against his shoulder. They sat there together, holding hands while they watched the river rush by and felt its power sweep past their feet, and Jason thought to himself, “I'm probably the worst person in the history of the world for thinking this, but...this might be the best day of my whole entire life.”
He thought that his mom might have understood him feeling that way. He hoped so.
Present Day
Katie’s actions and words on that day still gave him comfort now. He couldn’t believe he had let so much time pass and had not gone to see her. So many years he had wasted, not seeing her, not talking to her, not touching her.
Well, damn it, no use crying over spilled milk. Today was a new day and he was not going to let her slip through his fingers again.
His boots sounded loud, even to his own ears, as he stomped up the three metal steps to his onsite office trailer, filled anew with determination. As he was opening the door, ready to lose himself in a few hours of work before heading over to the bachelor party at McMillan’s Pub, he heard a car pull into the small lot. As he looked up he saw his brother Alex parking his white SUV beside his truck.
Alex stepped out, “What’s up bro, why
are you here? You slackin' on best man duties, or what?”
“Aww, are your panties still in a bunch because Bobby asked me to be his best man instead of you?”
“Nah. I know the real reason that Bobby asked you and not me,” Alex said confidently.
Despite Alex's bravado, Jason knew that he hadn’t taken Bobby’s decision to overlook him for
best man duties in favor of Jason all that well. Bobby and Alex were the youngest of the brothers and had been inseparable growing up.
But, after graduation, Alex had left for the Navy. He had moved up the ranks quickly and was selected for the prestigious Navy Seal program. He served proudly for six years and had only recently returned to home to Harper's Crossing, where he was now a firefighter/paramedic.
Jason was the one who had stuck around. He had been there for Bobby, helping to raise him. Giving him advice. Picking him up in the middle of the night from random parties so he wouldn’t drive drunk or ride with anyone else who was. Making sure that he studied, stayed out of fights, graduated...and now Bobby worked with him at Sloan Construction.
Jason was also the one who recognized that Bobby had been in love with Sophie since they were kids. And he was the one who had encouraged Bobby to go for it, not wanting his little brother to make the same mistake with Sophie that he had made with Katie.
Once Bobby had finally gotten his chance with Sophie he had quickly decided that he wanted to marry her. Their dad hadn’t agreed with it, he said it was too fast. But Jason had gone to bat for Bobby, defending him, saying that Bobby had known Sophie practically his whole life. He had argued that this was the real thing. Sure, they may have only technically been dating for a few months before they got engaged. But Sophie Hunter had been the sole keeper of his brother’s heart for years.