Come back soon…Part four

I cry and I cry and it feels like I won’t stop and I don’t know how to stop because Michael could but Jennifer just can’t.

It hurts too, it hurts like crazy and I should know right? Actually knowing how close I came to hurting my family to really doing some serious damage it’s ripping me up inside. There’s part of me that had been. Fine no one see’s me I’ll show them and there was part of me just so goddamned tired. And like I told mom if it gets to you…gets in deep and you can live through the GID then you sometimes just don’t.

Wanting those things for it to stop and be sort of screaming at them. Here! See me! It blinded me to just how much permanent damage I’d do to so many lives.
And when it boils right down to it I don’t want to die. I never did I just wanted to live, to actually live and have someone just see me.
Jennifer.

I cry until the nurses come in to check on me and they get me a nice little shot of something that makes me warm and sleepy which stops my crying and one gets me a cup of tea and one of those little ice creams and she gets a washcloth and helps me wash my face before the drugs really kick in and sleep takes over me.
Paulina was really nice; I guess psyche ward nurses are good at not judging.
I slept a good while and I only vaguely remember then changing my drip and the vampire lady coming in for my bloods and I think I slept through most of that took. Having to pee again is what wakes me up and Mom is there doing a soduku book when I wake up.

“Morning sleepy head.” She smiles at me how can she smile at me?

“Morning Mum.” It just slipped out I have no idea why it did or where Mum with a
u came from either.

“Your dad won’t be in for a while he…he’s a bit embarrassed.”

“Wha..why?”

“He thinks he came down too hard on you like he usually does.”

“I deserved what he said Mum I wasn’t thinking of what I was doing…I just.”

I slump my shoulders and she gets up and she comes over and she hugs me. “He yelled at me too honey. When they told me my chances we’re good unless I has a double mastectomy I balked, I didn’t want to go through with something that was so much a part of me and even then my odds after that weren’t that good either.”

“Really.” (Sniffle.) Dammit I’m crying again.

Mom wipes my eyes clear. “Yeah and the thought of dying in a hostel bed full of chemo and radiation and wasting away missing everything because of the pain meds…I really, really thought about going out while I was still me.”

I stare at her. “You…you were going to?"

Mom wipes at her eyes and she nods. “And your dad found out and he lost it and he screamed at me…a lot.”

(Sniffle.) “What he’d say?”

“He grabbed me by my shoulders and he shook me really hard and he screamed at me with tears running down his face.”

Mom closes her eyes and tears fall spilling out and she takes this big huge breath and she start to recite it like she has it burned into her heart word for word.

………………………. “Grace you are my best friend, you are the only person in my life that has ever kept me from flying apart. You are that one really true thing that makes me wake up and be thankful that I have the life you built with me…you’re not done here, you can’t be…you can’t do this..you just fucking can’t…it’ll break us. Me and the kids…we need you and if this comes and it wins and the cancer wins then we can say that you fought, that you loved us, that you loved me and you fought to hang onto every second we have instead of leaving us…because if you left us it’d be so much different…so much worse because it’s always be there….that we weren’t worth it.”

She looks at me as she opens her eyes and wipes her tears away with her hand. (Mom-Sniffle.) “It was a hell of a guilt trip but he was right because I knew if he did it for whatever reason I’d be always asking the same thing. So I grabbed hold of the strongest thing I had which was all that love for him and you kids and I fought.” (Mom-Sniffle.)

“Oh Mum…I…”

“Jenny, sometimes you have to learn who you really are by walking through darkness and through fire.”

(Sniffle.) “Darkness and fire huh?”

She smiles one of those mom…no actually a mum smile at me. “There but for the grace of god and stuff right?”

(Sniffle.) “Yeah, I think I learned a lot from this…from you already.”

“Really, that’s a good thing y’know Jennifer.”

“Yeah…I know that…that like you learn in like church or the bible and stuff that you…you’re supposed to put others ahead of yourself.”

Mom hugs me and smiles. “As long as you remember that taking care of yourself and being true to yourself is taking care of others yes.”

I give her a trembly smile. “Darkness and fire huh…”

She nods and kisses my forehead. “We’re just people Jen and sometimes it’s just how we learn…the hard way.”

(Sniffle.) “So dad’s getting some space?”

(Mom-sniffle.) “Yes, he needs a little which is why I told him that it was okay and I’d be here and we’d talk because…well like mother like daughter.”

“I never knew…and…so he gets like that huh?”

“Yes, he’s a man and you know how over emotional they can get right?”

Oh…

Okay I was expecting to be in tears again but what she just said it gets me laughing and it’s like the laughter is cracking all this dried on emo-mess that’s all over me and it feels good.

It’s my first laugh since what I did and it’s with my mother woman to woman and it feels really damned good.

It feels right and it feels real.

I hug her and she hugs me back and she reaches down by her chair and she passes me a shoulder travel tote bag. “Here some clothes and things honey you go and take a shower okay and then we can get you to your new room.”

“New room?"

“Private room in the mental ward.”

“Oh…”

“Jenny you were really, really close to never coming back to us. They want you here for a couple of weeks for observation and stuff.”

I nod. “Okay…I can get that.”

I look in the bag and there’s underwear and there’s some sweats and tops all of them for a woman and some sundries and stuff. “There’s some Nair in there too they won’t let you have a razor.”

“Yeah I kind of figured…I hold up a No-No so this is for?”

“Your face as best we can do for it honey.”

I nod. It’s one of those things you see advertised on TV that women use to get rid of unwanted facial hair. I’m not sure how it’ll work for me but I don’t want any of the facial hair I do have and there’s an electric razor there too. It’s pink.

I’m smiling again. “Thanks Mum.”

“You’re welcome honey and there’s even this.” Mum pulls out a pink bag out of her purse and it’s a little pink make up case bag sort of thing from Kohl’s cosmetics and it has this cute little Eiffel tower on it.

“Make up?”

“Yeah it’s a good traditional Christmas gift.”

“It’s not Christmas yet.”

“No but Kohl is the closest I could come up with for a really important rebirth.”
“Huh? I think I’m still under sedation some because I don’t get it.”

“Kohl the make-up the real original stuff was made from the ashes of Frankincense. Like I said it’s the closest that I could come up with.” She’s smiling.

“Okay, where did you come up with that idea?”

“Hey it’s Christmas, and it was on Wikipedia.”

I look at her and I take the stuff and smile. “Okay wise lady you want to show me how I’m supposed to do this?”

“Definitely C’mon I want to see my daughter all cleaned up and besides…”

(Sniffle.) “Besides?”

“Just sponge baths, honey you’re starting to smell like a camel.”