Kat nodded.
The door to her bedroom creaked as we tiptoed inside and stood by the side of her bed. Her pill bottles were lined up on the nightstand next to her, some of them she didn’t bother to put the tops back on. The glowing TV let me watch her breathe in and out, her mouth open enough to fit a piece of paper, lips cracked and dry. She chewed on ice chips perpetually because of her dry mouth.
“Mommy,” I whispered and nudged her shoulder. She lay motionless and I looked at Kat. She shrugged. “Mommy, wake up.”
The clock read eleven something. Her night stand was so littered with pill bottles I couldn’t see the rest of the display.
I picked up her hand and watched it drop like a brick onto her bed. We didn’t have time. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I crouched down next to her ear.“MOMMY!” I yelled.
She startled awake, grabbing at the air in front of her. I pushed Kat back against the wall to avoid her flailing arms. “Ohh, what? What happened?” She sat up in bed and I wasn’t sure what to say. Her hand was on her chest. “What are you two doing out of bed?” She checked the clock. “Go back to bed.”
Kat scrunched up her face and her bottom lip started to quiver. “Mommy, we have to show you something.”
“Yea Mommy, we have to show you something.” I pointed. “It’s in our room. Come look.”
I grabbed Kat’s hand and started towards the door as I heard Mom throw the blankets off of her. She answered back rubbing her eyes, “What is it? A mouse?”
Mom pushed the door open and flicked on our bedroom light. Kat and I stood next to our suitcases holding hands. Mom looked from the floor to the open window. “What are you two doing? It’s freezing out, close that window.”
“Mom,” I said, “We are going to Grandma’s. We’re gonna run away now, and we just wanted you to know. So you didn’t worry.”
“Yea,” Kat finished, “You can come with us if you want Mommy, you just have to get a suitcase. We only have two.”
Mom folded her arms across her chest and stared at us. She lowered herself onto the bed. “Wait, I don’t understand. You’re running away? From me?”
“Mom, we have to.”
I don’t know who started crying first, but all at once we were in a group hug. “My babies, oh Brooke I am so sorry. Is this what you want, this is what you really want?”
I nodded through my cloudy eyes. “Yea, Mommy. We need to go.”
She stared at the open window. “Oh, Brooke. I am so sorry. Please stay home, please stay. We can make things better here. If you ever want to run away to Grandma’s house just tell me, we’ll all go together. Your brothers too, we’ll all go.”
I didn’t need to explain? Maybe she knew. Maybe she realized when Dad wasn’t in bed and when he savagely tore after my brothers when they did something wrong. Maybe the pills didn’t make her as numb as I thought they did.
“Okay, Mommy,” Kat said on our behalf, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “We’ll stay. We can run away to Grandma’s later.”
Mom looked at me. “Okay Brooke? We’ll all run away together someday, we’ll all go together.”
I looked at my feet, at her face. I believed her. “Okay, Mom.” I forced a smile.
She helped us unpack. When Mom got to the bottom of my suitcase she pulled out a black and white marble notebook. “What’s this Brooke?” Mom turned it over. The front read:
Brooke Nolan’s Journal
PRIVATE ** KEEP OUT
“Can I read it?” Mom bit her lower lip. “I won’t tell anyone, promise” She smiled.
I hesitated. “Sure. I need it back tomorrow.”
I used composition notebooks as journals now since Mom and Dad wouldn’t buy them for me. They were the first things I packed, I couldn’t live without them.
The sound of a glass breaking in the kitchen woke me the next morning. Adam must be unloading the dishwasher. I wiggled under the covers stretching my arms and legs before I sat up and saw my journal sitting at the foot of my bed. I opened it up to the last entry.
Watermarks stained the page as I touched the spots and listened to it crinkle. Mom’s unique uppercase writing and run on sentences sprawled across the pages at the end of the last journal entry I wrote.
Dear Brooke- I love you with all my heart. I love all of you. But you have an extra special place in my heart you are so smart and aware of everything and I don’t know what I would have done without you (and your brothers and sister). They don’t understand yet, but I know they will someday and then they will say my God how did she do it and I am going to have to say with a huge help from your sister Brooke. I am so sorry for all the times I yelled at you. I had no idea the burden, stress and strain I am putting on you. You’re only a child and this should not be. My God, help me to make Brooke’s life a whole lot better. I promise I will try to help you Lord, please help her, she’s only 11 years old. With all my love. I’m sorry for getting your book wet but I was crying.
That week my brothers, Kat and I were sitting in the living room when Mom and Dad came in to tell us some big news.
“We’re moving!” Mom exclaimed. She clasped her hands together. “We’re going to Pennsylvania, it’s about three hours from here and there is so much room to play and run around. There are farms and woods to explore, you guys can build your own tree houses. Best of all, I found the most beautiful house, it’s perfect.” A sparkle in her eye told me she loved this house already, she loved Pennsylvania.
Dad looked at me.
“What about school?” I tried to hide the desperation in my voice. “School isn’t over yet, it’s almost Christmas. We can’t move.”
Dad leaned forward. “We’re moving the day after Christmas. You’ll be on break, so you won’t miss anything while we switch your schools.”
Adam and Thomas started talking about the bears they were going to hunt and Kat asked if she could have a pink tree house. I looked out the window.
Three hours away? We didn’t know anyone who lived in Pennsylvania. All of our family was here, in New York. We might as well move to Mars.
Mom smiled while she listened to the boys talk. Her eyes met mine and suddenly went soft. Her smile retracted, and I noticed wrinkles outlining the corners of her eyes.
My face pleaded with her to remember her promise, begged her to remember. Whether she knew it or not she had let me down. My shoulders slumped to my sides and I fought with the screaming voices in my head. I guess this meant we were never running away to Grandma’s house.
Chapter Six
At first Mom didn’t believe me when I told her I was dying.
“You’re twelve. You’re not even close to dying.” Mom poured her tea and sat down at the kitchen table. “Didn’t you just invite Cristin to come over? If you’re not feeling good then maybe she shouldn’t come over.”
“It’s not that I don’t feel good, my stomach just hurts.” I pressed my hand into the lower right of my stomach. “Right here. It just started hurting. Can I use your heating pad?”
“Go ahead.” She turned on the TV and dropped a dollop of milk into her tea. “While you’re up there, bring me my pills?”