How to Bake a Perfect Life - Barbara O'Neal [131]
Now she is soft again. And maybe her mom isn’t the greatest mother in the world, but she has been teaching Katie how to be tough all of her life.
And, honestly, who else does she have? Her coward of a dad, who tried to kill himself? Again the thought fills her with such a huge prickling of red spikes that she almost can’t catch her breath. How could he do that to her? Her emotions are making so much noise that she can hardly think straight, even after two hours of crying.
The one thing she keeps thinking is that she needs to see her mom. Just go see her at the rehab. She has been thinking about that for a while and has even looked up the cost of a bus ticket, which is sixty-three dollars.
She hears Ramona turn on the shower downstairs.
Katie begins to make a plan. Some parts of it she doesn’t like, but life has taught her you have to do what you have to do. Right now she has to see her mother.
Sofia’s Journal
JULY 13, 20—
It’s almost my mom’s birthday. I’ll have to remind Katie. If my grandmother is here, there won’t be anyone to celebrate my mom’s day properly, and after all the black balloons last year, she deserves something this year.
I’ve slept for almost two days straight through, and it’s amazing how much better things look this morning. Oscar tried to kill himself, but he was not successful. I’m furious with him, but he’s just in pain and lost and can’t hear me. I’m not going away. I’m not going to let him down.
I’m so pregnant now, though, that it’s kind of crazy. They sent me again for an ultrasound to make sure it wasn’t two babies, but just like last time, it was fine. I’m just super-big, super-pregnant. It’s a big baby. I think, more and more, that it’s a boy. A big, hearty boy with arms and legs he keeps stretching into the sides of my body. A rambunctious boy who dances around in there like he has his own private radio station. I can’t wait to see him, but once he’s here, the scary part starts. As long as he’s curled up there under my ribs, he’s pretty safe.
It hit me last night as I was walking down to dinner that every single one of these soldiers was once a baby swirling around inside his mother’s tummy. Every single one of them was a baby with a diaper, learning how to make noises for the first time and to spit SpaghettiOs all over the place.
And not just these soldiers here in this hospital, but all the others out there in the fields, on our side and the other side. All those fierce, bearded extremists were babies, too. That freaks me out!
It’s starting to sink in that my mom is really not going to be here for the baby’s birth. I love my grandmother, but I wish my mom was here. I know she cannot be here for the delivery, but it would mean a lot to me if she was, since Oscar isn’t going to be there, either, unless I get wheeled into his room to go through labor. Which they probably wouldn’t do, considering all the risk of infection.
Amazing how much better I feel after getting some sleep!
Later
I just had what my grandma Adelaide would have called a come-to-Jesus talk with Oscar. He was conscious again, feeling pretty sick, which serves him right. I stomped right up to the side of his bed and said, “Listen to me, Oscar Wilson. You are going to live, do you hear me? I need you. I love you. I am not giving up, do you hear me?”
He looked at me, his eyes so sad. “I can’t do it, Sofia.”
“Yes, you can.” I kissed his fingers where they stick out of the bandages. “Listen, your daughter sent an email.”
He swiveled his eyes up to the ceiling.
“Are you listening, Oscar? This is from the daughter who was living with her mother the crackhead, until I managed to get her to safety with my mother. Remember all that?”
He looked at me but didn’t say anything.
So