Chapter 53

Mom's gone back to part-time employment these days. That means that for at least part of the day I'm left alone with Lindsey, who apparently is being shipped off to private school. I'm not sure how that happened because I wasn't part of the conversation, but from what I understand Catherine was unhappy with the influences that surrounded Lindsey in her former school. It probably has something to do with Lindsey having friends that are willing to enable her running away. I didn't really talk to them about it though, because I figure it's not really any of my business. It really became none of my interest, really, when Mom asked me what I thought about getting a private tutor to start up with my own school stuff again and start thinking about college.

Roberson, apparently, thinks I'm ready to transition back into my education. She thinks it will give me more focus on my future, or something. She even thinks I should work my way up to joining a gym because she wants me to start working out again. Apparently all the talk about exercise and the brain isn't just some fad being fed to everyone on prime time news programs. Exercise is actually being used as a therapy type device. Roberson recommended to me that I take some kind of martial arts class, though. She wants me to be better able to handle my physical strength or something like that.

So Mom and I are going to interview some tutors when we get a free moment in life. She thinks that free moment will be tomorrow at 2:00pm, but I'm reluctant to commit to the date and time. I'm reluctant to commit to showing up to interview anyone for anything actually. I'm not so comfortable with the idea of all these things that everyone seems to want to happen. I'm thinking that maybe it should take a little longer to transition.

Catherine told me that if we were going to go precisely by my plan for transitioning then I would never transition anywhere. That's probably why she made the appointment to interview the tutor for Mom and me. Mom was on my side until Catherine talked her out of it. I think she said something about coddling or enabling or something. I wasn't really paying attention all that much when she was talking because I pretty much knew that as soon as she started talking I had lost the battle. I should know by now that I need to talk Catherine into things before I try to get Mom to do something, because Mom really looks to Catherine to help her make the 'right' decisions about me.

I'm not being forced into joining up on some community center class or anything though. Mom and Catherine want to see how the tutoring goes first before they enroll me in something else. They don't want to do too much all at once since now they consider watching Lindsey a thing to transition into as well, especially since she's so not happy with starting up in the new school. Every time she comes home she sits in my room for like an hour and tells me how un-cool her new school is. Then she asks me for help on her homework because her new school is harder, or like Catherine likes to say, 'academically more challenging' than her other one.

I try to act mature and tell her that her new school is giving her more of an opportunity to be a better student than her other one, but that doesn't seems to work so much, and the last time I told her that she's in the school she's in now because she fucked up she got angry at me and started yelling then marched off to Catherine and said that I called her a fuck up. Catherine marched up to my room and asked me what I said to Lindsey and then told me I should have handled the situation better. So now I just stick to telling her that her school is giving her more of an opportunity, like one time, then sit and listen to her bitch about it knowing that eventually she's going to ask for help on her homework again never realizing that I stopped listening to her a long time ago.

Maybe I should have made an argument to Catherine and Mom that I didn't need a tutor since I've been doing Lindsey's schoolwork and that's all I need to do, for now. They probably wouldn't have bought it though. They probably would have said something about Lindsey's work being easy to me since I'm older than her.

My alarm on my watch goes off and effectively reminds me that I need to stop staring blankly at the television screen. It's time I get up and take all the medication that I'll be on forever and ever. I'm only sixteen, getting really close to seventeen actually, and I already have a pill box that I put all my weekly doses in. I'm even privileged enough to have a pill cutter, making me that much closer to being a senior citizen.

"Have you taken your medicine yet?" Lindsey asks me from the bottom of the staircase.

"Have you finished all of your homework?" I know that she probably hasn't since she's been yelling in the phone for the last hour about how hard her life is to one of her friends from her former school, a friend that Catherine probably doesn't want Lindsey talking to at all.

At least she was complaining to her friend about her new school instead of me, though. That's the only reason why I tend to not monitor Lindsey's phone calls as closely as Catherine probably wants me to.

Lindsey disappears into the kitchen and comes out a few moments later with a cup of water in her right hand and all my pills in her left. I smile as I take the items from her, "This one," I pick out one of the capsules, "requires I take food with it to prevent a stomach ache."

"Okay," she walks back in the kitchen and I can almost immediately hear her banging stuff together. I probably should have just told her that milk would do too.

I swallow the pills before Lindsey gets back with a plain grape jelly sandwich for me to eat. "Thanks," I swallow most of the sandwich in one bite. "So where's your homework?"

"Upstairs," Lindsey reaches across my lap and takes hold of the television remote. "It's something about mitosis or meiosis or something."

"Usually they are taught together," I reach over and grab the remote from Lindsey then turn off the television. "Go get your work. I don't want to be working on cell division at two in the morning."

"Mitosis and meiosis are about cell division?"

Before I get a chance to respond to Lindsey's complete lack of knowledge in the subject she's supposed to be studying, the front door opens and thankfully Mom steps through it. That means she can explain cell division to Lindsey and leave me to my previous activity of blankly staring at the television screen. It'd be good for them to spend some quality biology focused time together.

"Hey Sara," Lindsey calls over to Mom. "Did you bring food home?"

"Yep." Mom holds up a paper bag then makes her way into the kitchen. Lindsey jumps up to follow her and I turn back on the television. I know that eventually I'll be called to go eat dinner but I'm not going into the kitchen too early, if I do then I'll have to help do something.

"Sara said you need to set the table for us," Lindsey tells me as she comes back into the living room.

"Why don't you have to do it?"

Lindsey smiles, "I'm busy doing homework."

I growl at her but get up and make my way to the kitchen anyway. It's the least I can do since I'm no longer going to help Lindsey with her homework anymore. She's just going to have to actually read one of her textbooks for a change.

Mom smiles at me as I drag my feet into the kitchen and then drag my feet over to the cabinets that hold all the plates. "I know you're not talking to me right now," she says as I pull down three plates, "but I need to know that you're going to be here tomorrow to interview the tutor. You should at least have some say in who you're going to spend so much time with."

I stopped talking to her when she sided with Catherine and decided that getting me a tutor would be a good idea. It's lasted about two days now and I find that I'm really not as angry as I think I should be. That's the thing with all the medication I'm on these days, it's starting to make me feel this elusive 'normalness' so the reactions I'm used to having aren't really happening anymore. I kind of find myself acting more and more like I think I would have instead of acting like how I feel. If that makes any sort of sense at all.

Roberson says I need to start erasing my previous normal and let a new normal form. She wants me to start making a schedule for my daily routines and stuff. She even wants me to pencil in one night a week where I stay over at Nikki's instead of at home. She says it will give me a chance to become as independent as I used to be.

"Hey," Sara's hand is on my arm steadying the plates in my hand, "are you okay?" I don't jump at her touch like I normally do.

"I'm not angry at you, Mom." I release the plates and let her stronger hands take them from me. I'm not quite used to calling her 'Mom' yet, but I'm sure with practice the ease will come. It still kind of throws her when I call her Mom too, because she always gets this weird look on her face like she can't quite believe that she is actually a parent. It's something we'll both have to get used to, and I know it's something neither of us is going to give up on at this point. I mean, we've just been working too hard for this.

She nods. "I know."

"How?" I haven't even been willing to admit it until recently.

"I've seen you really angry at me."

I grin. "Oh yeah."

She laughs and puts the plates down on the counter. "It's hard for you Mel, I get that."

"Did Dr. Roberson explain it to you?" I find that my parent's relationship with my mental health doctor features heavy communication.

"No. She told Catherine."

"Catherine told you." I'm living in a domino effect.

Mom nods and the seriousness that was around before has come back. "Are you okay?"

I shrug my shoulders and force myself to maintain eye contact. "It's confusing, y'know? I mean, I know how I used to act and all but that way doesn't seem to fit with me anymore. I don't feel the same intensity of emotion anymore. When I get angry it's not the homicidal angry I used to get and when I get depressed it's not the suicidal depression I used to get. I'm so used to the extremes I don't know what the in-betweens are."

I'm waiting for some kind of response from Mom but she's just staring at me with this surprised look on her face. I was under the impression that someone had talked to her about this before. "Are you okay?" I ask.

"Yeah," Mom nods a few times. "You've just been surprising me a lot lately."

"Surprising?"

"You're talking to me, Melinda."

"Oh." I guess I can remember a time when I didn't talk to her, at all, and she didn't really talk to me at all either. We still don't talk intimately all that much. It's not an every day thing, but it has gotten easier. It's gotten easier just like letting her touch me has gotten easier and hearing her say my name has gotten easier and being with her has gotten easier, and well just about everything having to do with her has gotten easier.

"You're doing really well, Melinda. I'm really proud of you."

Happiness is new to me. It's not something I've experienced a lot of and it's not something I'm rolling in now, but when Sara smiles at me and I know she's smiling because of me it gives me some happiness. She's not my grandmother. She's not the woman who only told me she was proud of me sarcastically as I failed at something. Sara smiles at me and says she's proud because she really is proud. I really do have her approval and support.

"Okay." It's not a brilliant response but it's all I can say. I don't have a lot of experience with these sorts of things. I haven't had a lot of parents who are actually my parents lining up and telling me that they're proud of me. "I'll finish setting the table," I move my gaze away from my mom to the small kitchen table, "or I'll start on it, rather."

Mom lets me walk away from her and re-focus my attention on something else. Eventually I get the table set and dinner is served. I tell Mom about Lindsey's homework and she gives me the reprieve for the night in helping Lindsey by promising that she'll help Lindsey with understanding cell biology. The night ends up feeling like it could be part of a new normal that could probably only be a little better if Catherine was around to yell at Lindsey for waiting until the last minute to do her homework. Mom tends to be a little more tolerant about that kind of stuff.

Hey, maybe Mom will agree to getting me a tutor that believes in the student setting their own pace, like that new age teaching technique or whatever it's called. That way I can try my best to avoid complete interaction until I actually have a grasp on what reactions are normal reactions. So that will probably be in about twenty to thirty years.