Author's Note: This is the dark chapter. Writing it depressed me. You have been warned.
It was Kathy's scream that woke him up. Johnny rolled over, shoved at the covers, and climbed out of his bed, dragging Bear with him by one arm.
He fumbled a bit with the doorknob, not fully awake, but in a moment he was out in the hall. There was a light on in Mommy and Daddy's room, so he stumbled his way there, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.
As he crossed the doorway, he could hear Kathy sobbing, and Daddy crying out. "Susan! God, Susan!"
They weren't in the bedroom, but there was a light on in the bathroom at the back of the room, so Johnny headed there. Before he got there he heard his father say, "Kathy, get me the phone! I need to call an ambulance!"
His father's voice sounded strange – scared and almost like he was crying (but Daddy never cried!), and when Kathy came running out to the bedroom to grab the phone off the bedside table and drag it back in, Johnny could see that she was really scared too.
He followed her into the bathroom, and stopped, not really understanding what he was seeing.
His first thought was that it was really silly for Mommy to take a bath with her clothes on. Then he wondered why the water was pink instead of clear or even bubbly. Daddy had pulled her half out of the tub, cradling her upper body in his arms as he struggled to wrap gauze around her wrists.
Daddy turned when Kathy brought him the phone, and saw Johnny. Then Daddy said one of those words that Johnny knew he wasn't supposed to say, 'cause if he did and Johnny copied him, Mommy would be mad at them both.
Daddy grabbed the phone and started dialing. "Get your brother out of here!" he yelled at Kathy, and then his sister turned and grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the room, and as she did he saw Mommy's face and she looked asleep only not asleep and not like Mommy and he dropped Bear somewhere and then Kathy pushed him into his room and he started crying and couldn't stop.
After that Aunt Ruth came to stay with them for a while. Mommy was in the hospital at first, and Daddy spent all his time there or at work. Kathy tried to be a brave grown up girl but Johnny knew she cried in her room sometimes.
Johnny cried sometimes, too. He knew that Mommy had almost died, and that she had wanted to die. He couldn't understand why she wanted to leave them, though.
Even after Mommy came home, Aunt Ruth stayed with them. She was still there when summer ended, so she helped Kathy shop for school supplies for her fourth grade year, and she was the one who packed Johnny's snack and helped him get ready for kindergarten each morning. She stayed with them all the way up through Christmas and the New Year, and then she said that Johnny's Mom was doing much better and they had all decided that it was time for Aunt Ruth to leave.
And then it was just the four of them again, and even though things weren't the same, they were okay.
John ran a hand across his face, staring blankly at the wall for a minute before he stood up and abruptly walked to the bathroom. Once there he splashed some water on his face and stared at himself in the mirror.
He'd thought he'd pushed all this out of his mind, moved beyond it. And maybe he had, and wouldn't have been caught up in the memory if he hadn't sent that letter, hadn't been waiting for a reply when Elizabeth had cut her wrist. He knew he'd overreacted, and she was sure to come looking for him for an explanation later.
And maybe he would even tell her. But how much? All of it?
He thought back to his junior year of high school, when he'd stopped talking to his father, when Kathy had become a stranger instead of his sister. When his mother died.
John knew he was supposed to go straight home after school, but he really didn't want to. Not today, anyway. Not when Heather Bancroft was coming towards his locker after she'd spent all of lunch flirting with him.
He took his time putting his books away, shutting his locker just as she stopped beside him.
"A couple of us are going to Wympie's right now. Wanna come?" she asked.
He didn't want to seem too eager. "Well, I've kinda gotta go home..."
She looked disappointed. "Oh, well, we're just going for a little bit."
He grinned at her. "I guess I can go for a little bit." After all, Wympie's had the best waffle fries, and it was on his way home.
As it turned out, they really didn't stay long, because Heather had to babysit and one of the other guys was supposed to be picking up his little brother from the middle school. So John was only about twenty minutes late getting home.
His father would kill him, he knew, for leaving his mother alone that long when someone was supposed to be with her all the time. But he figured that half the time his mother was late getting home from her book club meeting – something John usually blamed on the fact that the woman who drove her thought anything above 10 miles per hour was going too fast – so he really hadn't left her alone very long.
"I'm home!" he called as he kicked the front door shut behind him, dropping his bookbag on the floor and heading for the kitchen. The waffle fries were good, but he was still hungry.
"Mom!" he yelled, sticking his head inside the refrigerator and pulling out a block of cheese. "You here?"
When he got no answer he decided to check for her purse. Maybe she was even later getting back from book club than usual, and he wouldn't be in trouble at all. Leaving the cheese on the counter, he walked back to the front entryway, to the phone table where she usually left her bag.
Her bag was there, but John's attention was caught by the note on the pad of paper next to the phone.
The note that simply read "Book club cancelled."
His stomach dropped, and he turned and raced up the stairs to his parents' bedroom. "Mom!" he yelled, panic lacing his voice.
The door was closed, but John didn't even knock before he threw it open. "Mom?" he said, quieter now.
She was lying on the bed like she was sleeping, although she was wearing one of her best skirts and heels, and she had a hard rule about shoes on the bed. John walked forward slowly, reluctantly.
He was nearly to the bed when his foot hit something. Bending down he picked up the empty pill bottle. It must have rolled off the bed, he thought distantly.
The meaning of that suddenly crashed down on him, and he sprang back up, throwing himself on the bed. He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard. "Mom! Mom! Wake up!"
But she didn't.
The knock on his door brought him out of the memories this time. Even before he answered it, he knew it would be Elizabeth.
"Come in," he said, stepping back from the doorway so she could pass.
She did, watching him with concern. "I just came to see if you were okay."
He started to reassure her that he was fine, but something in her expression stopped him. Her earlier words floated back to him. 'We are friends, John.' She would listen if he wanted to talk.
Well, he didn't want to talk. But maybe he needed to.
John gestured to a chair for her to take a seat, before he resumed his early position on the edge of the bed.
"You know how you were wondering why the mail was bothering me?" he asked.
She nodded, expression carefully neutral although he saw a spark of hope in her eyes.
"Well," he drawled, not really sure he wanted to tell her this but somehow knowing he had to. "When we were on Earth I sent a letter to my father. We haven't spoken for over twenty years."
Elizabeth crossed her legs, clasped her hands together, and prepared to listen.