“My mom couldn’t even make the time to come to my graduation party. She probably wasn’t even at the ceremony. I’ve been planning this! For her! She can’t even bother to show up,” Kasey said. Her voice was wavy and angry; her hands were shaking again.
“Look, let’s give it some time. Like, an hour. In an hour, we’ll sneak out of here and go to the farmhouse to see what’s up. It may be taken care of already. The original plan got twisted, yeah, but your mom’s okay and—” Rosemarie stopped when she saw Silas walking up behind Kasey.
“Okay, yeah. I’m gonna get Silas to take me for a ride. Clear my head. I’ll be back in an hour,” Kasey said, after she turned and saw him. “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here.”
“You all right?” Silas asked her.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Kasey said.
“Kase—” Ada said through the muffle of being smooshed against Rosemarie’s shoulder.
“Like, seriously. One hour,” Rosemarie said, holding up a finger.
Caro was in a daze, braiding her hair over her shoulder.
“I’m fine! Love y’all,” Kasey said in a completely normal voice. She turned around and walked away.
2019
23
Ada
Ada got up early and made breakfast for Grayson and the boys even though she hadn’t slept enough. She and Kasey had stayed at the diner for an hour after Rosemarie left, and afterward, she followed Kasey in her rental car so she could drop it off in Adora Springs. Then she stopped at Plum Florals for fresh flowers and Plum Designs for a lamp and linens before taking Kasey to the farmhouse. She couldn’t stand the thought of Kasey not having new, soft, cozy things for her first night sleeping in that house. Ada wanted to do all she could to fortify her best friend against that flood of awful memories.
In the morning, she had eggs, fruit, bacon, and biscuits on the table for her family although she ate none of it herself. She sat with them, drinking her coffee, watching the clock. In an hour, she’d meet Rosemarie and Kasey at the bakery, and they’d go back to the hospital together.
“You’ll have to get some rest sometime. If you don’t take a break, your body will do it for you,” Grayson said to her across the kitchen table. Her husband looked good and bright-eyed, wearing a stylishly rumpled button-down shirt the color of a stormy sea with his shorts. He’d left the top two buttons undone; she loved when he did that.
When she’d told Grayson what Trey had done to Caroline, she had to beg him not to do anything stupid. “My God! I cannot believe she married that piece of shit!” Grayson said, as if their marriage just dawned on him. “I can’t believe she’s pregnant with that motherfucker’s baby.” He’d been so mad he left the house and took the twins out to his parents’ to shoot cans.
“I know I have to rest, and I will. But not today,” Ada said.
“Mama, are you sleepy?” her youngest, Pacey, asked. He rolled a blueberry up his chin, into his mouth.
“Mama’s wide awake. Look at my eyes, buddy,” Ada said, making her eyes as wide as she could and opening her mouth wide too. Pacey did the same thing and laughed.
“Daddy, I heard you snore last night, so you owe me five dollars,” Gabriel said. He was six with the savviness of a sixty-year-old attorney.
“I snorted, like, once. Woke myself up. You’ll have to record me in deep-sleep snoring like a big black bear to make those five dollars, kiddo. It ain’t gonna happen, because I don’t snore! I never place bets I know I won’t win,” Grayson said, tousling the little boy’s hair.
“Is it almost time to go?” Noah asked.
“Can I wear my swim trunks?” Nash asked. He and the boys had already been in their pool once this morning, and now it was almost time for the twins to get to the music camp down by the lake that Rosemarie’s parents were running with Leo and some teachers from the high schools.
“Is Auntie Caro still sleeping?” Pacey asked.
An elevator in Ada’s stomach was going down down down.
“She’ll wake up today. She’ll be wide awake,” Ada prayed aloud to him, making her eyes wide again. Pacey hooted like an owl.
She told Nash that wearing his swim trunks was fine. She told Noah they’d leave in ten minutes, but he needed to finish his breakfast first. She told Gabriel to grab a crayon and sign his name on the card they’d made for Caroline. She told Grayson she’d drop the twins off at camp, but he needed to pick them up at three.
Ada felt guilty for being so absent—not only physically, but mentally too—this past week. She hoped that with the wedding being over and having sent Taylor and Ben off in style to honeymoon in Hawaii, she’d have more brain power for getting back to normal and dealing with her mom and work and everything. Now she was up from the table, putting breakfast plates in the sink, wondering if she should take flowers up to the hospital even if Caroline didn’t get moved out of the ICU today. She could give them to the nurses. She should take some for the nurses anyway. That was what she’d do.
Caroline would wake up soon.
She would be out of the ICU soon.
Ada knew it and believed it. She had to.
She began doing the dishes. Moved a mug to the other side of the sink, tossed some forks in.
“Leave it. I’ll take care of it. You go,” Grayson said to her as she sprayed a splotch of jelly off a small plate. “Boys, go upstairs and get ready.”
Ada thanked Grayson profusely for being amazing and kissed him. She told him she’d talk soon, keep him posted about everything.
*
Ada dropped the twins off with Mr. and Mrs. Kingston by the lake, then called her dad on her drive to the bakery. She told him it was time to think seriously about getting her mom into the rehab center in Adora Springs. Her dad did some hemming and hawing, but Ada raised her voice.
“Daddy! It’s better to do this now before she gets worse. She drinks too much when she takes those pills. And what if she starts needing more? What if she gets desperate? She could take too many or get her hands on some bad stuff. All those overdoses…no telling what could happen. She could kill herself with them, and I already have my best friend in the hospital, I—”
“Ada, I’ll talk to her. It’s all I can do.”
“That’s a start. Do that. Please. I’ll call back later,” she said.
Her twin brothers had left Goldie the day after the wedding, returning to Boston and Chicago. She called them both at the same time and told them she needed them to talk to their parents and convince their mom to enter rehab. She told them about the four teenagers who overdosed in one weekend in Adora Springs and the other one who’d overdosed last week in Goldie. She considered the fact that maybe she was overreacting, but she was too tired to mince words anymore. Ada needed help. They needed to step it up.
“Don’t leave me here to do it all by myself, y’all. Please,” Ada said. Her voice was thin and shaky. She turned into the Plum Bakery parking lot and shut the engine off.
“Ada, I’ll call him right now. I didn’t know. How was I supposed to know how bad it’d gotten if you hadn’t told me?” her brother Henry asked.