Dreaming a Reality (10 page)

Now she needed to fight for her life, and I desperately wanted to see her.

I got in the car and drove to my parent’s apartment. The closer I got, the worse I felt. My palms were soaked with nervous sweat; so much so, they slipped off the wheel, and I had to catch myself a few times.

I parked the car and got out, walking briskly to the glass doors. I was in the foyer when I glanced at the name on the mailbox chamber—Stefano. My eyes welled up with tears. “Please God,” I whispered. “Help me to be strong.”

Taking a few deep breaths and counting to ten, I buzzed the button to let my dad know I was there. Luckily, he was at home.

“Who is it?” he said over the speaker box.

“Katherine.”

As the inner door made a long humming noise, I could feel it shake my bones. I started up the stairs to the third floor. My dad was waiting for me at the top of the landing.

“Katherine, it’s so good to see you.” He smiled and gave me a big bear hug.

The door of the apartment was open, and I could smell the fresh coat of paint Todd had talked about. Everything was clean and neat. My mother always kept it that way.

“How is she?” I asked abruptly.

“She is very ill, Katherine. She would like you to visit her.” My father looked worn, with gray curly hair and a tired look on his face, like he hadn’t slept in weeks. I was concerned about his health, too. I could see that this was taking a toll on him in so many ways. “Please, Kat. She needs you.”

I only stayed a few minutes. I couldn’t bear to see my dad so drained. Before I left, I agreed to go to St. Luke’s and finally see my mother.

I was completely exhausted, mentally and physically. I could feel my body shutting down, wanting rest. Instead of running straight to the hospital, I turned the car around and headed home. I needed sleep—fast.

Once I got home, I sauntered to my bedroom and plopped on the bed. Within minutes, I was asleep.

* * * *

She appeared emaciated this time and starving to death. Again at a teenage age, she walked to the lake. Coming up to the cliff’s edge, she stood with her arms spread open, chanting over and over a mumble of words I couldn’t understand. She wore a torn, white see-through dress, and the bones protruded out of her body. The cold chill in the air made it uncomfortable, and a funneling wind crawled beneath as I looked down to the jagged rock below. I had an eerie feeling she knew I was there. She raised her arms above her head and, cupping her hands, began to descend into a diving position; so slow and so graceful. I tried to run, but my legs felt cemented to the earth. I couldn’t move, yet I felt like I was floating down with the girl.

I reached out for her as the sheer dress slipped through my fingers and, in that moment, I awoke.

Chapter Seventeen

After I circled around in the visitor’s parking lot, I positioned the car in a tight spot on the second floor of the garage. I got out of the car and stood up, feeling lightheaded.

It took me over twenty minutes to get to the entrance. Even though I knew this area like the back of my hand, I felt lost. My mind continued to race as I came to the automated doors. They slid open, and a burst of warmth floated outside. You could see the heat once it hit the cold air.

“I’m here to see Sally Stefano, please,” I said in a shaky voice to the elderly lady behind the desk.

“One moment, please,” she responded right before she answered the phone. After she put the person on hold, she handed me a visitor sticker and directed me where to go.

“You can take the south elevator doors to the fourth floor.”

The time in the elevator felt like forever. I was alone, staring at my own reflection through the black glass encasement. The light was a dim yellow and made me look scary. I was scared. Looking at myself, I wondered how my mother would appear after all these months.

I called Jeremy right before I left home and told him Grandma Sally was sick and in the hospital. He wasn’t shocked about it. Somehow he already knew how ill she was. Even though the families hardly communicated, and Jeremy hadn’t seen his grandmother in over a year, he still talked to Uncle Todd, just as I did. I knew in my heart my brother told him more—maybe even more than I knew.

After finally getting up to the fourth floor, I asked the nurses at the nurse’s station where to go from there.

“Hi, how can I help you?” asked the thin-framed nurse with short red hair.

“I’m here to see Sally Stefano. What room is she in?”

“Room 227. It’s just off to your right and down the hall.”

227? I thought. Those numbers rang a bell, but I couldn’t think of what. I couldn’t think at all. Everything was bright—too bright. The walls were white and glossy, and the sterile smell was making me sick. I could hardly breathe.

Once I got up to the room, the door was open. I peeked in gingerly thinking she might be sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb her. I couldn’t be more nervous than I was right now, at this very moment.

I popped my head in just a little more, then finally just knocked on the door.

“Mom?”

At first, as I walked in, I couldn’t see her. She was turned to the window on the other side of the room as she lay there in bed with the sheets up to her face.

“Mom, is that you?”

I wasn’t sure. I had hoped maybe it wasn’t. Only a bald head was peeking through the blankets. Then she turned around.

“Oh, Mom.” I couldn’t say much more. Tears streamed down my face as I stepped in for a closer look.

“Katherine,” she said in a faint voice. “Is that really you?”

“Yes, it’s me, Mom.”

She looked gaunt and tired with half-moon circles under her eyes. She was very thin—too thin—with the exception of her stomach where the tumor had grown. Under the covers was her bloated belly, as if she was pregnant again.

“I’m here, Mom.”

I moved in closer and grabbed her hand. Wires from all angles were hooked up to her.

“Are you sure you want to touch me? I bet you didn’t think I’d be like this.”

I could sense the tone of embarrassment. She’d lost all her hair and felt cold to the touch. It was hard seeing her like this, but she was still beautiful to me with those same ice-blue eyes and enchanting smile.

“I missed you, Mom.”

“I missed you, Katherine.”

She always called me by my full name. She never did like the “Kat” nickname. I wanted to say so much to her, but I could tell she was so weak that it wouldn’t even have mattered. I thought of when she was young, with her hair long and brown. She was so energetic back then. I remembered how just before I was diagnosed we were so close. We’d take walks together by the lake and have breakfast at the local diner, where she always ordered the same thing; plain crepes with lemon wedges. We’d talk over coffee—mostly of Jeremy, but of John too. How she loved John; she treated him like a son. When my first episode occurred, she grew distant, however, as if I was a stranger to her. She never really did tell me why she bore a heavy heart toward me.

At times, I would rationalize it, thinking she didn’t fully understand my illness, and at other times, I thought maybe she had blamed herself for having a mentally ill daughter. Whatever the case, she never told me exactly why things happened the way it did.

All that didn’t matter now. What mattered to me was that she was as comfortable and pain-free as possible.

I sat there with her for a few hours. We didn’t say much, just held hands. I stroked her face.

* * * *

I left the hospital around seven in the evening. Before I left, I gave my cell phone and home numbers to the nurse’s station and insisted they call me any time at all, with any news. However, I kind of felt oblivious to her diagnosis. When I was in her room, one of the doctors came in to check on her. All I remember him saying was that she hadn’t much time—a few weeks perhaps, maybe a month at the longest. My mind was distorted, and I didn’t know what to do. It was only a few days until my trip with Mitch, but it didn’t seem worth it now. I was confused and hurt and felt alone in my thoughts. Even though I had Todd and my father to lean on, I knew they would be going through their own pain. I hadn’t talked to Martha in a long time; she was always on my mother’s side and didn’t care much for my lifestyle. Things were starting to become a blur.

Chapter Eighteen

Thanksgiving came and went just like any other day. I’d made a small dinner for Jeremy and me. It wasn’t anything like the years before when the families would all get together. Todd and Dad were at the hospital, and Martha was cooking up a feast for her in-laws.

It was now Sunday, the day before the trip, and I still wasn’t packed as I felt out of place, disorganized. I couldn’t believe Mitch talked me into this. It wasn’t the right time to be going on a trip, and I felt guilty and ashamed of what was about to happen.

Jeremy noticed I was acting off more and more and said, “Mom, you don’t look good. Are you getting any sleep?”

“Yeah, some. I’ll be okay. I am just worn out and overtired.”

“Please, Mom, you need to slow down. Let me see you take your meds. Now!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll get them.”

I took out my medication bottles, all three of them, and placed the pills in my hand, showing them to Jeremy to make sure he was watching. I popped them in my mouth and took a swig of juice from the fridge.

“There, see? I took them. Now, Jeremy honey, don’t worry.”

“Please lie down, at least for a little while. Please?”

“Fine. You’re right. It’s time for Mom to relax.”

I felt groggy on and off all day long. It didn’t matter much that I took my meds in front of Jeremy. I still wasn’t taking them as prescribed.

The bipolar illness tricked me into thinking I didn’t have one. There were times I’d take my pills and feel great, and times I didn’t take them and still feel really good. It was like there was nothing wrong. I began to wonder if I might have been misdiagnosed, and thought I could control things on my own. My thoughts of denial became like a game in my mind. It’s not me, it’s them, I’d say to myself. I’m not sick in the head. They are.

I would be fine for months without the medication, and still have things under control, until something triggered me off—some stress in my life that would ignite that feeling inside me. I would think so deeply on the matters at hand, I would forget what was going on in the real world.

I sweated Sunday out, getting up for only short periods of time to check what time it was, or to go to the bathroom. I was losing track again—losing time all together―and felt like I’d lost a whole day with all my worries.

* * * *

Mitch called me that morning to confirm the plans. He was happily excited and pleased I answered the phone immediately.

“Hey, babe, how are you?”

“I don’t know, Mitch. Something isn’t right.”

“Don’t worry, baby. We’ll have a great time together.”

He knew all about my illness but thought nothing of it. All he seemed to worry about was getting me into bed.

“Okay, Mitch.”

“Good, so I’ll pick you up at one o’ clock, say?”

“Sure, I will try to be ready by then. I still need to pack.”

“Make sure you pack that sexy string bikini too.”

I got off the phone and looked at what I had to pack. I just grabbed whatever piece of clothing I thought I’d be comfortable in. I wasn’t about to go all out for Mitch, yet I did pack the bikini he asked for.

My mind felt as scattered as the clothes that were strewn about the bed and floor. God, will Jeremy be okay? Whatever happened to John? Why didn’t he call me back? Was he supposed to? Should I call him? Questions bounced around my mind like a ping-pong match.

Jeremy left about an hour beforehand and I still wasn’t sure of anything.

I made a quick phone call to my mother’s room, but she didn’t answer. I then called the nurses’ office, and they told me she was sleeping. I felt somewhat relieved at this.

Circling around the house for what seemed like a hundred times or more, I felt completely lost and in panic mode. I was compelled to check everything, including my e-mails, of which I had several from Dean. My anxiety levels were rising again as I checked my messages; nothing from Mitch yet. I checked everything in the house including the light switches, the doors and even the stove.

The e-mails from Dean bothered me, so I deleted them all again, but I couldn’t delete them from my mind. The drowning of my self-humiliation, and regret about having to ever encounter such an experience, made me feel all the more stressed. What a mistake to get involved with some God-only-knows who, for God-only-knows why? Why was I doing this? I felt selfish and very guilty about leaving my mother to die on her deathbed.

Mitch came right on time and had the cab driver pull up in my driveway and honk the horn. The flight was soon, and it took a while to get to the airport.

“Kat baby, are you ready?” he said on his cell.

“Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.”

I grabbed my things, in complete disarray with no make-up and my hair unkempt. I was wearing only my pajamas and a blue Navy Pier shirt and hadn’t even taken a shower. I felt rushed, like time was running out on me.