Prescribed for Love

Boston, May 11
th
, 2012

“Congrats Cat
! I’m so proud of you,” exclaimed Keith, while wrapping his sister in a big bear hug.

“
Thanks Keith, that means a lot—
especially coming from you,” said Catriona while returning his embrace.
She was a bit taken aback by her older brother’s open praise.

Stepping back, Keith added teasingly, “Just think, it only took you six years to earn your first degree!”

“Ha
ha, very funny!” responded Cat, along with a good punch in the arm.
Keith’s latter
statement was much more
representative of
his
normal behavior
. “Well, it may have taken me six years to get a degree,” she countered, “But at least I’ll be doing more than playing with building blocks.”

In actuality, both
of the Dunn
siblings
were incredibly intelligent individuals.
While Keith now worked as a structural engineer,
Cat had just
earned her
D
octor of Pharmacy
, or PharmD
. The two were only separated in age by eighteen months, so they often teased each other mercilessly.
They loved each other dearly, but more often than not, the sentiment was displayed
through
sarcasm.

Catriona often wonder
ed
if their tough-love approach had been
a result of
their upbringing.
The two had been raised by their
aunt
for as long as they could remember.
The woman had never had the time to show a
ny love or affection
; she only ever seemed to have time for a swift kick or reprimand.
To be fair,
their aunt
had been a single mother of three when a drunk driver had killed bot
h her brother and sister-in-law. T
he added burden of two chi
ldren had been a great stressor which
had
required her
to take
two additional part-
time jobs
.
As Keith and Cat had aged, they had quickly become aware of
t
he strain they caused their guardian
.
This
cognizance
had made them
increasingly
dependent on one another
, both emotionally and financially.
Keith had moved out the day he
was eighteen, and
then
had
helped Cat
follow suit
eighteen months later.
The two had been each other’s entire family ever since.

“Smile!”
yelled
Keith, interrupting Cat’s reflections
with a
series of
quick, candid shot
s
.

“Keith, stop!”
There was a brief pause
, quickly followed by another flash of the camera.
“Seriously
!
You
know how much I hate pictures!
I always look ridiculous,”
Cat
complained.

“That’s not true.
See
,
look at this one
I took earlier;
you look very nice here,” replied Keith as he scrolled through the camera.

“I’ll be the judge of that.”
Cat
yanked
the camera
out of her brother’s grasp
. After performing her own appraisal, she raised one eyebrow and said,
“We
ll, that is
a very nice picture—
but that’s not me.”

“It’
s not?”
Surprised, Keith took the
camera
back to confirm his mistake.
“No, I guess not,”
muttered
Keith as he took a second look. “
Huh, she’s kinda cute.”

“KEITH!”

“What?
”
Seeing the
expression
on his sister’s face he apologized,
“
Oh, sorry.
”
Resuming his search
through the pictures, Keith scrunched his eyebrows in focus
,
“
There’s got to be at least one
decent picture of you in here.”
After se
arching for a few moments, he
let out a loud guffaw, “Oh my g
od Cat, you gotta see this one!
It’s wicked bad.
”

Cat
looked over her brother’s
shoulder and
gasped in horror
.
The
image
before
her displayed Catriona
shaking the dean’s hand as she accepted
her diploma.
Her cap was lopsided, and she
had an idiotic
grin on her face.
Somehow
,
she
had
even
managed to have one eye more closed than the other.
Add to these faults an overall constipated look and voilà—the
perfect storm of terrible photos.

“You’d better delete that!” shrieked Cat.

“No
way! This is going on Facebook.
It’s priceless!
”

“
So help me
god
, if you don’t delete
that photo,
I will post the
picture of you
passed-
out
wearing my blue dress
!”
threatened Cat.
Keith’s twenty-first birthday had been
one of his more
memorable one
s
.

Keith’s face actually began to show a little fear, “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Just try me,”
threatened
Cat with
an evil grin
.

One hour
(
and one photo
)
later,
Cat let herself into her apartment, or more accurately, her old apartment.
She was excited to be moving into one outside of the city.
Keith was
to meet her here shortly so they could fill the bed
of his truck
with the first load of boxes
.
Checking her mailbox, she found a few bills and a large
parcel
.
Huh, it isn’t even wrapped
and the lid is askew
.
Some asshole probably opened it to see if it was worth stealing.
This was on
ly one of
many reasons she was
leaving this neighborhood
.
C
urious
to see
what kind of item would be
deemed unworthy of even a pawnshop, Cat immediately sat
at her table to discover its contents
—she
did not even take the time to put down her purse
.
Inside
the box she found a
book similar in size
to her nine-point-six-pound P
harmac
otherapeutics
text
book. However, this
book
did not appear to
be anywhere near as up-to-
date.
I
n fact,
it looked positively ancient! The
cover had no title, but
was decorated with
surprisingly delicate Celtic scrollwork.
Now Cat
understood why
the package had not been stolen—there
was not
exactly
a great demand for books in this
part of town
.
Her interest
further
piqued,
Cat turned to
a random
page
; t
he
yellowed sheet
contained
a
beautiful, yet extremely accurate,
illustrated flower.
Written a
bove the picture
was a brief description stating,
‘Foxglove: Useful for fluttering heartbeat or failure of the heart.’
S
he actually recognized the name. But
t
he last time she checked, digoxin came in
tablet or liquid
form.
Cat would
certainly
not
be making the medication
out of plants
in the foreseeable future
.
Skimming further through the book
, Cat learned she could
supposedly
use nettles to help women lactate, and yarrow for ailments
ranging from hair loss to blood loss.
Who on earth would have sent me this?
I
have absolutely no use for this.
I don’t even believe in this herbal stuff.

Cat’s p
uzzled thoughts were
interrupted when she heard Keith park his truck
outside.
Crap! I haven’t even
taken off
my cap and gown.
In her rush to
get up and change
, she knocked her
mystery
gift on the floor.
When s
he bent to pick up the book,
she reached further under the table than she realized.
Cat sat
back
up too quickly
and
whacked
her head
again
st the underside of the table
.
She blacked out almost instant
ly.