Strangely Normal - By Tess Oliver Page 0,52
I’d done a lot of reading in medical journals. In retrospect, I really was a nerd.
Finley held my arm tightly. “I’m sure you’re right, Eden. I’m sorry about freaking out like that.”
I looked down at her. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’d do the same thing if it were my dad.”
“Thanks, Eden.”
The atmosphere in the room had mellowed some. Jude and Cole sat on the couch and waited for the phone. Once again we found ourselves staring at a blank television screen.
Some Pig snorted twice and sat down in front of the T.V. as if he expected it to come on any second. Finley and I laughed and I realized how and why this pig was so important to Finley. He was one round, pink ball of charm.
Jude’s phone rang and Finley tightened her grip on me. I held her just as tightly.
Jude stood from the couch. “Hey Ray, what’s going on?” He walked into the kitchen to talk and Cole followed him.
“Please, please, please. Let him be all right, let him be all right, let him be all right.” Finley said quietly. It hadn’t taken me long to notice that for Finley everything worked better in threes. I leaned over to the coffee table and knocked three times, something I’d seen my mom do often, only our table was plastic instead of wood.
Jude returned to the couch looking slightly relieved. “They’re doing some more tests, but they don’t think it was his heart. Just dehydration and exhaustion.”
Finley jumped up and threw her arms around her brothers and cried. After a short, joyful breakdown, she sat back down on the couch next to me. “I told him to take his vitamins. I’ll bet he forgot.”
Cole popped open a soda. “Our old man is just that, old, but he’s still keeping up the same performance schedule he followed when he was twenty-five. He needs to slow it down, or the next time it’ll be worse.”
“Then why don’t you be the one to tell him to lay off the tours,” Jude said.
“You’re the oldest,” Cole replied.
“Like Dad listens to me about anything. He’s usually too busy telling me what I’m doing wrong to hear any advice about his life.” It was the first time I’d heard Jude talk about his relationship with his dad and there definitely seemed to be tension between them.
“Well, I plan on having a long chat with him when he comes home,” Finley said.
“That’s a good idea,” Jude said, “He always takes things best coming from you.”
“Oh shit, with all this, I completely forgot,” Finley said pulling out her phone. “Your mom wants you to call her. I’m so sorry, Eden.
“Finley, please don’t apologize. It’s all right.”
“Everything is fine, but I think she has some news to tell you. We had a long chat about panic attacks. Did you know she used to have them really bad when you were little? Anyhow, she told me to lay off the caffeine.” She smiled. “You’re so lucky, Eden. You have such a cool mom.”
I took the phone from her. “You know something, Finley, I do feel lucky.” I walked out of the room and dialed our home phone.
“Hey Mom.”
“Eden,” she said excitedly. Janie and Sophie were in the background begging for the phone.
“All right girls, but just for a second. I need to talk to your sister.”
“Edie, we’re moving to the forest and there might be bears. I’m going to leave a bowl of honey for them.”
I laughed. “What on earth are you talking about, Sophie?”
Mom grabbed back the phone and Janie cried. “Your dad got a job as a fry cook in a small restaurant on a lake up north. It’s a little resort town.”
“But I don’t understand,” I said. “How can he have a job so far away?”
“We’re moving up there. The job comes with a small cabin that’s paid for, so we won’t have any rent. It was too great to pass up. Summer and winter are the busy seasons.”
“But, Mom, what about me? Is there a city college nearby?”
She paused. “That is the one drawback.”
“That’s a really big drawback.”
“We’ll figure something out.” My mom was always good at pushing away problems in hopes that they would solve themselves. But this problem wasn’t going to fix itself with time.
“Mom, I worked really hard to get into a college, and now even junior college is going to be out of reach.” It had been a day of high emotions between fighting to keep control of my feelings for