Arcadia's Gift - By Jesi Lea Ryan Page 0,33

if it were a new vocabulary word that she was trying out on her tongue for the first time.

"Well?" I asked.

She sighed, "I guess.”

Silence again.

“So,” I said, grasping for something to say that might draw her out of her shell. “Aaron went back to school this week, and I’m going to go back on Monday. I’m almost caught up on the assignments that I missed.”

Saying nothing, Mom pulled her sunglasses out of her Coach bag and shoved them on her face —the universal sign that a person does not wish to converse. Whatever. I focused back on the road.

“Swing in there, will you?" She gestured suddenly toward the Hy-Vee grocery store.

I braked hard in order to make the quick turn. The car was barely in park before Mom snapped open her seatbelt and flung the door open, narrowly missing hitting the side mirror on the Jeep parked beside us.

“Wait,” I said, flipping the ignition off. “I’ll go with you.”

“Stay here,” Mom snapped, closing the door hard behind her.

I watched her walk across the lot to the door, her gait slightly off. A few minutes later, she returned with a brown sack. The bag clinked as Mom slipped into the passenger seat and set it between her feet on the floor. I leaned over to peer into the top and saw at least four large bottles of alcohol and a small bag from the store’s pharmacy.

“Let’s go,” Mom said, clicking her belt back into place.

I started the car and drove home, gritting my teeth the whole way.

The last thing my mother needed was more drugs and alcohol. Even if her doctor didn’t know she was mixing, what kind of doctor prescribed that much medication to a woman who had nothing physically wrong with her? I mean, yes, her daughter died. It sucked. But it’s not like if she slept long enough the sadness would magically disappear. My grip tightened on the steering wheel.

As we rounded past the high school, a thought occurred to me. Was it possible Mom was using more than one doctor to prescribe all of these drugs? There had to have been four orange pill bottles on her night stand this morning and a few more on the bathroom counter. As far as I knew, she hadn’t been on any medication prior to the accident. That was a lot of bottles to accumulate in only a couple weeks.

Multiple doctors required the use of multiple pharmacies, right? Otherwise, the pharmacist would notice a person was being over-prescribed. I thought about this a moment. When I’d had bronchitis last year, Mom filled my antibiotics at the drug store next to the hospital. I’m pretty sure that was where she sent Lony to get her birth control pills too. I remember because she and Lony had gotten into an epic argument in the pharmacy parking lot while I sat captive in the backseat. Lony kept complaining that she didn’t want to take pills that would make her fat when she and Cane weren’t even having sex, but Mom had insisted on taking precautions. Yes, it was definitely the other store, not the one in Hy-Vee.

My skin paled as I began to realize my mother’s problem was bigger than I’d thought.

Chapter 13

I knew I should tell Aaron and my dad about my suspicions of Mom’s drug use, but that would have to wait.

Shortly after arriving home, Bronwyn picked me up in her mother’s minivan and we headed to Culver’s. We were both completely in love with their mashed potatoes. She also ordered a burger, and I a grilled cheese sandwich. We slid into the corner booth where she began filling me in on school.

“I should probably warn you,” Bronwyn said, stirring her gravy into her potatoes. “The cheerleaders want to put together some kind of tribute to Lony during the half-time show of the Homecoming football game.

“I don’t care. It’s not like I’m going to go to the game. Oh, crap! I can’t believe I flipped out over a stupid locker memorial. Everyone must think I’m insane,” I moaned, leaning my head on my hands.

“It’s okay, Cady. No one blames you for it. Honestly, they stopped talking about it already. You’ve been replaced in the gossip chain…Sarah Conlin got knocked up by Chad Buss.”

“For real?” I exclaimed. Sarah Conlin was the most popular girl in the sophomore class and the mayor’s daughter. Chad Buss was a goofy looking senior with only a double-digit IQ.

“Yeah, they’re neighbors, and I guess they’ve been fooling