Annalise Springster’s a High School Dropout — Chapter 2
By: Aysia C.
Tags: Novel, Fiction, Books

Annalise Springster’s a High School Dropout — Chapter 2

I can’t remember a day Greensboro had clouds that dark

photo is from the author

Cassie’s POV

Two weeks later

Annalise Springster is painting my wall.

Meanwhile, I read aloud the schedule of events for this school year from my school-provided laptop and down spoonfuls of mint chocolate chip ice cream.

It’s movie night. My mom is downstairs creating what my little brothers, Sammy and Cole, call “the ultimate snack plate.” They are probably downstairs too, watching with salivating mouths.

“Ok so, first midway meetings are going to be on….” — I scan the screen — “January 28th, about a week after Decisions Week and then they let us know our class ranking on….”

“February 9th.”

“Right.”

“That’s going to be a big day for you when you’ve found out you’ve beaten me out for valedictorian,” Annie smirks.

“Oh, don’t give me that.”

I am so going to beat her out.

“You’re stiff competition, Annie.”

“Mhm.”

For a few moments, I close my laptop and just watch her work her magic. With arms smeared in paint, she adds the blotches of green to a vast expanse of land dotted with trees. The land rises and falls in small and large curves to give it a perception of depth. Above the hilly terrain, the sky is a delicate well-calculated blend of bright cadet blue and white to create the kind of spirit-lifting scenery one usually only sees in internet stock photos. She was painting The Hills. I turn further to the right and examine the obscure outlines on the rest of the wall that she had painted the week before underneath sweeping streaks and blotches of grey.

Odd…Oh, wait.

There’s downtown and there’s the school. That squiggle is Witchiter Ave and the one intersecting it is Eastview Street. Those little squares way back in the corner are the homes of the largest housing development and the conglomeration of rectangles and half-circles situated slightly east of them is the mayor’s house. It was Greensboro.

“Greensboro?” I look back at her.

“Indeed, it is,” she says, sticking her tongue between her teeth concentrating.

My eyes drift back to the dark clouds hovering over the abstract shapes, and I can’t help but notice the contrasting blue and grey. “You chose grey clouds for the town and blue for the Hills.”

I can’t remember a day Greensboro had clouds that dark.

“Mhm.” She shrugs, never stopping the sway of her brush or bothering to look at me. “I don’t know, something about The Hills always seems brighter to me.”

Artists.

I watch her add swatches of brown and green, creating finer lines, thicker lines, points, and arcs. Suddenly, in a swift motion, Annie moves from the grass to further detail the clouds.

Those are really big clouds. Now they’re touching the grass — covering the grass.

In broad strokes, Annie takes the largest paintbrush and paints over her near-perfect version of The Hills.

“It’s all wrong!” she exclaims jolting me out of my stupor. “Just all wrong.” Her extensive streaks become short and hurried. She ensures every last bit of The Hills is covered in white before turning to me for the first time in hours. “Something about it wasn’t right.”

It was near perfect.

“You couldn’t have just fixed it?”

“I mean, I guess. But starting over just seemed easier.”

She seems confused, a little spacier than usual.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she laughs.

“Like what?”

“Like thatttt.” She exaggeratedly circles an olive green finger around my face, chuckling. “That weird expression of concern and horror you do like you’ve just seen someone kick a puppy.”

Uh oh, I’m caught.

“Hmm, no idea what you’re talking about,” I say sarcastically.

She rolls her eyes. “I’m fine, Cass. Just needed a blank canvas. Clear canvas, clear mind.”

Maybe I shouldn’t pry further.

“Want to stay the night?”

“Yeah, sure.” She reaches for her towel and wipes her hands. “Thanks, that’d probably be best, the mayor’s over tonight and he and dad are prob — “

The earsplitting sound of glass shattering drowns out her voice. I get up from my bed eyes widened, and Annie goes for the door handle. Footsteps pound rapidly up the stairs and across the landing. My bedroom door swings open hitting Annie in the arm with a soft thud. Sammy stands in the doorway his face a pale dusty, coffee color, his eyes sunken and streaming tears. Snot runs down his nose as he says, “Mommy’s shaking again.”

I grab him by his shoulders a bit more roughly than intended. “Where is she?”

More tears. “The kitchen, Cassie I — .”

Without thinking, I grab one of my pillows, shove him lightly to the side, and bound through the doorway headed for the stairs. I hear him trailing behind me.

“Sammy, go to your room!” I yell while taking on the stairs. The footsteps stop, and I hear Annie doing her stiff version of coaxing trying to convince him to go to his room. A door closes somewhere behind me.

Where is Karla?!

I reach the first floor and head down the corridor leading to the front door. Blood rushes to my ears with every second that passes. Each second counts.

I reach the kitchen and see Cole on the opposite side of the counter looking towards the floor. I whip around the counter and feel my throat constrict.

My mother is seizing violently on the ground. Glass outlines her small frame.

“Did she hit her head?” I say slipping the pillow underneath her skull.

“No, we caught her and laid her down,” he spat out. “We just wanted some juice and — “

“Cole, it’s fine, just go upstairs to your room.” I grab a dish towel and drape it over the glass beside her. I lower to my knees and rub her arm gently.

Good, no head trauma.

“And — and,” he chokes through his tears.

Moving her bright yellow armband closer to her wrist, I examine her bare skin.

And no wounds.

“A — and — a.”

“UPSTAIRS NOW!” I roar fighting back my own tears. Another rush of footsteps comes from behind.

“Come on Cole.”

“Hey, Annie,” I say picking glass from my mother’s hair. “Can you call my dad please?” My voice is shaky.

“Yeah of course.”

My mom has a condition. The doctors aren’t exactly sure what it is yet. She suffers from violent seizures, and she has been for as long as I can remember. Epilepsy? No. A brain tumor? No. A brain injury? No. Any triggers? No. No one knows. Every few months she goes to Moroburg Hospital, the closest city hospital to Greensboro, so they can run tests. They say none of the tests she has taken prove or disprove anything. They’ve prescribed a million medications that she is always faithful to, but they haven’t improved her condition. Most say it’s probably some new condition.

Add hers to the millions that have cropped up in the past century.

The optimist in me believes the physicians are genuinely trying their best, but the pessimist in me thinks that their best is simply not enough.

The only memory mom usually has of her seizures are physical, superficial scars that disappear within a few months. My family has developed a habit of lying to her about them whenever she has them. We’d say things like

“Oh, it was nothing major.”

“The worst parts are just the cuts and bruises.”

and the absolutely sinful

“Really no — I think they’re getting better.”

They aren’t getting worse, but they definitely aren’t getting better either. In truth, they aren’t awful. We are just scared, scared that one day, her condition will get worse or will turn into something else. Telling her those phrases are the easy way out, a way to hide how afraid we were that she won’t be able to recover. She didn’t need to take on our stress.

They are unpredictable even for her. When they come, “It’s just a sharp pain in my mind, a screeching echoing sound, kinda like nails on a chalkboard. My brain starts to rattle a bit and then I wake up.” Sometimes the seizures never come, and we find her passed out or screaming with her hands over her ears.

Lying is bad, we know, but I don’t think any of us could bear to recount her seizures —

Be reminded that everything isn’t ok.

— even, some of the worst ones — -

Especially, some of the worst ones.

— like the time she hit her head on the corner of the coffee table and had to be rushed to the hospital. Any normal family in panic for the safety of their loved one would tell the paramedics as much as they could about the who, what, when, where, and why of the situation. They would tell the doctor every measly detail they thought would be useful.

I thought she looked a little sweaty today.

He didn’t tell me ‘good morning’ the way he usually does.

My father and I told them nothing. We didn’t speak the whole ride there. When we arrived we just sat in the waiting room and well, waited. At some point in the evening, the doctor came out to see us clearly a bit agitated. He peered at us over the thin spectacles that hung on the crook of his nose, “Would you like to tell me what happened?”

My stone-faced father looked him in the eye and said, “She just fell” without faltering.

The doctor’s gaze turned to me questioningly and he gave me the “Are you in trouble?” eyes.

I swallowed back the mucus that had been developing in my throat since I had first gotten into the ambulance.

“She — erm — has a condition. Gets these seizures from time to time. She fell and hit her head.” My voice was hoarse. The doctor’s gaze softened.

“Well, she’s stable and there’s no permanent damage.” He gave a swift look from me to my father. “I-I have something that may be of interest to you.” He strode to the reception desk and started shuffling through a stack of papers. Eventually, he came back with a thin pamphlet and handed it to my dad. On the cover was a shiny stubby bronze robot who was holding the palms of its metal hands in front of it. Sitting on the smooth surfaces was an array of armbands, of different shapes and colors. The title of the pamphlet read Karla-8500 — At Home Nurse.

“She’s a kind of at-home carer for people with cardiovascular and neurological health conditions. A list of all the things she can do are cataloged on the back — “ My dad begins to flip it over. “The bands there­ — “ The doctor places a well-manicured finger over an orange band, stopping him. “They can detect any abnormal blood pressure levels, brain signals, drops in temperature, etc. Carla can detect when she’s about to have a seizure and help her if one of you isn’t around or she can’t get somewhere safe to lie down.” A pause. “You folks are from Greensboro, right? I’m sure you all could get a discount on it.” He put his hands on his hips obviously thinking he had made an amazing sales pitch.

“Thank you,” my father says still stone-faced. I echo his reply.

“Yes, well­ — I’ll send a nurse out when we’ve finished up with Mrs. Fontenot.” He gave us one last look over then returned the way from which he came, his lab coat flapping behind him.

Once the doctor was around the corner, my father and I stopped trying to conceal our emotions. We both shed our tears in silence, not bothering to comfort one another.

The tears weren’t for mom’s current physical injury. We cried because we weren’t strong enough to tell her how things actually were. We cried because we didn’t want her to feel like something was wrong even though she knew her condition. We cried because whenever she has her convulsions, the only things we can do are turn her on her side, reassure her, watch and wait…

Which is just what I am doing right now.

Mom lays on her side with her eyes turned upward and her mouth open. Her body is shaking in sharp convulsions and her breath hitching in her throat. Absentmindedly, I stroke her forehead near her hairline while carefully sweeping the broken glass away from her with my other hand. Thankfully, the tears never come. My eyes are dry, but I can feel dried residue around my lower lash line crack slightly when I blink. The muscles in my face have become tight with concern.

Just when my mom’s body relaxes, Annie comes around the corner. At first glance, a stranger would think she is unmoved by the blank expression her face possesses, but I can see the worry in her eyes. We stay there in silence for a few minutes before I decide to speak.

“Could you help me get her to the couch?” I start to grab my mom by her waist. Without reply, Annie takes her by the legs, and we both lift and move, careful to avoid the jagged shards scattered on the kitchen floor. We make it to the living room and lay her on her back across the couch. I place one of the couch pillows underneath her head and brush the stray hairs from her face. Annalise situates herself in one of the armchairs across the room. Mom comes to herself slowly and I try my best to look casual.

“Hey, sweetie,” she says sluggishly after coming to herself. Her soft brown eyes start to focus on mine. “What’s been going on?”

“You had a seizure, Momma,” I say gently squeezing her hand.

She furrows her brows slightly before scanning the room. “Hey, Annalise.” She smiles. “How’s the painting for Cassie’s room going?”

“It’s going great, Mrs. Fontenot. I’ve got most of the sketches laid out. Should be done in a few weeks.”

“That’s great, hun.” She looks back at me. “How was it?”

“Same as usual.” I do my best to keep my voice steady.

But the usual isn’t what she thinks it is.

We’re scared, Momma.

Guilt piles in my stomach.

I open my mouth as if to say more, then I shut it again.

Mom takes my face in her hands and brings my forehead to her lips: her way of saying thank you. She starts to move around a bit more and reaches for the TV remote.

“So what movie are we watching first?” She beams and says, “Go ahead and get your brothers, Cassie. Oh — The snack plate is on the counter. You staying, Annalise?”

Annie nods sporting a toothy grin.

“Great.” She tosses her the remote. “You pick the movie then.”

Seeing my mother smile subdues my bubbling stomach. Her cocoa skin wrinkles about her eyes and the corners of her mouth. Her eyes twinkle with a youthfulness one would not expect from a woman of almost 54. Her gapped front teeth accentuate the childish likeness of her face.

My beautiful, beautiful mother.

I can’t help but smile too.

The usual isn’t what she thinks it is