Chapter 37-Extraction

Florida, 2015

"I want Wendy's now."

My mom is sitting in the back seat looking like, well... a crazy person.

We had just picked her up from Jackson Memorial Hospital and she looks terrible.

Her hair hasn't been washed for at least a week. She has no makeup on.

In contrast she is wearing a ridiculously fancy shirt and white jeans.

These are the clothes my dad picked out for her that morning.

Earlier, for reasons I still don't understand he had to go out in the 100-degree Florida heat and fix a decorative fence.

He still had dirt under his fingernails.

While he was doing that, I packed more clothes into the suitcases.

I knew we weren't coming back. Maybe he did too.

I had been so scared that the knife thing would scare Dr. Conti away. If she was violent, maybe she had schizophrenia.

I called him and told him what had happened. He was amazing. He told me he didn't think it was schizophrenia, but he would see. The important thing now was to break the cycle and start treatment.

I told him I wasn't sure my mom would still come. He offered to call her, which he did. While she was in the hospital.

Then he worked with the hospital to arrange for her to come here upon release. They prescribed sedatives so that we could get her on the flight back here. Dr. Conti had arranged for my mom to be released into my care. He had spoken with the doctor at Jackson Memorial, and they had agreed on a sedative for my mom to make the journey easier.

It had taken longer than we expected to get on the road because we had to get new doses of all of Mom's medication from the hospital pharmacy.

"Get rid of all of your old bottles of medicine," the doctor told us as we were picking up the paperwork. "We have prescribed new doses."

Now we were rushing to the airport, running late.

But Mom wanted Wendy's.

"I don't know where Wendy's is," I said, trying to keep things calm. "We can get something at the airport."

"There was a sign for Wendy's up ahead," Dad said, trying to be helpful.

I glared at him.  Looked at my mom in the mirror.

"Here. Get off now," my mom screeched from the back seat.

Then I looked at my own reflection.  Who was I right now?  Daughter or Incident Commander?

I wrenched the wheel to get off at the exit, a car honking as I cut across the lane.

"Fine, but we are going through the drive thru."

"You know, darling," my mom said sweetly now that she had gotten her way. "You really should use their turn signal."

I can do this.