Alison Strobel - The Heart of Memory

She began to cry again. Shaun flagellated himself in his head. “Jessie, I’m so sorry. We wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t have to; I hope you know that. We just couldn’t keep it afloat.”

“I know, Dad, I know. I’m not blaming you.” She sniffed and disengaged herself from his embrace to flop onto the bed. “It’s not your fault Mom went off the deep end. If she’d just get her act together, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“She can’t help it either, Jess. I don’t think we can fully understand what she’s going through. This whole cellular memories phenomenon -”

“I don’t buy it.” She shook her head emphatically. “I asked one of our professors about it. He said it’s pretty much all a crock. People just hear things being talked about in the OR while they’re anesthetized, it gets into their subconscious, that sort of thing. She’s just using it as an excuse. Don’t let her dupe you, Dad.”

Shaun sat beside Jessie, scrambling for a response. He hadn’t expected her to lay all the blame on Savannah. It was tempting to let her take the fall. Let Jessie hate her from afar – at least I won’t lose my daughter, too. But as he watched her mop her tears, he knew she needed a mother, and to drive a wedge even further between them would eventually hurt Jessie as well. He didn’t want to be the one that caused that if he could help it. “Look, sweetheart… I know you’re upset, and you have every right to be. But your mother doesn’t deserve all the blame. Other issues were at play here.”

“Like what?”

He hadn’t thought that far. “Well, confidentiality restricts me from saying anything,” he said quickly. “But I just wanted you to know that. It’s not entirely her fault.”

“But if she hadn’t gone crazy, it could have stayed open, right? Even if there were other issues – that’s the main one.”

He sighed. “She hasn’t gone crazy, Jess. But yes, I guess you’re right, it could have stayed open.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, and on top of this, guess what I got in the mail today? A letter from the registrar, saying my tuition isn’t paid. So now I get to deal with that mix-up. Like I have the time.”

Shaun closed his eyes. He’d been right. “Actually-I had a feeling that might happen.”

“What? Why?”

“Because your tuition isn’t paid.”

Incredulity seized her expression. “You knew? You knew this might happen and you didn’t tell me?”

“I was hoping to get it all sorted out before it came to this. I didn’t want you to lose sleep over something that might not even happen.”

Her features were pinched with bitterness. “Unbelievable. The ministry and your personal finances are shot. How can you keep defending her?”

“Because it’s not all her fault.”

“How do you figure?” She threw down the soggy tissue. “It doesn’t matter, I’m a pariah at school now anyway. I probably would have dropped out after finals were over.”

“No, Jessie, you can’t -”

“I can’t stay, Dad, not if we can’t pay for me to be there. I don’t qualify for any of the scholarships, and financial aid doesn’t just kick in like that. We’d have to fill out paperwork and applications and all that stuff. And they’re not going to let me back if I don’t have it all in place before the semester starts. Fat chance of that right now. So what choice do I have?” She shook her head, then speared him with an angry stare. “Dad, I think we need to cut and run.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You need to leave Mom-before she completely ruins you and drags us both down.”

Shaun was astounded. “Jessica Faith, how can you say that? She’s my wife, I made a promise. I can’t just leave her.”

“You’re not leaving her, Dad! She left you already. Is she coming back for Thanksgiving? She’s not, right? She’s already run away; and even if she hadn’t, she’s not who she was. You didn’t make a promise to her, not to this Savannah.”

Shaun stood, needing to distance himself before she actually talked him into it, and headed for the door. “This is ridiculous. I’m not going to have this conversation. For the last time, I’m not leaving her. If she leaves me, then so be it; but I won’t have the failure of our marriage be on me.”

“So what, you’re just walking away from me?”

“I’m walking away from this conversation. You’re entitled to your own thoughts and emotions, but I don’t have to be party to them.”

“See? She’s pulling us apart even when she’s not here. It used to always be you and me, Dad. And now I don’t have you either.”

He groaned. “Jessie-”

“Forget it.” She grabbed her keys from the dresser and stormed past him and down the stairs. He heard the door slam a moment later.

Anger and frustration and self-loathing drove his fist into the wall beside her door. The drywall caved beneath his knuckles. He let out a howl that did little to relieve the pressure inside. He hated himself. He hated Savannah, too, and, if he was honest, God.

But mostly he just hated himself.

JESSIE POWER-WALKED, HEAD DOWN, FROM her car to the dorm. The rational side of her brain didn’t really believe everyone was staring and talking behind her back the way the rest of her suspected, but it didn’t make her feel any better. Someone, somewhere was likely talking about her, or at least her family, and everyone who saw her likely knew who she was – and what had happened. For once she hated being at such a small school. The grapevine was lightning fast, and she had nowhere to hide.

She should have been in her child psych lecture right now. The second midterm was in two days. Next week she had a presentation due for her 21st Century issues class. She’d actually been looking forward to both of them. She’d always enjoyed tests and speeches and projects – she loved school, loved learning, loved showing off what she’d learned. Never in a million years would she ever have dreamed she would drop out of college. But she couldn’t stay now. Even if her Dad did come up with the money, she didn’t want to keep running into Adam, or deal with people talking about her family.

I’ll come back, she thought as she taped together a box from the back of her closet. No, scrap that- I’ll go somewhere else. I can’t come back here. At least not until everyone she knew had graduated. And she didn’t want to wait that long. Maybe she’d try one of their extension campuses – she thought there might be one in Denver. She could move out, go find a job and an apartment up in the city somewhere. Because I’m not living at home. Even if Mom is in Georgia.

A knock on the door made her hands twitch and drop the sweater she was folding. “Who’s there?”

“Angie.”

“What!?” Jessie flung open the door. “Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?”

They threw their arms around each other. “My afternoon class got canceled and I knew you were having a hard time. Thought I’d drive down.”

“What if I’d been in class?”

Angie let her loaded backpack fall to the floor. “I’d have had plenty to keep me busy.”

Jessie shut the door and cleared a space off her bed. “Excuse the mess. I’m packing.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yup.”

“This is all because of Adam?”

“No-you haven’t heard the latest.” Jessie told her about the letter she’d received, and about her conversation with Shaun the day before. “I swear I’m in the Twilight Zone. My life is completely upside down. And it’s so… claustrophobic here. Everyone knows about A &A, everyone knows about Adam and me, and give it long enough and everyone will know that I was getting kicked out for not paying tuition. I can’t wait to get out of here.”