Chapter 5

Monday rolled around and as usual, I had my meeting with Dr. Campbell. I entered his office walking on air.

"Morning Doc. How are you today?"

His eyes nearly left their sockets.

"Mark. Is that you?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't it be me?"

"I have never seen you like this. You seem happier than I have ever seen you."

"I'm as happy as I've been in a long time."

"Yeah. I can see that. What's behind this sudden change?"

"I'm just really happy."

"I have a feeling that Ms. Parks has quite a bit to do with this. Is that true?"

"Yes Sir."

"That is good to hear."

"I have 2 questions for you Dr. Campbell."

"I still cannot answer any questions about Jenny. That's not going to change."

"I don't want to know the specifics. They would only confuse me anyway. I want to know first, when can I see her? Second, when does she come home?"

He just looked at me with a smile.

"Well, those I can answer. You might be able to visit next week if all goes well. As far as her coming home, that's probably not going to be answered until the middle of next week at the earliest even for us. I would say at least 3 more weeks."

That was about what I had hoped he would say. I really wanted to see Jenny again. The rest of our conversation was devoted to my counseling. When it was time to leave, he talked to Mom again and we left. I was happy with the way things were going.

Later that night, I went down to the kitchen to see what Mom was doing. I found her working on dinner.

"Hi Mom, need any help?"

"Well sure. Could you work on the salad for me?"

"Sure Mom."

I walked over to the counter where she had the salad fixings laid out. As I started to work, Mom started to talk.

"How are you doing Mark?"

"Great Mom. Why do you want to know?"

"You never volunteer to help with dinner. Since you found Jenny, you have changed dramatically."

"Is that bad?"

"I certainly hope not. You've done everything I have asked of you and volunteered for more. If that's bad, I can't imagine what good might be. You really care a lot about Jenny don't you?"

"Mom, I want to be with her all the time. The letter that I received made me feel great. It's nice to know that she finally knows that I want to be with her. What's better is that she seems to want to be with me. I couldn't be any happier."

"Just give her some time Mark. She must have felt quite lonely to try to kill herself. Don't push her in how you feel."

"Right now, I would be happy just to be able to visit her. I'll go from there."

"That's a good idea. Keep going slowly."

We finished making dinner. Mom had me go to get Erin for dinner. We sat down and ate as close to a family dinner as we could. Dad was still in LA working and he was probably not going to be home for a few weeks yet.

As the rest of the week went on, I had been getting very happy letters from Jenny. It appeared that she was trying to send them every other day as I was. I could tell by the tone of her letters, that she was feeling much better about herself than when she left.

The letter that I received on Saturday indicated that Friday, she was going to finally get a chance for her first visit with her mom and sister. She was very excited about that.

Monday, that happiness all came to an end. I received her letter indicating that I still was not going to be allowed to visit for a while. It seems that during the visit with her mom, they had a fight.

She detailed what had happened. It seems her mom asked her when she was having her abortion. When Jenny told her that she wasn't, they had to be separated. I just wanted to go to her and hold her. I knew that this was not good for either of us. I just sat on the patio and started to cry, a little for the fact that I wasn't going to be able to see Jenny, but more for Jenny herself. She didn't need her mom arguing with her right now.

Mom came out looking for me. It was getting to be time for my regular appointment with Dr. Campbell. She saw me sitting in the lounge chair and I could tell that she was just about to say something when she realized that I was crying.

"Mark, are you ok?"

I wiped my nose and handed her the letter. She took a few minutes to read it then turned back to me.

"It's going to be ok Mark. Just give this some time. I'm sure they'll work it out."

"I hope so, Jenny doesn't need this right now. This is the very reason that Jenny sited in her suicide note."

"I remember. You might want to talk to Dr. Campbell about this. Speaking of which, we need to get moving."

We took the 10-minute drive over to the doctors in silence. As always, I was sent right in.

"Hi Dr. Campbell."

"Mark, are you ok? You don't sound like the same person I talked to last week."

"I'm ok, just not as happy it all."

"What happened that took that happiness away?"

I reached in my pocket and handed him the letter that had arrived earlier that morning. He took a moment and read it before returning to our discussion.

"So you heard about this fight. I had hoped that we'd be able to avoid this topic. What bothers you about this."

"When I found her, I also found her note indicating that this was the very reason that she had attempted to kill herself."

I noticed that he was getting very uncomfortable with this discussion. I know from talking with Mom, that he was not allowed to discuss specifics with Jenny because of the Dr.-patient privilege. I had a feeling that was a large part of the reason. I also noticed that he wanted to change the subject a bit.

"Well, what do you want to do?"

"I want to go to the hospital to visit her and put my arms around her and tell her that everything will be fine. It appears that until Jenny and her mom can get along, that will never happen. They have never gotten along for as long as I have known her. Her mom should probably be in that hospital with her."

After that, he was able to keep me focused on me for the most part. I could tell that he didn't want to be talking directly about Jenny.

When it was time to leave, he asked me to send Mom in. I thought it odd, but did as he asked anyway. She was in there for about 10 minutes before she came out and we left for home.

We arrived home and I went to work on a reply to Jenny's letter. I knew that she needed something to help her feel better. I went back to the stuff that had always left her cracked up in the past. I also wanted to put something in there that might comfort her as well. I put together what I thought would do got it ready for Tuesday's mail.

I helped Mom around the house for a while. It was not what I wanted to be doing but had nothing better to do.

The rest of the week was just as bad. I was getting letters everyday letting me know how upset she was. I knew that my letter would take some time to get to her. That just bothered me even more. I had asked Mom after work on Wednesday if there was something that I could do. She told me that we couldn't really do anything until they were going to allow non-family visits. I was going to have to wait.