Chapter 35

I was back in school in the early part of January when my mother had another of her serious depression withdrawals. Everything had been going fine, one minute she was laughing and happy, and the next, she went up to her room and started the painful process of guilt and overwhelming sadness. It was like one of those long slides they had in the playground at the school I had gone to. Mama would go anywhere from two or three days, to two or three months, seemingly perfectly normal, then, for some reason, or for no reason, she'd get on at the top of that slide, and ride it straight to the bottom. It wasn't always the same. Sometimes, it was two or three days and nights of crying, hiding and drinking, followed by a long night's sleep, and then she'd wake up and she'd be back to her normal self. Those were the good episodes, at least to Gerta and dad and I.

The one in January took all of us by surprise, and it wasn't one of the good ones. After almost three months of no depressions, we'd all talked ourselves into starting to believe she might be cured, or at least be in a long remission. I called home on Thursday night, and Gerta told me that Mama was in the beginning stages of another bad one. It had come on sudden, and she had skipped right through all of the normal warning stages. My father was in New York, and couldn't get away before Saturday at the soonest. Gerta wanted to send Hans over to the Academy to bring me home to see if I could do anything. Uncle Bunny was up in Springfield, attending some lawyers workshop and convention, and he was unavailable to come and try to help her through this withdrawal of hers.

It was late, and the school administrator had left for the day. I needed to go over to 'Search Hall' and get signed out by one of the 'special' counselors before I could leave the campus. They wouldn't approve me leaving, not until Hans got there and told them it was a critical family emergency, and that my mother's life was threatened.

As soon as I got home, Gerta told me that Elena was in with my mother, helping to clean her up from an accident. I'm sure the accident was probably her urinating or defecating on herself. In her deepest stages, she was near catatonic, and did nothing for herself, other than breathe in and out. Even her eyes refused to focus. When Elena came out, carrying Mama's dirty laundry, she gave me a look that let me know she was worried. She had no previous exposure to this with my mother.

"I can't do this, Slick. She needs to be in a hospital with trained nurses. I don't have any training for this."

"Elena, don't worry. Just do what you can to help her. It's like taking care of a big baby."

"I don't think so. It would be better if she did wear diapers though. It isn't my thing. This is way more than I thought it would be."

I didn't have the best composure right at that moment. I was worried about my mother, and I knew it had to be bad, because Gerta wouldn't have called me otherwise. I figured that Elena must be pretty spoiled, if something like this bothered her so much. I remembered when our whole floor got the Whooping Cough and the Chicken Pox, at the same time, and everyone who could, had to pitch in and change dirty sheets, and keep the little kids from scratching at their scabs. I held my tongue, even though I had lost a lot of my respect for Elena. Why did she think she was hired, just to sit around and watch television all day? Gerta had told me that Elena was less than useless in the kitchen.

I found Mama on her bed, curled up into a tight ball with her head underneath the covers. She wasn't crying, and that told me that she had already moved beyond that stage. I started talking to her, getting up on the bed to hold her. When I took the covers off of her, she was dressed in one of her white bath robes, and that was all. I spent all night with her, talking to her, hugging her, and doing everything I could to get her to respond to me. Nothing worked. Sometime, early in the morning, I stopped talking, and tried to get comfortable on the bed. I knew nothing was working, so I let myself go to sleep. I only slept for a few hours, and when I woke up, Mama had gone to the bathroom in her robe. I had to half carry, half drag her, into the bathroom to get her cleaned up, and into the shower with me. I remember thinking that this would have been a lot easier if Elena had been in there with me, helping, and doing the job she was hired to do. After the shower, I managed to carry Mama back to the bed. Gerta came in to check on us, and she helped me put a night gown on Mama, then she went downstairs to fix me something to eat.

At two o'clock that afternoon, my dad called. After he spoke with Gerta, he asked her to put me on the phone.

"Kenny, I just talked to Gerta. She tells me that it's bad this time?"

"Real bad. I spent all night, and she didn't respond at all. It's almost like she isn't even there anymore."

"I can't get away right now. We're in the middle of a big shakeup here, and I need to stay here to protect my division. They're trying to cut away everything. No one seems to understand that these short term savings are going to have a huge negative impact on earnings for years down the road."

"Mama might be dying."

"She's not dying. She's come out of more of these than you can count. Don't be dramatic, Kenny, I feel bad enough about not being there already."

"You don't. If you felt bad enough, you'd already be on your way back here. I was with her the last time, and this time is a lot worse. Before, I knew she was inside her body. I'm not sure she's there right now. She isn't doing anything."

"Kenny, I can't simply drop everything, and come running, every time something like this happens. There are more than a thousand people depending on me to try to save their jobs. I have an obligation to them."

"More than the one you have to Mama?"

"That isn't fair, Kenny. If she were all right now, she'd tell you that herself."

"If she were all right, she wouldn't have to. I'll do the best I can, but I don't know anything else to try. When can you be home again?"

"I need to stay here for another week. If I don't, whatever they don't cut won't be worth me trying to save it."

"Like Mama." I put the phone down and held my mother, rocking her in my arms. I was mad at my father, but mostly, I was disappointed with him. He already knew that the people who were in charge in New York, were going to make all of the final decisions. He had been telling us that at the dinner table for the past month or more. He said the company had tried to grow too fast, and had financed their purchases and paid too much for what they bought. The cash flow increase they got wasn't enough for them to be able to absorb all the new debt they had taken on to finance their new acquisitions. In the last two months, their stock value had gone down over thirty per cent. The people in New York were trying to divest some of their divisions to pay down their debt, so that the stock wouldn't keep falling. My father said that all the other division heads were in favor of this, as long as it didn't affect their own division.

"Kenny, Mr. Parsons is on the phone again, and he wants to speak with you. He told me to tell you that you better not hang up on him again." Gerta had climbed the stairs to tell me this. I picked up the phone again.

"Kenny, there's no call for you to do that with me, or to take that attitude. Each of us has a role to play, and right now, my greatest value is to stay right here and fight to salvage whatever is possible. Your mother feels the same as I do about the duty we have to our employees. If I were there, what possible good could I do her?"

"She loves you. If she'd come back for anyone, she'd do it for you. You could try to help her."

"If I thought I could do her any good, Kenny, I'd be on the next charter flight. If I leave here now, they'll sell off my whole division for pennies on the dollar. They're all panicking here. Someone has to stay and talk some sense to them."

"You should come home. Even if you don't help her, if she comes back, it would mean a lot to her that you put her ahead of your business. If she doesn't ever come back, how would you feel if you hadn't at least tried to help her?"

There was silence on the other end of the line. I was still rocking Mama in my arms. I didn't think he would come home, because his business was too important to him. He surprised me again.

"I'm going to hire a charter flight, Kenny. Have Hans standing by, and I'll have the pilot radio ahead our time of arrival. I'll be coming into Bolling. You stay with Bertie until I get there." I told him that I'd be here, and that Hans would wait for the call to tell him when to meet his flight. I hadn't put the phone down for more than fifteen minutes before Gerta came back up and told me that Uncle Bunny was on the line. I told her that Hans had to be available to pick my father up at the airport in Bolling. She nodded her understanding and left.

"Kenny, how's Bertie?"

"Bad, Uncle Bunny. She isn't doing anything, no matter what I do. I've been with her since last night, and she hasn't even blinked. I talked to dad and he's flying home. He said it's bad in New York, and they're all panicking and trying to sell off whole divisions of the company. He thinks they're going to cut his division by a lot."

"He's leaving to come home? That isn't like Tommy. Especially at a time like this. What's he going to do there, except wait in his study for word about her? His place is there. Our people can't stand an upheaval right now. Most of them are already stretched by the Economy."

"That's only business. He should be here. This is his wife that needs him."

"You aren't thinking this through, Kenny. Bertie isn't going to even know he came home, not unless she comes out of it. If she comes out of it, what difference would it make whether he was in New York, or in his study?"

"All of you think the same way. What difference does it make if he tells her he loves her? What difference does it make if he puts her ahead of his business for once? What difference does it make if she stays like this for the rest of her life? You always come up with the wrong answers, because you don't think anything or anyone is more important than your business. If you love someone, they have to be more important than a business. None of you even think that you're more important than the business. If I thought like you do, I'd want to go into a coma. My mother is collapsed in my arms, totally unaware of anything, and her husband and her brother are more concerned with talking about some stupid business. Something is wrong with the way you think, Uncle Bunny."

Uncle Bunny tried to explain it all to me again, but I didn't care. When he hung up, he told me he'd call me to get an update later. It was no wonder that Mama got into these depressions. Elena did more for her than her own husband or brother were willing to. I thought Uncle Bunny was more concerned about dad leaving New York, than dad had been, and that was saying a lot.

It was after eleven before dad got home. He looked too tired to do any good anyway. I knew business was important, like money, but was it worth killing yourself over? He must have thought so. Uncle Bunny showed up a little before one in the morning, and I went to my bedroom to go to sleep for awhile. The two of them were sitting on mom's bed, talking about Consolidated Foods, and the way the whole company was getting shredded up, and spit out by those dummies on the board of directors.

I was so tired, that I didn't even tell them that they should try to pay some attention to Mama. I went into my room, and collapsed on my bed. It was after noon on Saturday before I woke up. I went into mom's bedroom, and Uncle Bunny was asleep beside her, and my dad was in his room, sleeping on his own bed. Mama was asleep on her side, but she wasn't balled up like she had been. That was the first difference that I noticed. When I went closer, I noticed her eyeballs were moving under her eyelids. She hadn't done that before either. I shook Uncle Bunny awake.

"Mama is different, Uncle Bunny, she isn't coiled up anymore, and her eyeballs are moving like she's dreaming."

"She's sleeping, Kenny. She came out of her withdrawn state at four o'clock this morning."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing. That's the strange part. Tommy and I were talking about the mess with Consolidated, and we had been for several hours. Bertie moved her arm, and then she groaned about something. I thought, at first, that she was going into a recitation of what you always call her story. I thought that was a good thing if she was, because it meant she was becoming much more alert than she had been. That wasn't what she was saying though. She was trying to tell Tommy and me something. She wanted us to buy back the company, if the price is right. She came completely out of it, when we didn't understand what she meant at first.

'If they're so anxious to unload it, why don't we buy it from them, if the price they're asking is good enough?' That's what she said to us."

"Why didn't you wake me up to tell me that she came out of it?"

"We were going to, but none of us wanted to be lectured again about us putting business ahead of family. Besides, we had to work up some preliminary numbers for a buyout offer that Tommy is taking back with him on Sunday night. We don't have that much time, and we have to be able to act on it before they come to their senses, and start to realize that things aren't as bad as they think."

"I'm hungry. Are you sure she's all right?"

"She's fine. She came back pretty sharp, in fact. We discussed some good ideas on how to set up short term financing for the purchase price. She wants us to buy the whole division, including the two new acquisitions they've bought up since our buy out and merger. We can package them together, then spin them off with their own IPO, in order to recover all the purchase money we're offering. This will leave us back in possession of our old company, with only the current accounts and equipment loans as debt. Tommy knows a New York M&A guy who can handle the bridge loan."

"None of that makes any sense to me."

"Bertie had an idea that will make us a ton of new money. We talked about it, and everyone agrees that it wouldn't have been possible if you hadn't tried to shame us into rallying around Bertie. We're going to give you ten per cent of the company, when, and if, we are successful in getting it back again."

"How is the rest going to be divided?"

"Is that avarice I hear? Isn't ten per cent enough for you?"

"How much is dad getting?"

"Thirty per cent, why?"

"Are you each getting thirty per cent?"

"Kenny, ten per cent is very fair." When I kept looking at him, he nodded. "Yes, we all get thirty per cent, and Tommy gets voting control of all our stock for ten years."

"Will my ten per cent be worth a lot?"

"A few million dollars I'd say."

"I'm going to go find Gerta and go eat something. We need to get someone different to help Mama, Elena is too squeamish to handle it."

After I got Gerta to warm me up some leftover meat loaf, I went looking for Hans, and asked him if he'd be able to take me for a ride in the limo, after I got cleaned up better. He said he'd have to check with my dad, but other than that, he was free. I told him that dad was sleeping, and that I thought it would only take a couple hours anyway.

"I'll have to wait and see anyway, Kenny. He said he might need to go back to New York."

"He's staying until tomorrow, for sure. Uncle Bunny told me. They have some business deal they need to work on."

"Okay, where do you want to go?"

"You know that gray house with the tire swing and the Doberman? I need to go there and see if this girl wants to take a ride with me. Put some of those rubbers in the ashtray, all right?"

"Are you going to clean up any mess?"

"Yes, Hans, I remember your rules. She probably won't want to go anyway, because she's mad at me. I feel like celebrating though, and she's the only one I know that might go with me."

"What about that Connor girl?"

"Too many complications."

I went up and put on a nice pair of slacks, and a good shirt. I had a real nice leather jacket that I'd gotten for Christmas. It had a fur collar, inside lining, and it was very warm. On the way over there, I tried to think up something funny to say to Emily. When we got there, Hans pulled up into their long driveway, and stopped next to where the Doberman was chained up. I got out on the other side, and walked up until I was sure I was further from him than the chain would stretch, before crossing back and walking on the driveway again. I went up on their porch, and pressed the front doorbell. I was surprised when Emily answered the door herself.

"What do you want?"

"Can Gary come out to play?"

"Is that your limo parked in my driveway?"

"Do you want me to tell him to move it?"

"Why did you really come here? I know it wasn't to see me?"

"I wanted to say hello to Brownie, and since I was already here, I thought I could get you to come for a ride with me."

"A ride where?"

"Anyplace where I can get a snack."

"Now you're hungry?"

"I'll tell Hans to drive us out to Clement Academy. By the time we get there, I'll be full, and I can show you where my apartment is on campus."

"Do you have snacks in the limo?"

"Not yet."

"Suppose I'm hungry too?"

"I have to have the limo back in a couple of hours."

"I need to tell my mother that I'm going out. What were you going to do if I turned you down?"

"I think I was going to go home and cry."

"Why didn't you call me first?"

"Because you would have said no."

"I still might have said no. Why did you think I wouldn't?"

"Two reasons. Today's my lucky day, and you already told me you were curious about what Brenda told you."

"What makes today your lucky day?"

"Three things. My mother got over being sick this morning. My family is going to give me something worth a whole lot of money. And, you're going to come with me for a nice ride."

She smiled at me, then turned around, to get her coat and to tell her mother. I went over to Hans' front passenger door to tell him where we were going after Emily was ready. I told him to take his time, and to try to make the trip to school last an hour. I'd already checked, and there were three packs of rubbers in the ashtray. When Emily came out, I opened the door for her, and then waited for her to get inside, before I climbed back in and shut the door.

"What was the matter with your mother?"

"She wasn't feeling like her normal self, but she's better now, and resting."

"Was it like a migraine?"

"I guess. I just know it was hurting her."

"What did they give you that was so valuable?"

"I can't tell you yet. It would violate some exchange laws if I did."

"It was stocks?"

"I can't say. I'll tell you later though."

"Where are those snacks you mentioned?"

"I was going to ask you the very same thing."

"First, I want to tell you why I picked you. I don't want to get a bad reputation. Since you don't go to my school, or know any of my friends, besides Brenda, I picked you. I like you, and I think you're cute, but that's not the reason why I picked you. Now, you tell me why you picked me."

"I like you, and you're cute too. Plus, you're not Brenda. You live real close, and you already told me that you'd like to do stuff with me."

"I'm not going to love you, or be your girlfriend."

"That's okay."

"Do you still want to do to me what you did to Brenda?"

"More than ever."

"Are we going to make out first?"

"We have less than an hour. We can make out later, if there's still time."

"Did you make out with Brenda before you did that to her?"