Stupid Fast

Chapter 60: GOOD-BYE, JERRI




After my route the next morning, which I biked so fast and amazing on my new bike (especially fast past Aleah’s), Grandma, me, Andrew, and Jerri drove to Madison to drop Jerri off at the airport. On the way, Jerri didn’t say much. Grandma did.

“Your mother just needs time to get her thoughts together. She’s not going to a hospital, you understand. It’s much more of a resort.”

“Mom, come on,” Jerri mumbled.

“It’s a beautiful place. She’ll get a lot of help from psychologists, but it isn’t really a hospital.”

“Mom,” Jerri said.

“It isn’t! She’s going because she wants to get better. She’s free to leave whenever she feels ready. There are no locks on the doors, except at night, and there are hiking trails, and she can call home whenever, and she’ll have Internet. She’s going to have a wonderful time.”

“It’s a mental healthcare center,” Jerri said.

“Yes,” said Grandma. “It has a swimming pool.”

“Can I go?” Andrew asked.

“Do you need mental healthcare?” Jerri asked.

“I’m pretty sure,” Andrew replied.

“No, Andrew, you can’t,” Grandma said.

I was sitting in the front seat because I’m so tall. I turned to look at Jerri and Andrew. They were smiling at each other, holding hands.

We dropped Jerri off in front of the airport. I pulled her suitcase out of the back of the SUV and put it on the sidewalk. Then we hugged. Then she hugged Andrew and Grandma. She turned, walked five steps away, then turned back.

“Make sure you look on my bed, okay? Sorry I kept it hidden.”

“What?” I asked.

“Andrew knows,” Jerri smiled.

And then she was gone through the doors.

When we got back in the SUV, I turned around, looked at Andrew, and asked, “What did she keep hidden?”

Andrew was staring out the window.

“I bet it’s her goddamn diary.”

“Oh. You boys should have your mouths washed out with soap,” Grandma Berba said.

We drove the hour or so home in total silence. I missed the new Jerri, not just the old.

***

Of course, we both beelined for Jerri’s bedroom after getting home.

And Andrew was right. Sitting in the middle of Jerri’s made bed was the diary. Andrew and I stared at it.

“Jesus,” I said. “You think that tells her whole story?”

“She used to carry it around with her all the time, remember? She was always scribbling in it, and she wouldn’t let me touch it.”

“Me either.”

We walked over. Andrew picked up the diary. He opened it. There wasn’t a single word on any page, just a bunch of really bad sketches, most of which were cats.

“What in the crap?” Andrew said.

And then we started giggling and then laughing and then totally howling. We laughed so hard that we almost missed the picture stuffed in the back cover. It dropped out while we were laughing. I bent down and picked it up.

In the picture, my towering Jew-fro dad smiled huge, his arm around a really young and pretty Jerri. In the corner, overexposed because I was much closer to the camera, my Jew-fro toddler head smiled like the moon.

“He’s smiling,” Andrew said.

“Yeah” was all I could get out.

On the back of the picture, Jerri had written: Your father wasn’t as terrible as Grandma says.