Chapter 21

We all just sat, awkwardly, for almost an hour. At one point, we tried to watch TV to take our minds off what was happening at the hospital, but after about ten minutes of no one even glancing at the screen, we shut it off.

Eventually, the phone rang. Mom, who was closest, grabbed the handset.

She listened intently for a few minutes then said, “Oh, dear. Ok, I’ll be right there.”

As soon as she hung up we all started talking to her at once, but she ignored us and grabbed her keys. On the way to the door she stopped to address the rest of us.

“We aren’t sure what’s happening, but Alex said there is a complication. She wants me to look at some of the results. I know you are anxious to find out what is happening, but please, just wait here. I will call as soon as we know something.”

Tina, looking terrified, said, “Can I come with you? Please.”

“No,” Mom responded, “that wouldn’t be a good idea, and you would spend all of your time sitting in a waiting room. Just wait here with the others. I promise we will call as soon as we can.”

With that, she was out the door. Hours passed. I was ready to tell Zoe to get her keys when the phone rang again. I grabbed it this time.

“Hello,” I said.

“Cas, this is going to take more time than I thought,” Mom said from the other end of the line. “Y’all try and get some sleep, and I’ll call back in the morning. Keep Tina there at the house with you.”

“But … “ I tried to say, but was interrupted.

“Stay at the house, Cas. We aren’t sure yet what is happening. I know this is hard, but you have to wait a little while longer.”

“Ok,” I said, resignedly.

“Thanks, Sweety. I am sorry about all this, and I promise I will let you know what is happening as soon as we know,” she said and then hung up.

I turned to the rest of the gang.

“They still don’t know anything. Mom and Alex are going to be at it all night. She said we should call it a night and they will talk to us in the morning.”

It was like a dam had broken as the noise from everyone talking at once rushed over me.

“Wait…WAIT!” I yelled to get their attention. “I know you’re all shocked and want us to do something. But remember Mom and Alex are trained for this kind of thing. We would all just be in the way. We need them to be able to focus on what they are doing, and not trying to deal with us at the same time.”

“Should I …” a sad sounding Tina started.

“No,” I said, stopping her, “you’re staying here with us, tonight.”

I then turned to Tami and Vicki and said, “Let’s get you two home and call it a night. We can all get together first thing in the morning.”

We went with Zoe and dropped Tami and Vicki at their houses. They were both reluctant to leave us, but even with everything that was happening they still needed to spend most nights in their own beds.

We swung by Tina’s house so she could get pajamas and then came back home. Tina wedged herself between Zoe and me, and we both hugged on her tightly. She silently cried for a bit before drifting off to sleep. The emotional toll of the day had done a number on her. Zoe and I followed her into sleep not long after.

When I woke up the next morning the girls were still out cold, but light was streaming in through the windows. I made my way out of bed as carefully as possible and poked around the house, seeing if Mom had come home some time during the night. No such luck. Except for Zoe, Tina and me, the house was empty.

It was already eight in the morning, and I knew at least Zoe would be up soon. She didn’t normally like getting up as early as I did, but she rarely slept past eight.

I pulled out a few boxes of cereal, some bowls and spoons, and the milk; setting them all on the table. I was about to fill my bowl when there was a knock at the door. Opening it I found Vicki, Tami, and Megan standing on the porch.

“Hey, guys, you’re just in time for breakfast,” I said, turning back towards the kitchen and leaving the door open so they could follow.

I pulled out more bowls and spoons, and set them on the table.

“Vicki called me this morning and told me what was happening. I wanted to come over and make sure everything was all right,” Megan said in an unrequested explanation.

“No problem,” I told her. “You know you’re always welcome. I don’t have any news, though. Mom called last night and said she and Alex were still working on whatever happened, and she would see us this morning. She hasn’t come back yet.”

“Man, this is taking a long time,” Vicki said. “It didn’t take this long with anyone else.”

“Yeah, but no one else was having mental issues at the time. The brain is pretty complex,” I said.

“Do you think she will be all right,” Tina said from the doorway. I hadn’t heard her coming downstairs. Zoe stood behind her.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Come. Eat some breakfast.”

We were all just finishing breakfast when the front door opened. It was like a stampede out of the room. We caught Mom and Alex just walking into the living room and we all stopped cold, staring intently.

“Everyone sit down, and we will tell you what’s happening,” Mom said.

I knew it wasn’t good. Her eyes were sunken and she looked tired, but behind the exhaustion was a sadness that she couldn’t hide.

Mom sat next to Tina and took her hand, “Tina, Sweety, I’m so sorry.”

“Is she …” Tina said, he eyes filling with tears.

“No, she’s alive. But things got worse. We are almost certain it was caused by the blood mixing. She was already in the middle of a serious episode when I arrived, and had been strapped down. We gave her an injection and at first it looked like things were going to get better. She settled down and even slept a little bit.”

Mom looked at Alex, who took over, “An hour after the injection Margret suffered a serious psychotic break. One of her doctors told me it was the worst he had ever seen. She is experiencing delusions, both visual and auditory and swings from violent rages to wailing and crying. She was moved to the psychiatric ward this morning.”

“None of her doctors know what caused this, but this is beyond the chemical imbalance she was experiencing before. There is no chance that her previous condition is connected to these new symptoms. It is unprecedented. I am certain our attempt at blood mixing is what caused it. The period between her being injected and the beginning of her psychotic break corresponds to the period of time everyone else here experienced before first feeling the affects of their injections.”

It was as though a lead weight had settled in my stomach, and I felt nauseous.

“I’m so sorry,” I said to Tina. “I didn’t know. I would never have put her in harm’s way.”

“I know,” Tina said after a moment as she too came to grips with the information. “We all agreed on this. You checked with every one of us. It was unanimous. I don’t blame you Cas, any more than I blame myself.”

I couldn’t agree with that last part. I knew it would be some time before I would forgive myself for what happened to Margret.

“Do we know why this happened to her?” I asked, pushing my feelings down. “There was no indication of this with anyone else.”

“I have a guess,” Mom said. “We have discussed people who have some kind of baseline revulsion to you, even when they had just met you. We believed Margret was one of those people. I think that those people have some kind of … genetic allergy I guess is the only way I can put it … to you, Cas. We know that many psychoses are genetic in nature. It is my guess, and I will be clear that this is just a guess, that instead of building up and improving someone at a genetic level, their allergy to you causes flaws in them at a genetic level.”

“As Angela said,” Alex added, “This is all just guesswork. Without some kind of controlled test, we will never really know. But the explanations fit all the facts we have, as of right now.”

“It does sound plausible,” I said, “but I never want to test this on anyone else.”

Mom nodded, saying, “Agreed. We will avoid any kind of mixing with someone who exhibits similar traits in the future.”

“So what happens to me,” Tina asked, looking younger then I remember her ever looking.

“For now, you stay here,” I said, looking at Mom for confirmation, which she gave. “I will call Jonathan now, and find out what our options are. What is going to happen to Margret?”

This last question was directed at Mom and Alex.

“She is going to be committed. Usually, it is temporary until she can be stabilized, but if what we think happened is true, I don’t foresee that ever happening,” Alex answered in her clinical, somewhat dispassionate tone.

“Come on,” Zoe said standing up and taking Tina’s hand, “let’s go upstairs for a bit. We need to get your mind off all of this, while they try and figure out a game plan.”

“Ok,” Tina said as she stood up with Zoe.

As she passed me she let go of Zoe’s hand and gave me a hug.

“I don’t blame you for this, Cas. We all agreed, so please don’t let this eat at you. I know how you get. I know you guys will figure out something.”

She let go and took Zoe’s hand. As they went up the stairs Zoe gave me a knowing look, most likely trying to reinforce the ‘don’t let this eat at you’ part of the statement. Sometimes Zoe did a remarkable mother bear impersonation, much like her mother.

When they disappeared up the stairs I went to the phone and called Jonathan and put him on speaker phone.

“Jonathan, the problem last night was worse than we feared,” I said without preamble.

“What happened,” he asked, concern in his voice.

“We think something went wrong with the blood mixing. You remember the people with some kind of built in aversion we told you about?”

“Yeah.”

“Well Margret was one of them, we are pretty sure, although we don’t have an actual test for this. Alex believes it’s more than an aversion, she thinks it’s some kind of genetic allergy. We can’t be positive, but after being injected Margret suffered a complete and total psychotic breakdown. While we have no way to know, both Mom and Alex think this is going to be permanent.”

“What can I do,” he asked.

“We need to figure out what to do about Tina,” Mom said, nudging me aside slightly so she was closer to the speakerphone.

“I can see that. If this lasts more than a few days she is going to get a visit from child services. Ok, let me work it from this end. I am guessing you are going to let her stay with you for now, until we figure out something?” he asked Mom.

“Yes. If possible see if you can get me some kind of long term custody of her and Cas. I don’t know if that is made easier by the fact that he has been living with us for most of this year.”

“It might. Let me get on this. I will call you back,” he said and hung up without waiting for our response.

After explaining the situation to Tina, we went and picked up a bunch of her stuff so she would be comfortable, and moved her into the spare room down the hall from Zoe’s room.

We all just sat around the rest of the day, waiting, but Jonathan didn’t call that day. We only had a brief call from him on Sunday, saying he was working on it, but didn’t have anything solid for us yet.

Monday started the last week of school and we all had finals we had to take, so missing school wasn’t an option. I hoped Tina wouldn’t be so distracted her grades slipped, but at this point there was nothing I could do about it.

The whole week went by without a word from Jonathan as we finished out the school year.

While all of our classmates were jumping for joy over being done with school, there was a group of us who moped through the last day of school. All of my girls were as concerned for Tina as I was. They had bonded to her and each considered Tina as a sister, especially Tami. She was hearing it both from me and Tina, and from Judy, who was concerned about her best friend.