Chapter Twenty-One Elsie
Chapter Twenty-One
Elsie
“Mom? Mom? Wake up!” Please, wake up.
Her mother’s nightmarish cries freaked Elsie out. Kneeling by the hotel bed, she shook her mother by the shoulders while Dusty nosed Rosalynn’s cheek.
“Mom, you’re just having a bad dream.” Although from the thrashing, it seemed more like a night terror. One that was still gripping Rosalynn. Her face was contorted with pain and Dusty was trying his best to wake her, gently pawing at her shoulder. “You’re okay.”
At least Elsie hoped she was. Could she be having leg spasms? Her mother experienced them sometimes, except never with a reaction this extreme.
Rosalynn had seemed restless when she and Grammie had returned from the pool fifteen minutes ago, but they’d assumed it was simply from them opening the door. Elsie rocked back on her heels and wondered if she should get Grammie out of the shower.
Just as Elsie started to stand, Rosalynn’s eyes fluttered open. “Elsie? What’s going on? Did I oversleep?”
Pain lingered in her mother’s voice that amped Elsie’s anxiety up another notch when she was already overflowing with hurt of her own, coupled with guilt and shame. She wanted to crawl under the bed and pretend that threatening text hadn’t exploded her world.
But her mother needed her. “You didn’t oversleep. It’s not even midnight. You were having a nightmare.”
“Oh, I wonder why Dusty didn’t wake me.” Her hand drifted to the top of his head. He inched closer, up under her arm.
“He was trying.” The pup had a wrinkled brow and concerned brown eyes. “You were dreaming pretty hard.”
What worries tormented her mom? Or had it been triggered by pain?
Elsie felt trapped in a nightmare herself, except she couldn’t wake up and escape the blackmail message on her phone. How had the drama with Porter and a small group of classmates escalated so massively?
Back at the pool, she’d prayed the text was one of those scams from overseas, like what had happened to Willow’s grandparents. They’d been forced to shut down their bank accounts and cancel every credit card.
Sad for them, but Elsie would have preferred that kind of anonymous threat. She only had the hundred dollars left in her checking, plus the cash stored in the guitar case. Her college savings account was safe since that wasn’t in her name.
She knew not to call the number, but as she and Grammie had been walking back to the hotel room, Elsie couldn’t resist texting the mystery person back with instructions to leave her alone and that she was notifying the cops.
Bad move. Whoever it was just doubled down on the threat, even including a photo of her in the campground shower that had made the bottom drop out of her stomach.
Sure, the image showed her from the back, with her looking over her shoulder.
One of the photos Porter had somehow managed to sneak during their summer camp.
This wasn’t some anonymous threat from a keyboard warrior overseas.
She’d clapped a fast palm over the screen and let Grammie keep talking all the way across the parking lot.
Because to explain that her anxiety had nothing to do with her parents’ splitting meant confessing her dark secret.
She could only think of one way out. She had to persuade her mom to free up some of her college funds.
Then maybe the person on the other end of that text would leave her alone. Didn’t everyone have a price?
Kneeling by her mother’s bed, Elsie drew in a shaky breath and prayed her mom wouldn’t pick up on her panic.
Rosalynn inched herself up to lean against the headboard, then reached to click on the bedside lamp. “Where’s Grammie?”
“She’s taking a shower.” Elsie nodded toward the bathroom, the sound of running water still echoing. “She said she’ll be able to sleep later that way.”
“Sounds like my mother.”
Elsie shifted to sit cross-legged on the floor. “Do you want to talk about it? The dream?”
Her mom hugged Dusty closer, resting her head on his. “Sometimes I have nightmares about the accident, which is surreal because I don’t actually remember it happening.”
“That sounds really rough. How often do you have them?” Like were they brought on by stress, maybe? Which only added to her worries about piling trouble on her mom’s doorstep.
“Off and on over the years, in different forms. This one was the most specific, though. The other nightmares usually change the outcome or end just as I leap . . .”
Elsie knew the facts of her mother’s fall, but right now, the horror saturated the room in a way she’d never felt before.
“Mom, that’s a pretty traumatic thing to have gone through. Have you ever talked to anybody about the dreams?” She leaned and clasped her mom’s free hand. “Like a counselor?”
“Right after the accident, our health care was iffy about covering a counselor. Mental health care has come a long way.” Rosalynn squeezed Elsie’s fingers. “My parents tried to support me with talk and suggestions. But what teenager craves their parents’ advice?”
Ouch. Elsie scrunched her nose and accepted the jibe. “You and Nana Della were close, though. Like Grammie and me.”
“She had a great way with folksy wisdom, for sure. Although later, yes, I spent time in therapy. I even tried hypnosis.” She shook her head. “Nothing has banished the nightmares.”
“Do you want me to make you hot tea or something? I think there’s decaf over here.”
“Yes, thank you,” she said, sounding surprised.
Elsie jumped to her feet and walked to the coffee maker by the sink, sifting through the contents in the little basket.
She wasn’t sure if her mom had agreed to the tea because she really wanted it, or if it was just an attempt to connect.
Elsie knew she’d been shutting her mom out, but she wasn’t sure how to open up.
Even before the whole picture catastrophe, it felt like admitting anything, or being vulnerable, was a threat.
Willow would have chalked it up to boundary issues.
To Elsie? It had more to do with struggling to be her own person.
Rosalynn adjusted the covers back over her legs. “Do you want to talk about why you’re asking to leave home a year early?”
Elsie paused, then made busy work of riffling through their food stored in a laundry hamper, searching for Grammie’s honey. “I wouldn’t want to give you more nightmares.”
Rosalynn chuckled.
Elsie felt queasy as she forced half a smile in return.
Once the steaming cups were full, she walked back to the bed slowly, careful not to trip in the dim light.
She passed one to her mom, then sat on the floor beside the bed again.
Keeping her eyes down, she blew on the tea.
The silence stretched between them, broken only by the running shower in the bathroom, the air conditioner humming, and the distant music from the pub.
Rosalynn cradled her cup in both hands. “What did you and my mom talk about?”
Elsie weighed her words. She’d hoped Grammie would have the answers to help her.
Instead, she’d gone off on some tangent about hanging out at a campground before a demonstration in DC, a story that had felt kinda incomplete.
But the sentimental look on her face had kept Elsie quiet.
She’d heard that people who got older needed to do life reviews.
Shuddering, she couldn’t even imagine what she would do if she couldn’t turn to her grandmother anymore. “Grammie told me about when she went to march in some big protest in DC. How cool is that?”
Must be nice to have control of something, to have a voice.
“It was very cool,” her mom said softly.
Elsie glanced at her mother. “Did you get to watch her on television?”
“Watch her?” Rosalynn smiled, her eyes gleaming in the dimly lit room. “I was there too. And let me tell you, she was surprised—and not at all pleased—to see me show up unannounced.”
“You were there? In Washington, DC, in the middle of a protest march?” she asked, surprised.
Rosalynn brushed aside the question. “A story for another day.”
Her mother was right. Time was running out for detours. She couldn’t afford to wait any longer. “Mom, I need my college fund money.”
She snuck a peek at her mother out of the corners of her eyes.
Rosalynn’s freaked-out expression didn’t offer much hope.
Looking away, Elsie sipped her tea, the sweet, flowery flavor reminding her of peanut butter and honey sandwiches made with love.
She was so tired of secrets and complications.
She just wanted her old simple life back.
She ached to be a part of something happy rather than mired in so much loss and fear.
“Well, Mom,” Elsie pushed. “Can I have it?”
Rosalynn set her tea aside. “Oh, Elsie, can we please not discuss that part tonight?”
“We gotta talk about it soon.” Like, really soon.
Or her life would be over. Beyond being absolutely mortified, what if some university admissions person saw the photos and blacklisted her?
Something like that had happened to Willow’s older brother when some drunk pictures from a party got posted online, and he didn’t get into a military college.
“Elsie, we will hash this out,” her mom said. “Later, though, when it’s not the middle of the night.”
Her chest went tight with panic. “Why can’t I have the money now?”
Her mother let loose one of those world-weary parental sighs. “It’s too late to enroll in college this semester. Besides, you need to finish your senior year—”
“Or I could take my GED and enroll in January.” The words tumbled out, powered by fear. “Either way, please let me have my money.”
Her mother’s throat moved in a slow swallow, and for a split second, Elsie thought her mom might relent.
Somehow, though, that made her sadder, considering the possibility that her mother would actually let her go.
Feeling so upside down and miserable all the time sucked.
Elsie just wanted to climb up into bed with her mom and her dog and sleep away all her problems like she did as a kid.
She gripped the bedspread, ready to just surrender and spill everything, only to be stopped short when her grandmother came out of the bathroom, wearing a fluffy bathrobe, her hair slicked back.
“Elsie, did you bring a blow-dryer? The hotel’s doesn’t work.”
She shot to her feet, her courage fleeing just as fast. “Sure. I brought my straightener too. I can style it for you, if you want.”
Was that a flash of hurt on her mom’s face?
Good thing Grammie interrupted them before Elsie caved to the temptation to share all the gory details and shift the weight of her troubles to her mother.
The whole reason they’d been having a midnight heart-to-heart was because her mom already had so much on her plate it was giving her nightmares.
Elsie knew that if she wanted to be emancipated, to be labeled an adult, then she needed to take control. Her mom had to grow up fast in a tougher situation. Elsie could surely figure out a way through for herself.
First thing in the morning, she would register for the GED and start looking for a community college near Grammie. Because when push came to shove, Grammie wouldn’t turn her away.
With luck, Elsie could get her schooling locked down fast, outrunning whoever was trying to derail her whole future. As for the money part? She would figure that out.
She had no choice.