The Ballad of Katie: Somewhere Under Heaven Series

The attack

Warning: contains some talk about sexual assault. I don't go too graphic though. Read with caution. 

Casey's POV

It's been close to two years since Katie had the transplant and she's doing better than ever. Like her brother, she's an all-state player but in her case, it's in both soccer and lacrosse. She's still an honor student and she just played Lucy Van Pelt in the school's production of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Her dad jokes that she will probably follow in his footsteps and end up in showbiz and not just behind the camera. 

I often wonder if he's thinking about letting her the the one everyone associates the Pattinson name with instead of him. He told me he has no plans to retire but he also points out to me that she's done more at 15 than either one of us probably did. Did I mention that last summer she had a small part in one of her dad's films and she's done commercials for a couple of local businesses?

Ashton's also got a new girlfriend who I do not like at all. He briefly dated this very sweet girl named Mila who is the daughter of our dear friend Jack Kane who is a doctor at Princeton Health. They broke up because Mila was living in Switzerland for a year as a foreign exchange student. Sure they had time together over the summer when Ashton spent his vacation in London with his aunts but it didn't work out in the end.

He's now with this girl named Cassidy Malone and like I said, I can't stand her. She seems so stuck up and entitled. Her father worked in law but took time off for some reason. His wife is your basic trophy wife type and truth is she reminds me so much of an American version of Melania Trump. Yes, I went there. 

They act like their daughter can do no wrong and they were so ungrateful for Ashton's selfless act in donating bone marrow to their son Trevor who was battling leukemia. They give their daughter everything she wants and will whine when she doesn't get her way at school. They aren't very wealthy but they are upper middle class and they act like they're better than the guy bussing tables at the diner and Cassidy acts the same way. Come on, I know we're very well off but if my kids acted like the barista at Starbucks was a jerk for screwing up their drink order, I would probably have to slap them upside the head. 

And then we got Jaxon who has amazed me. One afternoon I saw him playing basketball and since I played as a kid growing up in south Jersey, I thought I'd help him with his game. I also found out that I still got it and at the same time, Jaxon ended up on the school's basketball team. He's about to go into the ninth grade and I was able to talk to an old friend of mine named Maria who is taking on a new job at Notre Dame High School which is just down the road from the university. Rob and I toured the school with Jax and he loves it as does Katie who is going into tenth grade. Needless to say we transferred Katie to Notre Dame and got Jaxon enrolled. 

Of course what no one knows is that even though we are not very religious, we decided if we are to raise our kids with any kind of spiritual belief, we were going to raise them Catholic. People find it weird that a liberal like myself would go that route but here we are. 

Jaxon wanted to be baptized so we arranged it with the school's chaplain and of course both Jax and Katie are receiving confirmation at the same time which is really awesome. Jaxon asked me to be his sponsor for confirmation and Katie got her dad to be hers. I also found out that Katie's got a few friends at Notre Dame because our friend Jack Kane got his son Byron to go to Notre Dame. Life's good for our kids, it seems.

As for me, my life is going very well. I'm still the Dean of Students at Rider which is nice and I'm working on doctorate number four which is in political science from Princeton University. Did I mention I got my IQ tested a few months back? Apparently I have a 170 IQ. Might explain why I know six foreign languages (Gaelic, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, and Korean) and I'm fluent in both American and British sign language.