Don't Forget Me

Chapter 9

Lola's Bistro is right on the outskirts of Wyatt, and I'm hoping their chicken Caesar sandwich hasn't changed, because it's straight-up perfection. Just like at every other restaurant around here, you seat yourself, and without discussing it we both head to our corner booth beside a window that overlooks the tree line. Neither of us bothers to open the menu, because I'm pretty sure we know it by heart at this point. I might not remember my eighteenth birthday, but at least I can remember that.

As we're waiting for the waitress to come over, I recognize a group of old ladies from St. Joe's, shuffling in through the door.

"Hey, Mom, how are things at the church? Are you still duking it out with Mrs. O'Doyle?" I ask, a grin spreading across my face. Mom's been angling to run the church fundraisers for years, but Mrs. O'Doyle absolutely refuses to share her post. Even if her Lenten fish fry is more burnt beer batter than actual cod.

"Actually!" Mom sits up real straight in her seat, looking very proud. "You're looking at the new head of the Seventy-Sixth Annual Spaghetti Dinner."

"No way!" I say, shocked.

"It's August tenth! So I've got a little under two months to perfect my meatball recipe, and I want to get started sooner rather than later. You and your dad are going to be meatballed out by the time it actually rolls around."

"I'll totally help you with that," I say. I love a good mother-daughter summer project.

"You will? Really?" she asks.

"Wait, did Mrs. O'Doyle die or something?" I narrow my eyes at her.

"No." She snickers. "Why?"

"You're telling me she actually gave up her post?" I ask.

"Well... not exactly willingly," she says, cringing. "You remember her daughter, Sarah?" I nod, picturing her, a senior at Central Catholic. Or... no. I guess I'm not even a senior there anymore. Sarah would've graduated two years ago. "She got pregnant about six months ago, and word got around that she... well..." Mom pauses to look over both shoulders, making sure no one can hear her. "She got a you know what," she whispers.

"Wait." I shake myself out of my state of disbelief. "But what does that have to do with her mom not doing the spaghetti dinner?"

"You really think Mrs. O'Doyle could keep a leadership position after that? You know how the congregation can be, Roseanne."

"Judgmental?" I ask.

"Straitlaced," she corrects, looking away from me. "Anyway, Mrs. O'Doyle technically stepped down of her own volition."

"I bet," I mumble under my breath. It's not that I don't want my mom to run the spaghetti dinner. I know she'd be great at it and she's wanted to do it for so long, but it seems kind of crappy to me that Mrs. O'Doyle was basically forced into stepping down from a position she's held for over ten years because of a choice her daughter made that doesn't involve anyone else. My mom might be able to talk herself into believing the Church is always right, but we Catholics claim to be the most welcoming of people, and lately it feels to me like we're the exact opposite.

I wonder where I stand now with it all...

"I recognize those faces!" Sue the waitress says, pointing her pen between the two of us as she approaches the table. "It's been so long since you've been in." She slips a notepad out of her apron pocket and holds it up to take our orders.

"It has?" I ask.

"It has," my mom says simultaneously. "It's good to be back, I've missed that pastrami on rye," she adds, and Sue scribbles it down. "With an iced tea? Thanks."

I order my favorite with an iced tea as well, and Sue heads back into the kitchen.

"Jeez, Mom, I know two weeks might seem like a long time away from your pastrami sandwich, but—"

"It's been a little longer than that," she replies.

"It has? Like how long?" I ask as she folds her maroon napkin wrapper into a tiny square.

She shrugs. "Maybe a little over a year."

"Over a year? I went a whole year without a chicken Caesar sandwich?"

"Well, I don't know about that. Maybe you came with your friends or something." She sits back against the booth, looking like a deflated balloon.

I watch her for a minute, waiting for her to elaborate, but she doesn't.

"Mom?" I hate seeing her like this and I hate it even more that I don't know why. "What's going on?" I ask, but she doesn't even look up at me. "Did something happen between us or something?"

"No, honey, of course not." She shakes her head, unfolding the napkin across her lap.

"Mom—"

"Okay, I've got two sandwiches for two lovely ladies," Sue announces, setting two plates down in front of us.

"Thanks," I say, waiting for her to leave so I can talk to my mom, but the second she does, my mom changes the subject.

"Hey, I got you something. Yours didn't make it through your accident." She reaches into her purse and slides a brand-new iPhone across the glazed table. "I couldn't figure out how to get into iCloud to back anything up, but I added a few numbers in there that I had."

"Oh, cool. Thanks." Whatever it is we need to talk about, it's clear she doesn't want to do it now. So instead I take the phone and scroll through the short contact list. "Hannah and Grace! Oh my gosh. I have to see them. They must be so worried."

I remember in sixth grade when Hannah had to get her tonsils out, Grace was having panic attacks all day at school, thinking the doctor was going to slip and somehow leave Hannah unable to speak for the rest of her life. It wasn't until we got to her house after school and saw her pounding down a pint of Neapolitan ice cream that Grace was finally able to relax.

"Did they come to the hospital a lot?" I ask my mom as she sips on her iced tea.

"They came..." She sits up straighter in her seat. "Oh, that reminds me, why don't we get Lisa something to go on our way out and take it over?"

"Who's Lisa?" I ask, sinking my teeth into a sandwich that could end world wars. Much needed after all the hospital food.

"Lisa Manobal. The girl who pulled you out of the water?"

"Oh yeah." I shake my head, remembering the girl with the homemade jean shorts who hovered over my bed before disappearing out the door without a word. "I feel bad she saved my life and I forgot about her. That day was such a blur."

"I think it'd be a nice gesture to take her a little something," Mom says, flagging down our waitress to order an Italian sub to go. You can never go wrong with that.

I replay that night in my head as we wait, how odd the girl was acting and the way her eyes never strayed from mine. I have no idea why, but I guess seeing someone almost die would be pretty intense.

"Did you guys talk to her? Get to know her at all?" I ask my mom.

"Not really. We invited her into the room with us to eat a few times, but she always declined. She must be a pretty special person to come check on you just because she saw you hurt. Though I did overhear a couple of conversations on the phone with what sounded like her mom. I think she's pretty... tough on Lisa. Maybe she also wanted to get away." Mom shrugs. "But either way, she was there in that waiting room. Every single day."

"Huh." I can't imagine not being close with my mom, especially to the extent of visiting a stranger in the hospital just to get away from her. But still... if she spent all that time in the hospital waiting for me to wake up, why did she just bolt out of the room without even saying a word when I finally did? Why didn't she come back?

It doesn't make any sense, but my mom's right.

I'd say bringing her a sandwich is the absolute least I can do for her, and maybe while I'm there, I can find out more about what actually happened to me.