Ultraviolet

Chapter 22: Relief

(Author's Note: In some places, you will see three dashes in a row. Those are meant to resemble an em dash. I just put them there because there's not an actual character on the keyboard for the em dash, so I would have had to go copy one to paste every time I wanted to write. It was easier for me to replace them with three dashes.)

"Dianne, Dianne! Please wake up!"

My mother was standing over me, along with Dr. Kemp and a few nurses. I was lying in my bed in the mental institution, staring up at a blinding fluorescent light. A turquoise vase that held three wilted roses lay on the nightstand beside me.

"Mother! What's going on?" I asked.

"Out! Get out!" my mother yelled in an annoyed tone, shooing Dr. Kemp and the nurses out of the room.

"Dianne, I'm so glad you've come back to us. You were in a coma for two days!"

"What? Why, what happened?"

"I don't know exactly. Dr. Kemp says that he came in here to talk to you about something and he saw you taking a nap on your bed so he left. He came back a few hours later and you were still asleep, so he tried to wake you up, but you wouldn't open your eyes. He even got the nurses to splash cold water on your face and everything, but nothing they did worked. They eventually decided that you had fallen into a coma and started giving you all sorts of drugs to try to wake you up. The one the succeeded was called Neutraproxatin. It some new 'miracle medicine.' You're lucky it woke you up when it did. They had given you the highest dose they could without killing you. If it hadn't worked by then, they would've had to stop trying to get you out of the coma soon because they were running out of drugs."

"Mother, I'm so sorry! I killed Clarence, didn't I? I don't even remember doing it, I swear!"

"Well, that was very sudden. If you must really know, yes, you did, but I am not mad. I never was. I could never stop loving you, Dianne. In fact, the only reason I kept you in this place was because I was afraid of how you would react when you learned the truth, but now, I see that I had nothing to worry about all along. I wanted to tell you soon so that I could bring you home, but it seems you've found out the truth by yourself. It's time to go home, my dear."

"Really? Thank you so much! I'm sick of being here. Wait, I don't have to get a lobotomy anymore, do I?"

"No! I changed my mind after one of my friends told me a story about their brother. He had a lobotomy and he died during the procedure. Darling, I believe you when you say it's dangerous. Besides, I doubt you need it anymore."

"Why did I need it in the first place? I mean, I know what happened, but what exactly was wrong with me? The nurses always whisper about me being 'unwell.'"

"When I brought you to this institution on your sixteenth birthday, the doctors had to examine you before they let you in. They told me you were showing signs of psychosis. They went ahead and let you in, and after a few days of observation and testing, they told me you had something called schizoaffective disorder."

"What does that mean?"

"Don't worry about that right now. The important thing is that you are on the path to recovery, and I think you're doing very well. It's time to go home. I have missed you so much. It's so quiet in the house without you there to liven it up. However, it has gotten a lot cleaner," my mother joked.

My mother and I walked out to the parking lot together, a huge smile on my face. I still felt terrible for what I had done, but at least my mother had forgiven me. I was fortunate to have such an accepting parent. As I walked to the car, I remembered the Prophecy Ring. I looked down to check if it was still on my finger, and sure enough, it was. I decided not to tell anyone about it; most people don't believe in magic. When I stepped through the threshold of the front door behind my mother, I felt very comforted. It felt great to see a familiar and normal place again. From the worn-down black leather couch to the uncut grass in the backyard, I was grateful that I was finally where I was meant to be.

I started doing tons of chores around the house to help my mother and make up for my mistake. She was very thankful when I helped her out around the house, and she always asked me why I was trying to be so helpful all of the sudden when for years it had never occurred to me to do household work. I never answered her question, it was unnecessary. I just wanted to be the best daughter I could be to try to take her mind off of her lost son. I asked my mom to buy me marbles every month so I could put one in a jar every night before I went to bed. Clarence loved to play with marbles, and that was my way of honoring his memory. I wrote a short poem on a small slip of paper once a week, and I put it in the jar with the marbles to honor Elizabeth. She loved to write poems, and she would always ask me to help her think of new ideas for her poetry. I had lost a lot, and I really messed up, but I knew that Clarence and Elizabeth would want me to be happy. Sometimes I still cried, but when I did, I looked at the jar to remind myself that everything would be alright, and I was doing the best I could for those I had lost. It does no good to wallow in sadness about things that can't be fixed. You just have to do the best with what you have. So, maybe I wasn't the best person in the world, but I had saved the universe. No one in the Second Reality would ever know about my feats, but I did, and that was good enough for me. Despite everything, I was truly happy, and that could not be taken from me.