DISCONTINUED

Chapter 9

The bacon was burning. No, it was burnt actually and smoking enough to set off the smoke detector. Garreth moved the pan and turned off the element before going to stop the alarm. As he was heading back to the kitchen, he noticed his phone lying on the side table in the hall, its flashing red light indicating that he had a message. Interesting. He must have left it there the other night, and he wouldn't have heard it ring from the bedroom if someone had called while he was lying sick in bed. He picked it up and pulled up his messages.

As soon as he heard Julia's voice his heart skipped a beat and his oh so wanting to believe it was true mind jumped to the conclusion that yes, of course... this had all been a big misunderstanding! But the empty feeling in his gut returned, hollower than ever, as soon as he realized the date and time of the message. She'd called just after noon yesterday, shortly before the time of the accident. He slouched against the doorway as he listened to her voice.

"Hey G. Listen, um... Luna called. She... she isn't feeling well, so I'm going to go by school and pick her up and bring her home, ok. Hope you're feeling better. Love you. Bye."

Garreth listened to the message twice more, just to hear his wife's voice. Why hadn't he had his phone with him so that he could have answered it? He hadn't been that sick. Not really. Jules had been right. What if he'd spoken with her? What if he'd gone to pick up Luna instead? What if just speaking with Jules had delayed her enough to avoid the... the accident?

G. Don't you dare play that game!

But Jules, what if I...

Garreth! Stop it.

This is my...

It most certainly is NOT! Look, it's not like you drove my car into the river. There's nothing you could have done.

But if I'd only...

ENOUGH!

Garreth stood there for a good long while, just staring at the floor. Would he ever forget her voice? Would he ever forget her face? God. Please no.

He had just finished cooking his second batch of bacon by the time Luna came back downstairs.

"Sorry about the eggs Lu. I'm afraid they're a little tired. I had to keep them warm while I cooked up some more bacon." He put an egg and a couple of pieces of bacon on a plate and handed it to Luna.

"Hey Lu, are you ok?"

Luna placed her plate on the table and turned to face her Dad. Despite desperately wanting to give him what he needed right now, she was unable to hide her frustration.

"Dad, seriously. Just because I'm not constantly crying doesn't mean I'm not a wreck. I'm broken Dad, just like you. I'm confused, I'm mad, I'm sad. I'm sure I'll have days where I'm so sad that I can't get out of bed. But right now, I need to try to keep it together. So no, I'm not ok. And yea, I'm ok. Sort of."

"No, no Lu... sorry. I didn't mean that. I meant do you feel ok? Are you sick?"

Luna gave her Dad an odd look.

"No, I'm not. Why do you ask?"

"I had this message from Mom on my phone. She left it yesterday before... before the, uh, accident." He barely got that word out. "Anyway, I just found it now. She said that you were sick and that she was going to pick you up at school and bring you home."

"What? No. I'm fine. I wasn't sick. I never talked to her after she left for work. That's weird."

"Hmmm. Yea, it is."

Luna's eyes visibly saddened as she remembered the last conversation she'd had with her Mom. "Yea, I only saw her right after I got up. I was pretty zonked as it was first thing in the morning, so we barely spoke. I dunno... maybe she thought I was sick?"

"Yea, maybe. I guess."

"Hey, speaking of sick... why didn't you tell me we were getting shots at school yesterday? You know I have needle problems. I thought we agreed that next time you or Mom would arrange to give me the shot yourselves here at home? That was so not cool Dad! I thought we had a deal?"

Now it was Garreth's turn to look confused.

"What? You got a shot yesterday... at school? Why? What for?"

"Come on Dad, you're seriously telling me that you knew nothing about it? You're like 'the guy' there at the institute. How could you not have known?"

"Luna, I'm telling you... honestly, I knew nothing about this."

"That's a bit hard to believe Dad. Are you sure this wasn't some sort of 'tough love', 'she needs to face her fears' sort of thing?"

"No. Honest. And I agree. It is hard to believe. It's weird actually, but it's true. This is all news to me."

Garreth stared vacantly past Luna, loosely biting his tongue and squinting slightly like he always did when he was deep in thought. No, he was sure of it. There hadn't been any talk of any sort of public inoculation for quite a while. That sort of thing always caught his attention, what with Luna's past bad experiences and all. Julia hadn't mentioned anything about it either. Truthfully, it was almost unthinkable that between the two of them neither had heard about it. He turned his attention back to Luna.

"Did they say what the shot was for?"

"I dunno. Some new highly contagious thing that's apparently been spreading outside the fence. I guess they're making everyone get this shot to make sure the disease doesn't start getting passed around in here, and of course - lucky me - they started with schools. Oh. And apparently they closed the borders again until they get this thing sorted out."

"Really? Wow. That's so weird. I mean, temporarily closing the borders really isn't anything new, but I can't believe I never heard anything about the shot. Well, I guess I'll find out about it when I go back to work. I'm sorry that I couldn't have at least warned you though. How did it go anyway?"

"Actually, not bad."

"Really?"

"Yea. I mean, I was still super stressed and crying like a child and all, but I managed to avoid both throwing up and fainting so that's something."

"Wow. That's my girl. Conscious and not puking... like I always said, aim high".

"Ha ha Dad. Very funny. Anyways, yea, all things considered it was ok. I guess. Bo actually helped me out... I mean Bo and Olivia. Yea, they both helped."

Luna found herself recalling those moments of holding Bo's hand and looking into his dark blue eyes with a shocking degree of detail and clarity. She blushed slightly at the memory, but thankfully her Dad didn't notice. Her Mom would have immediately sensed that something was up, but not her Dad. He just wasn't that perceptive when it came to "matters of the heart" if you will. Or if he was, he chose to completely ignore the fact that his 16-year-old daughter could possibly have feelings for any man but him.

Yea, her Mom would have busted her for sure, but at least then she could have talked about it with someone. But her Mom wasn't here. Not like the late coming home from work, or even the away at a conference for a week type of not here either. No, her Mom was gone. Forever. She'd never be able to talk to her Mom again, about this or anything. Luna fought hard to hold back her tears. Oh well, as far as Bo was concerned there was nothing to talk about anyway. There couldn't be. She'd make sure of that. She turned and sat down at the table.

"Let's eat Dad."