The REASON Series - the Complete Collection by Zoey Derrick Page B

an apparent suicide attempt.  

    I don't need to read any further. I click the back button again, but not before I catch the date on the article: April 11, 2011. Just before the funeral for his father and brothers.  
    Bottom line in my research today: Holy crap. I never, ever expected to find that. My heart aches.  
    I close the browser window, grab my water, pop what's left of my bagel into my mouth and place the plate on top of the garbage can.  
    "Thanks for coming," the girl behind the counter says.  
    "Thank you, have a good day."  
    "You, too."

    After finishing up with my laundry, I decide to head back to my apartment to drop off my clean laundry so I don’t have to haul it around the grocery store, which is in the opposite direction from my apartment as the Laundromat.
    As I stomp up the stairs, I notice a piece of paper stuck in my doorjamb. I grab the note and go into my apartment, locking the door behind me. The handwriting is sloppy. So different from Mikah’s tidy penmanship.

    Vivienne,  
    I stopped by just to make sure you made it home okay. Looking forward to seeing you in two weeks.
    Dr. Anne Alston  

    Okay, this is getting a little bit creepy.  
    Something on the floor catches my eye: another envelope. No address, and this one is thicker. Weird.  
    I pop the seal. Inside are the ultrasound pictures that Dr. Alston took yesterday. The first one has a Post-it note attached to it: These were left in the emergency care ward by accident when we moved you.
    Odd that I hadn't even thought about them. Pulling them out, I look at them again. It is still so hard to believe that this little guy — or girl — is growing inside me. Flipping through the pictures, I notice that there are only seven of them.  
    "What the hell?"  
    I check the envelope again, but there is nothing else inside. One picture is missing.  
    “Who would want someone's ultrasound picture?"  
    But even as I ask myself that question, the image of one beautiful face comes to mind. Mikah Blake.

FOURTEEN
    On Monday morning I meet with a really nice lady named Jessica at the W.I.C. office. She tells me that it usually takes weeks to get into their office, but because Dr. Alston had called, saying that it was an emergency, they were able to see me right away.  
    She explains the program to me and I sit through an orientation class about the W.I.C. process. Every four weeks I can come back to pick up new vouchers for various foods. It seems like way too much food for one person. I know it’s not true, but I feel like I’m taking the food away from someone else who really needs it.
    On Tuesday I swing by the nursing home to see my mom. She's the same as ever: She just sits there staring out the window, seeing nothing. I ask myself why I go out of my way to visit her, and the only answer I can give myself is that she's my mom.  
    We didn't have the best relationship — if you can even call it that — while I was growing up. She never saw fit to take care of me, and more often than not, I found myself taking care of her. I got up every day in time for school, went to school, came home, studied, made dinner, cleaned the house, studied some more, and went to bed, only to repeat the process the next day.  
    Weekends often found me alone in whatever apartment we were staying in while Mom was off with God only knows who, doing God only knows what. Usually she’d stumble home late Sunday night or sometime during the day on Monday and pass out for a couple of days. Then she’d be right back at it again.  
    I learned to steer clear of her when she ran out of money. She had a venomous temper and would storm around the house yelling and throwing things. Sometimes she would hit me just because I asked a question. At the time, I didn’t understand what I’d done to deserve it. I understand better now that she was unable to control her own anger, and her means of coping were always drugs or alcohol.  
    On my way home from visiting my