Page 94 of Through Quick and Quinn
7:17 p.m.
I think we fly back on the 30th.
7:18 p.m.
damn that’s a long time
7:19 p.m.
I’ll be thinking of you.
I’m so glad you have this vacation time to focus on your family.
7:20 p.m.
yeah me too
and you too
have a great time
7:21 p.m.
I’m sure I’ll text you every day, lol
7:21 p.m.
good, I would hope so
wanna hang when you get back?
7:22 p.m.
That very same day.
7:22 p.m.
ok countdown is on
miss you already
7:22 p.m.
Me too. Super big hugs.
Quick:
Period
When my father left to bring my mom from the rehabilitation facility, he gave me an approximation as to when they would be arriving home. That was the longest three hours of my life. I tried to keep busy, but my ability to sit still long enough to concentrate on anything was temporarily inaccessible.
I paced. I did jumping jacks. I paced some more. I made a ham and cheese sandwich, took one bite, and then left it sitting on the plate. I went back to pacing and glanced at the clock. Nineteen minutes had passed. I tried closing my eyes to sleep away an hour or two, but my mind was racing and I had a headache. So many questions about my mom were running through my mind, I couldn’t even keep track of them. I considered writing them down just to get them out of my head, but when I went to the junk drawer to grab a pencil, I couldn’t remember what I was going to do with it. I was all over the place.
The minutes ticked by, and as her impending arrival drew near, I could feel my nerves firing on all cylinders. I had to relax. I laid down on my back, right there in the middle of the family room, and I closed my eyes. I breathed in slowly and deeply, and exhaled even more slowly. I knew that the breath controlled the heart rate, and since I could control my breath, all I needed to do was breathe. My heart settled into a healthy rhythm and since I was calm for the first time all morning, I realized that I was terribly sore. All my muscles ached, like I had been tensely contracting them without resting. I closed my eyes again and committed myself fully to completing a body scan. Focusing on my face first, I noticed that I was furrowing my eyebrows, tightly squinting my eyes, firmly clenching my jaw, and flaring my nostrils like some sort of dragon. No wonder my head was pounding.
I cleared one area at a time, and scanned from head to toe. While my face sent the most signals that I needed to relax, my fists and my butterflies were also dead giveaways. After a solid half hour, I finally felt like I had released my nervous energy. I was ready to see my mom.
I took a seat on the couch in our living room, an area that I always thought was a waste of space since we never formally entertained. I would have much preferred a library or a game room with a foosball table instead, but it remained an unused room with unused furniture since the day we moved in. Until that day. The couch was in the direct line of sight of the front door, and I didn’t want to wait even an extra second to see her.
