Days passed, every one the same. School, hanging out, choking down dinner, listening to Mom and JJ bicker. Weekends no different from the last one or the next. Saturday dinner at Dad’s house – better food if they went out, worse if he just heated stuff up. The same conversations. Jackie, parroting a pale imitation of her old assured self just to keep anyone from noticing anything was wrong. Eating less at dinner, stomach churning when she felt other people’s eyes on her, but then mindlessly gulping down whole bags of chips or crummy cookies. Hand moving to mouth, eyes glued to the TV, trying to distract herself.
All the way into March, just when it seemed her life was a broken record and she would be spinning endlessly, secretive and guilty, the first envelope arrived. Just like they sad: it was big and thick. Towsend, her fall back, said yes. Jackie, acting cool since Mom was right there crowding in as she read the letter, casually flipped through the material. Her brain wasn’t taking it in though – her brain was still repeating you did it you did it. She had at least someplace to go.
Only two days later, the packet from Villanova arrived. This time, Jackie allowed herself a victory dance, waltzing JJ around the room as Mom laughed and applauded.
“What do I do now, what do I send them?” Jackie exclaimed, too happily frantic to even sit down yet.
Mom waved her off. “Take the whole thing to your father’s Saturday,” she said. “He’ll help you fill out the financial part, that’s what we agreed. Now what about dinner, shall we make something special?”
Jackie shrugged. After all this time, all this wait, she couldn’t even think about something as stupid as dinner. This was her whole life stretching out, newly and wonderfully guilt free. “You decide,” she said, a wide smile cracking through. She carried all the material from Villanova up to her room and set about organizing it, and then gleefully threw out all the rest of the brochures.