Chapter 9: Is She Crazy?
Curly hair's given name was Edward, but he didn't like it. So he called himself Ed. He drove the car steadily on the road and listened to his earphones at the same time. He felt puzzled at the sound, and he took the earphones off and handed it to old Chapman, who sat on the seat beside him, "You listen to it."
Chapman was not happy with it, but after he listened, he was shocked.
The two looked at each other speechlessly. Ed said casually, "Her father died?"
Chapman pressed his lips in a line and shook his head.
Tristan Fox, who was sitting at the back and closing his eyes, asked, "What happened?"
The two didn't know how to explain, so Chapman took off the earphone and asked, "You heard it yourself?"
Tristan took the earphone and put it on suspiciously. He didn't react much to it. He just raised his eyebrows and turned to look out of the window. The car happened to pass the side gate of the hospital, and at the narrow lane between the two buildings, a person was squatting on the snow. She was in blue and looked familiar.
Chapman reacted first and said, "That is her, Kate."
Ed saw her too and was about to speak but was hushed by Chapman.
Tristan listened expressionlessly, but his heart was a little shocked. Kate was crying so hard, choking and blowing her nose. From a distance, you could see her jerking, and it looked like she might fall onto the snow at any time.
The scene of Kate shedding tears silently flashed into his brain. She didn't give in or scream. She was so calm that he thought she was abnormal or stupid. It was only because he didn't touch her bottom line.
Curly-hair murmured in the front, "Is she crazy?"
He heard himself reply in a voice only he could hear, "Because she betrayed herself."
The feeling was familiar to him.
He seemed to see a lanky teenager, angry but helpless, walked in a lonely street at midnight, kicking a tree trunk on the roadside and bumped the trunk with his head…And that teenager said from now on, you had to be a bad guy.
It was a long time ago, and he was no longer weak or helpless. He had honed himself to be ruthless and cold. He drew back his eyes from the blue figure and said indifferently, "Let's go."
The money for the surgery was paid. Everything proceeded smoothly.
For the source of the money, Kate explained that she borrowed from her boss and colleagues. She was known to be honest, and her family didn't suspect anything. They were happy for the help from the kind people she mentioned.
The surgery was successful, and so were the after-treatments. Just before Christmas Eve, her father was dismissed from the hospital. They had a quiet Christmas and were grateful that the whole family could be together for the New Year. Nobody could know better than this family the meaning of Christmas.
Their happiness, indeed, was something her neighbor two houses away could never expect. Of course, they were not aware of it. They just worried that Caroline was wilder now. Not even a phone call.
Nobody knew where she was now. They asked Kate when they met her on the porch. She kept silent. Her parents knew that they had quarrels and thought they didn't hang out together now. Kate was tortured by the guilt inside a day worse than the day before. She could not eat or sleep well.
To add salt to the wound, the neighbors talked her parents into introducing boys to Kate. It was true that in a small place like their town, girls got married at 20-23. Her parents thought it was time.
The boy introduced to her was her classmate at elementary school, the guy who bullied her and wanted to copy her paper in the tests. That guy looked at her with bedroom eyes, and Kate felt a headache, wondering what their offspring would be like if she married him.
As her father was getting better, Kate escaped home after two months. She took the train back to Los Angeles. At least she could see if she could do anything for Caroline in Los Angeles. She could probably only pray that Caroline was happy in heaven. Kate looked bitterly at the bleak winter scenery outside of the train.