Normal Again: Saturday
by Alicia
I feel a little better this morning because I wake up without the burden and fear of being the Slayer.

The Slayer is always alone. But somehow--I'm not. I even say that. "I won't be alone." There are others to take up the torch. The burden has lifted...I still have my senses, and my calling, and my ability, but it's qualitatively different. Lighter. I'm not alone.

Dawn shows up right after breakfast with a box full of pictures she colored for me. We leave Mom and Dad to talk to all the on-call doctors they can grab, and we spend over an hour covering every inch of my walls and mirrors with pictures. I survey the effect. If I have to be in this room for two more days, it looks like it's mine and I like it! Tasha does too.

I wonder if another stupid vampire comes in, if it would bounce off the entrance to my room now, but I hope I'll never have the chance to find out. And I push the thought down as quickly as it comes, without saying anything or even missing a beat in the conversation I'm having with Tasha, Dawn, and Tasha's little sister Jennie about Spring nail polish.

Mom enters the room right before lunchtime and asks if we want deli sandwiches. We all agree wholeheartedly, so she makes a Subway run. When she comes back, she says that Dad's relieved I'm doing well and he had to leave. There's a chill in her voice that I don't want to approach, like, ever.

The entire psychiatric ward is a zoo—we're tripping over friends and relatives, and the poor nurses have to wade through the crowd to take everyone's blood pressure. I never thought I'd feel sorry for a nurse who was trying to stick a needle in my arm, but there you go; I guess anything's possible. I so need to get out of here.

We clean up the takeout mess, and Mom pulls out a rental copy of Toy Story II. She says that she thought it might work with all the little kids running around. Dawn rolls her eyes and asks Mom if she thinks we're all five, and I laugh because it spares me having to make a protest.

I catch Dawn's eye and she laughs too.

"You like cartoons," I tease her.

"And you don't? I've seen you downstairs, early on Saturday when you think no one's up, cheering the Roadrunner on and making little monkey noises!"

"Liar." I know—and I'm sure Dawn knows—that the scenario in question happened last month, but I can't give her another reason to compare me to a howler monkey.

Dawn goes back to examining the movie case.

Mom goes in the common room and starts setting up the VCR, and I pull Dawn into my room, because the Dawn I know would never have given up so easily. "What's wrong, Dawnie?" I say.

"Mom and Dad are getting divorced and the three of us—you, Mom, and me—are moving to Sunnydale," Dawn blurts out.

There's a million things that I can think of that I want to say: questions, like why now and is it my fault for getting kicked out of Hemery, regular moving fears, terse comments like good, a fresh start, and the thought I cannot say, that there won't be so many vampires and other scaries out in the middle of nowhere so it'll be the perfect place to get back to my life. The thing that actually comes out of my mouth is classic big sister. "They told you this?"

"I was hiding in the front coat closet listening to them fight."

I stroke her hair. "You shouldn't do that, Dawnie. Not when I'm not there with you."

"You're locked up here."

"Only until Monday."

"You'd better get out Monday."

"Promise. Monday night I'll be back in my own bed where I belong, and you can come over and hide under the covers, and we'll talk this whole thing through. Until then, don't listen to them."

"Like you can give me orders from the crazy ward. I bet it's your fault that Dad's leaving, with you burning down the gym and everything."

I want to tell her to look at the way Mom and Dad have been treating each other—to make the thought, that it might be my fault, go away—to make that not true—but I hold back because she's my little sister and she has a good reason to be mad at me.

"Movie's starting!" Mom hollers from the hall.

I give Dawn a look and make her promise me not to hide in the closet tonight. Like she's going to keep it, but at least I can say I tried to protect her.

Every patient under thirty, and every visitor in the hall, is gathered in front of this twelve-inch TV screen. These people need lives in the worst way. I should talk. Both of my eyes are glued to the cartoon.

I drag them away when Dawn starts making hot cocoa. She has an entire tub of cocoa powder and a carton of milk, and she's filling enough of these little hospital styrofoam cups for every patient and visitor in the dayroom. I catch her right before she shuts the microwave doors and cover the cups so they won't explode in the microwave. Dawn says she was going to do that. Instead of responding directly, I wait until the cups are out of the microwave, the cocoa is stirred, and Dawn's happily slurping a huge cupful with more marshmallows than cocoa.

"Those are really monkey brains," I whisper. "The marshmallow factory dries them out in a tub of sugar, but they get squishy when they get wet. Squishy brains."

"They are not," says Dawn.

I sip my plain cocoa and give a mysterious smile.

Dawn spews her mouthful of cocoa all over the dayroom floor. She gets a spot where it's tile and not carpet.

The nurses look rather upset with me, but it's worth it for the laughter in Tasha and Jennie's eyes. Dawn will forgive me.

I wonder if Mom will forgive me. Then Dawn pokes me, and I look at Mom. She didn't even notice the practical joke. Passions, her favorite soap, is on where the cartoon used to be, and Mom is about three inches from the dayroom TV. Mom's crying.

She will never hear the end of this. Dawn and I pinky swear it as we watch Mom's face reflected on the screen and silently laugh until tears are running down our faces.

Mom tells me that she has an art show tomorrow, and Dawn has a birthday party, and asks if I'll be all right until Monday when they can come get me to take me home. I give them each a thumbs-up and tell them I'm great.



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