Chapter 37 - Four days in the United States
Two days after the Day of the Dead Ceremonies ended, Jason and Cecilia boarded a plane to go to Frankfurt and then another to continue to Chicago. They were traveling with their U.S. passports, but with special Danubian diplomatic visas that gave them de facto rights as Danubian diplomats. Were either of them to run into any problems in the U.S. it was guaranteed they would have the full weight of the Danubian government backing them.
Before they left, Prime Minister Dukov called Dr. Burnside and notified her that the two students were returning to Chicago for a few days. He explained they were traveling to take care of some urgent family matters and that they needed transportation. Burnside quickly arranged for the Foundation to use two of its own drivers for the students. She calculated that they were less likely to run into trouble if they had employees of her institute responsible for transporting them to wherever they needed to go. Anyone wanting to harm them would have to confront both the Danubian government and the famous Chicago think-tank, which was the best that could be done for their safety.
After she hung up from calling the Foundation, Burnside then called Jason's grandmother and let her know that he was coming back to the United States. He would return to Wisconsin immediately upon touching down in Chicago.
"Oh thank heavens! Yes, Ruth, I need him back, because I need him to get his sister out of here!"
Jason's grandmother explained that Cassie's initial trauma had subsided due to the intensive therapy she was receiving, but that she still had a severe problem with post-traumatic stress, which seemed to be set off whenever she saw anything that reminded her of her parent's neighborhood. That literally meant anything that had been in her sight the day her parents were killed. Seemingly random items such as SUV's, tractor mowers, shotguns, garage doors, police cars, yellow police tape, popular teenage fashions, and various rap songs set off a spell of panic that canceled out days of efforts to calm her nerves.
As a result of her problems with the flashbacks, Cassie had withdrawn to her room. The condo's guestroom was furnished with older items that she could not associate with anything that had happened the day her parents were killed. She couldn't watch television or listen to the radio because a song or commercial might remind her of something that had happened that day. Her only entertainment was listening to her grandmother's records or reading. Throughout the summer she refused to leave the room and even kept her curtains shut. Over the summer she had gone pale and gained weight, due to her complete lack of exercise.
Cassie's psychiatrist speculated that what she needed was to go to some place where nothing would remind her of her parents' neighborhood or anything she had experienced in high school. If she could avoid seeing things that triggered her flashbacks, she could begin living a normal life and eventually overcome the mass of phobias that had taken control of her soul. Unfortunately, there was no such place in the United States. Modern life and pop culture intruded everywhere, even in the most isolated rural area. It seemed that the only solution to resolve Cassie's problem, to find her a life in a completely unfamiliar setting, was unworkable.
However, it turned out there might be a solution. The same night Jason began marching with Cecilia to celebrate the Day of the Dead, Mrs. Schmidt and her granddaughter looked through an album of pictures he had sent from Upper Danubia. Two things struck Mrs. Schmidt. First, from the photos it seemed that the country looked absolutely nothing like Cassie's neighborhood in the U.S. Everything was totally different. Second, it was quite clear the pictures did not bother Cassie. She seemed genuinely interested in seeing them. That was when the idea occurred to Mrs. Schmidt to send Cassie to live in Danube City. In the Danubian capitol there were no SUV's, no U.S. pop culture, no low-rider jeans or rapper clothing, no oversized mansions with looming garage doors, no Sheriff's Department patrol cars, and most importantly, no drugs. Danube City offered Cassie the prospect of a life without constant reminders of that horrible day she lost her parents and her boyfriend. Both her grandmother and her psychiatrist were convinced, if the girl could live a normal life in the unfamiliar setting of the Danubian capitol for a while, she might start to recover.
Ruth Burnside pondered the strange coincidence, Jason's return to the U.S. and Mrs. Schmidt's realization that Cassie needed to get out of the country to recover from her trauma. It was obvious that was why he had come back, to fulfill his destiny to help his sister in her hour of need. Burnside shook her head. The professor was a hardened atheist, so she quickly discounted the thought that Jason's timing could be anything other than a very fortunate coincidence. Still...
As for Cecilia, Burnside knew that she needed to return to her former home in New Jersey and had arranged for a co-worker who owned a private plane to take her to Newark. The co-worker had business of his own to take care of in New York City anyway, so flying there with two passengers was not a problem for him. Once they touched down the driver from the Foundation would rent a car and take Cecilia wherever she needed to go. The driver was an ex-Marine originally from the south side of Chicago, so driving into Cecilia's blighted neighborhood did not intimidate him in the least.
Jason and Cecilia held hands as they touched down in Chicago. After getting through Customs, they found Jim Halsey waiting for them. Halsey took the two students to his own car, and drove Cecilia to a regional airport where her plane was waiting. She kissed Jason goodbye and left with the man assigned to both drive her and protect her while in New Jersey.
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Jason traveled north with his driver in Jim Halsey's personal car, after dropping off the professor at his house. The car sped northward across the pleasant autumn landscape as Jason contemplated the complete upheaval that had transpired in his life over the past year and a half. The driver was an amiable man, willing to talk or not talk, according to the need of his passenger to either socialize or keep to himself. Jason was quiet throughout most of the trip, lost in his own thoughts and pondering the tragedy that had overtaken his parents' lives. As the sights, sounds, and smells of Wisconsin entered Jason's consciousness as reality instead of memory, what had happened to his family finally hit home. He realized in Upper Danubia he had been so separated from his life in the U.S. that he had not truly grasped the fact that his parents were dead and his sister changed beyond recognition. It had not yet struck him that now he was the one responsible for the future of the Schmidt family. His grandmother had done her part, first by encouraging him to get away and then by taking charge of Cassie. She had done her part, but now Cassie had to be Jason's responsibility, not hers.
