Under the Knife(53)

Darcy, her face blotchy and pitted and pathetic, had cried: chunky tears of guilt, or anger, or both, and then fled to her room, where she’d remained most of the next week.

Looking back, Rita knew that was when she should have made herself more involved with Darcy. Active intervention then might have prevented what came later. But Rita’s insane work schedule had left her no time to be a single mom to a teenage sister.

No. That wasn’t completely true.

She could have devoted more time to Darcy. By then Rita was a doctor—not yet a fully trained one, but she had her MD, which made her employable. She could have opted out of the punishing schedule of a surgeon and found a well-paying job with normal hours in a research lab.

But she loved surgery too much, couldn’t imagine life without it. She hadn’t been willing to choose between surgery and Darcy. And after Tijuana, Rita had fooled herself into believing Darcy would figure things out on her own. Why? Because Darcy was bright and talented and sweet. Because she was a gifted writer and a beautiful singer; because she was active in the drama and glee clubs, had plenty of (normal-seeming) friends, and her grades were superb. Junior year, she’d placed second in a statewide playwriting competition for high-school kids. Second! In a state of 40 million people. How could a kid like that not figure things out on her own?

And hadn’t Rita figured things out on her own, as a teenager, after Dad had died? Hadn’t she gotten by okay, with only a well-intentioned but clueless grandmother? Hadn’t she navigated adolescence, parentless, without so much as a tardy slip at school?

Rita had provided food, shelter, clothes, and money for random teenage-type crap. She’d helped out with homework when she could (which was precious little); had arranged for a sitter to clean, cook, and drive Darcy to school when she couldn’t (which was most of the time). She’d attended (some) of the school plays and glee-club performances, and watched the videos of the ones she couldn’t.

Otherwise, she’d pretty much left Darcy—smart, sweet, and vulnerable—to her own devices.

To find her own way.

But Darcy had not found her own way.

Rita understood the concept of ADHD. She grasped the pharmacology of its treatment. She could recite from memory the physiological effects of drugs like Adderall on adolescents, knew from her experiences in the ER why kids without ADHD sought them out.

Smart pills, one gorked-out college kid had told her one night in an ER bay. Right before she’d shoved a tube down the kid’s nose to pump out his stomach. Totally safe, those kids believed. An easy, nonaddictive way to finish a big term paper—or study for final exams—in a single night.

Bullshit.

Amphetamines. Stimulants. Speed. Steroids for concentration. Addicting as hell. Readily available in high-school hallways and college dorm rooms.

Rita knew all of this.

So why hadn’t she recognized these things in Darcy?

Rita had never figured out where the pills had come from, and Darcy had remained tight-lipped. It didn’t matter. Not in the end: not after the heart palpitations, and dizziness, and the projectile vomiting, and the late-night rush to an ER that, much to Rita’s relief, was not the one in which she’d worked.

Things had turned out fine, thank God. Darcy recovered quickly and, unhinged by the ER trip, had sworn off the pills. Rita arranged for therapy. Darcy righted herself, blazed across the finish line of her senior year, and graduated near the top of her class, chemical-free. The therapist declared success and signed off. That summer, the one before college, had passed in a haze of optimism and relief.

But no, too easy.

In retrospect, it had all been much too easy.

The following fall, Rita would have loved to have dropped Darcy off at Brown herself. Over the summer, they’d talked excitedly about the two of them trekking cross-country in Rita’s battered Honda Civic. They even took out a map one night and traced a route, complete with stops at national parks, and at Graceland, which Darcy had always wanted to see.

But the talk remained just that: talk.

There was the important research paper on robotic surgery Rita had to present at the American College of Surgeons. And the extra shifts Chase had asked her to work, as a personal favor. And the auto-surgeon. Always the auto-surgeon. Chase had handpicked her to lead the auto-surgeon project, which back then had been just getting off the ground. How could she possibly get away, with all of that going on?

Darcy was a big girl, she’d told herself as she helped Darcy pack her things and ship them to Rhode Island. She’ll be okay.

Rhode Island.

So far away.

Would it have made a difference if Rita had gone with her to help move in? Or if she’d insisted that Darcy stay closer to home for college? She’d never know.

A little independence. A little distance. It’ll do her some good, Rita had reassured herself as Darcy, her wide dark eyes spilling with tears, had cast one final, uncertain wave over her shoulder before passing through the TSA checkpoint.

Done with the pills forever. That’s what Darcy had told her.

Promises made. Promises broken.

Three thousand miles away, in the dark of a bitter New England winter (the worst one in years, she now remembered, she’d heard it on the news), it began again. She’d done okay during her first year, but then stumbled through her second, and fallen flat on her face in the middle of her third.

A year ago, when so much in Rita’s life all went so wrong all at once.