Before I Let You Go(19)
Annie’s nostrils flare, and now she and I are both staring at Sam. He has no right to speak to my sister like that, even if he was defending me. But nothing he has said is untrue. Every single word was simple, uncomfortable truth. I’m so torn—a jumbled web of contradicting emotions. I’m angry with Sam; I’m angry with Annie. I’m grateful to Sam; I’m worried for Annie.
“I don’t care if it’s painful. We just have to keep the baby safe, and then we have to find a way that I can keep it,” Annie croaks. “I don’t care what happens to me. I just want my baby to be okay. Can’t you all see that?”
“I can see it,” I whisper, and I fumble to wrap my fingers through hers. Annie looks at me, her gaze desperate, her eyes filled with tears.
“Lexie, I want to do better,” she chokes. “I want to keep my baby. I’ll do anything, I promise. What you said earlier . . . are you absolutely sure there’s no way to stop the baby from experiencing withdrawal?” She’s directed the question to me instead of Eliza, and this time I catch myself before I take charge. I look at Annie’s obstetrician, who shakes her head sadly.
“I’m so sorry, Annie. There’s probably not. Sometimes, babies exposed to narcotics in utero do avoid NAS, but it’s rare.”
Annie sighs and wipes at her cheeks then rubs her temples. When she speaks again, she’s pitiful—her tone is completely flat and she’s staring into space.
“So I don’t have a choice, then.”
Oh God, Annie. You have no idea yet how little choice you’re going to have.
“You have had a choice,” I say suddenly. Annie looks to me in shock and I realize she’s assuming I meant about using the drugs in the first place, so I clarify hastily, “You’ve chosen to come here with us and do the right thing for your baby. You could have kept burying your head in the sand and stayed at the trailer. I know that would have been easier. So don’t sell yourself short, okay?”
Annie slumps again.
“So if I stay on the methadone, can I go home?”
“Oh, no.” Eliza winces, and she shakes her head. “No, that’s absolutely not an option—not given how unwell you were when you came in. You’ll need to stay here in the hospital until you deliver.”
“But I can’t afford this place,” Annie whispers. She slumps forward, wraps her arms around her bump again and says flatly, “I can’t stay here.”
“We’re taking care of it, Annie,” Sam says quietly.
“I don’t even know you. I can’t let you do that,” she snaps. It’s amazing how quickly Annie’s miserable desperation morphs back into anger and resentment. As her desperation for a fix mounts, her mood will become increasingly unstable. I know from experience that if she’s not sufficiently medicated soon, this easy irritation will grow and grow until her rage is completely out of control.
“Lexie knows me well enough to agree to marry me,” Sam points out, then he flashes her his most charming smile. “I know that you want what’s best for your baby, Annie. I barely know you, but even I can see it, plain as day. This hospital can provide you with the best medical care in the state. Eliza is one of the top high-risk obstetricians in the country, and we have a neonatal intensive care unit on-site. This is the place to be, Annie.”
“What do you think?” Annie glances at me. “Do you really want me here? At your fancy boyfriend’s fancy hospital?”
Not even a little bit.
“I want what’s best for you and for the baby. And Sam’s right, you’re not going to get any better care than you are here.”
Annie takes a deep breath, then bursts into noisy sobs.
“I’m sorry, I really am, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about all of this—sorry that you’ve all been dragged into it, sorry for the baby . . . but if they take it away, I just don’t know how I’ll live with myself—”
The grief on Annie’s face is unbearable. I stand and wrap my arms around her, pulling her hard against myself. I press my lips against her stringy hair and guilt washes over me like waves. She smells like her trailer; like poverty, and addiction and a total lack of self-care—and it’s wrong. This is not who Annie was supposed to become. I rub my hand up and down her upper arm, and note automatically the sinewy muscle beneath my fingers, and the bone . . . it’s all too close to the skin. It’s a miracle that Annie has been able to sustain a pregnancy at all.
“Annie,” I say, my voice low and urgent, “all that matters is doing what we can now for you and the baby, okay?”
“I’m going to try harder, I really am. I really want to be a good mom.”
“And you are going to be,” I say firmly, but I have to add a silent prayer even as I say it that the court gives her a chance to at least try. “But step one has to be staying in the hospital and starting on methadone. A proper course, a decent dosage—enough to really hold those withdrawals at bay.”
Annie clears her throat, and she forces out a long, slow breath. Then she wipes her eyes with the back of her wrists, and as she snakes those skinny arms back around her belly, she offers me a single, silent nod.
I’m spellbound by this compliance—this relatively easy agreeability. I try to think of the other times Annie agreed to use a maintenance program, but the years have blurred in my memory, and all I remember for sure is that it has always been difficult to get her on board. She used to complain of bone pain—agonizing, supposedly—right from her first dose. I’d researched this and found that narcotics withdrawals can cause pain—but Annie was always on a high enough dose that this should never have been a factor. I’d eventually come to the conclusion that it was just yet another excuse—setting up the scenario so that when she used again, she had something to blame.