Before I Let You Go(68)

I wake in the morning and Annie is the first thing I think of, but thoughts of Daisy follow close behind. Will I feel the curl of her fingers around mine? Or will today be all about her distress, and will my only reward be the way she nestles into me for comfort?

When Luke calls to arrange my visit, he tells me that I can’t bring Daisy. He’s worried that her presence at this early stage would be too destabilizing. It’s a moot point anyway—she hasn’t been discharged from the NICU. So I make the drive out to the clinic alone. A nurse takes my handbag, jewelry and mobile phone and secures them in a locker. Then I’m taken through the living space—a large, open area with a big-screen TV at the front and a variety of couches, and past it, to the dining room.

Annie is waiting at a table far away from the other residents. She shoots to her feet when she sees me. I walk faster—then I jog until I reach her, and then when she’s within arm’s reach, I clasp her shoulders and stare at her. Her eyes are puffy and bloodshot, but her pupils are a normal size, and I realize that she’s simply been crying.

“Are you okay?” I whisper. Annie’s expression crumples and she shakes her head.

“No, I’m not okay. I hate it here.” Her voice breaks as she speaks, and the sound reminds me so much of that agonized cry that I’ve been listening to Daisy make for all of these weeks. I clamp my arms around my sister and I pull her close against me, just as I’ve been doing with Daisy.

“You’re over the worst of it, Annie.”

She is shaking within the circle of my arms, her frail body trembling against mine. I pull her toward the plastic chairs and position us side by side. She complies, but doesn’t remove her face from my shoulder—she’s still sobbing quietly into my neck. I hold her for a while as I try to think of something wise to say.

The thing is, I’m all out of wisdom, if I ever had any to offer her in the first place. Nothing I’ve ever said to her has helped, not one bit.

“How is Daisy?” she croaks after a while.

I drop the package of photos onto the table and she reaches for it greedily. As she opens the envelope, noisy sobs burst from her mouth. She spreads the photos all over the table and presses her hands over her mouth.

“She’s so much better, isn’t she? Her little cheeks . . . those gorgeous little cheeks . . .”

“She’s weaning now, and it’s going really well.”

“I’m only here for her. I’d have left a dozen times already but for her.”

“She’s a good enough reason to stay, Annie.”

“She really is.”

After the initial burst of emotion, the photos seem to calm Annie, and I steal a few glances to assess her. She’s still skin and bones, still incredibly pale, and quite teary—but although she might not realize it yet, she’s definitely in better shape than she was a few weeks ago.

“So you went cold turkey, huh?” I ask her after a while. She shrugs.

“I needed to prove to myself that I could do it.”

“And you did.”

“I did, but the work is only just beginning.”

“Surely after what that detox felt like, everything else will seem manageable?”

“You’d think so, huh?” She laughs, but it’s a biting sound—bitterness and anger are right below the surface. “But now I’m doing this intensive therapy with Luke. I really liked him for the first few days—we did the usual sobriety stuff, debriefed the detox . . . I’ve heard it all before. But now, he wants to talk about every fucking moment of my life between birth and right now and he’s such a hard-ass—he gets pissed off when I don’t want to talk about things, and shuts the session down like he’s having a fucking tantrum.”

“What things are you talking about?” I ask gently, and she frowns at me.

“He’s my therapist, Lexie. If I can’t talk to him about it, why would I talk to you?”

“I . . .” I’m startled, and I pause before I shrug. “I don’t know. I just want to help, I guess.”

“You’re doing enough. I can’t keep relying on you to fix me every time I fuck up. If I’m going to be a good mom, I have to learn to face my problems myself.”

“And so . . . Luke is pressuring you to talk about things you don’t want to talk about, but you know you need to if you’re going to get on top of this—is that what you’re saying?”

Tears fill her eyes, and she shakes her head and admits in a whisper, “I don’t even know what I’m saying. I’m so tired and so confused. I just know that I hate it here and I should be with my baby.”

I stay for almost two hours. I try to fill her in on the days of Daisy’s life that she’s missed—but it’s difficult to keep the conversation positive when so many of those days have just been hard. I wish I had some tangible milestone to report that doesn’t involve her morphine dosage—but Daisy isn’t even smiling yet, so I can only talk about the improvement in her symptoms.

When the time comes for me to leave, Annie cries some more, and thanks me for coming.

“Hang in there?” I ask her tentatively.

She looks at me helplessly. “Do I have a choice?”

Four days later, I’m driving home from the hospital when my phone rings. It’s the rehab clinic, and I answer it anxiously.