Before I Let You Go(89)

I’ve met Judge Brown only once. He spent twenty minutes with me, he dropped a bomb on me and then he walked away. He had no understanding of where I’ve come from, or where I want to go. I tell myself he was trying to protect Daisy—and isn’t that what I want, too?

But I’m more than a mother, and although I barely feel it right now, I’m more than an addict, too. I’m a person and I have a history and fears and flaws and strengths, and I deserved for the court to understand me before they made a ruling that tried to shoehorn me into a box. Rehab has never worked for me—the social pressures are simply too demanding.

And now, as expected, I’ve lost my temper and I’ve walked out of the rehab facility and they’ll arrest me. And all because of one more bad decision, it might be years before I get Daisy back, if I ever can at all.

What do I do now? What I want is to go to Daisy—to take her in my arms and remind myself why I have to do better. I want for Lexie to make me a cup of tea and to calmly talk all of this through and help me figure out a solution.

But I know that I can’t do that. The last place in the world I can go today is to Lexie’s house. She told me the address, but if I go there, I can only imagine that she’d have to call the police.

So what alternative is there?

It’s calling to me even now—the sweet bliss of relief and release. All I need to do is flag down a car, find some cash and get in touch with my old network. I could have a bag of powder in my hands in an hour. I’m already telling myself that if I get high, I’ll be able to think clearer and I’ll find a solution to this tangled mess. If I get high, I’ll feel brave again and I’ll be able to do the right thing, whatever that is. This will not be the first time I’ve convinced myself that heroin will give me courage instead of rob me of my dignity.

But I’ve been sober for weeks—if I use now, I lose the ground I’ve gained. Unlike just about everything else in life, sobriety absolutely is a black-and-white issue—you are actively using, or you aren’t. And the call of the high is so strong that it seems inevitable, but so much of my life has seemed inevitable—and where has that got me? Why do I rail only against the things that could help me, and never against my habit toward self-destruction?

I don’t have any of the answers. I don’t know which way to turn to find a light at the end of the tunnel. I just know that I’m blocked in on all sides, but it’s my own fault, and no matter what I do now, I’ll probably be taken away from my daughter and put in jail.

The thing is . . . there’s not much about this life I have left that’s worth staying sober for. Not without Daisy.

Oh, Daisy.

I remember watching the pregnancy test while the second line be- came visible. I knew by then. I’d felt you moving . . . gentle butterflies, unmistakably new sensations that spoke to a monumental shift in the purpose of my body. These skin and bones have had little purpose over the past thirty years other than as a magnet for abuse; by others and even myself. But then suddenly, a miracle happened within this body, and everything should have changed, and everything did change.

When I saw that second line, I stopped floating through my days. Oh, you might doubt that now, since I’m still a walking disaster but . . . I haven’t had purpose since I let go of my dreams all of those years ago. But then I had you, and I had something to live for. I still stumbled. I still failed. But I kept trying, because when you were under my heart, I felt like my optimism had returned.

I feel so desperate now, Daisy. That word just isn’t big enough for this feeling, but it’s the closest I can use to describe it. I feel like I’m struggling for air, struggling for hope, and it’s all my fault and I’ve ruined everything for the both of us.

Well. Not the both of us. You’re in Aunt Lexie’s house right now, and if it’s half the home she described to me, then you’re in a very nice place indeed . . . certainly a better place than I could have offered you.

Maybe a better place than I can ever offer you now.

I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know where to go or who to call.

And I can sit here all day and all night and I can fill all of these pages with this despair, but at the end of the day, I’m going to have to take a step in some direction.

Or curl up and die here.

I actually wish it were that simple.





39


LEXIE


Sam insists that we at least try to find her, although we both know it’s pointless. We drive all the way across the city to the trailer. It’s the only place I can think to look, but I know as soon as we turn into her street that she’s not there—the lights are off. I bang on the door anyway and think seriously about smashing my way in. Sam leaves the car eventually and he takes my hand.

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” he promises. I scrawl a note on the back of a receipt and jam it in her door, but even as we drive away I keep glancing over my shoulder, hoping to see some sign of movement in the trailer. I don’t even know if she’s come back to Montgomery. The clinic is all the way up in Auburn, and she has no money at all. How would she even get here?

The ride home feels much longer than the drive to the trailer, because at least there was a small piece of hope that we’d find her. Now Sam and I sit in a silence that is punctuated only occasionally by a gurgle or coo from the back seat. Daisy is an unspoken question between us. At some point, I’m going to have to ask it aloud.