A Light at Winter’s End
Page 4
“Have you seen Dr. Harrison before?” the woman asked.
“No. No dentist.” Hadn’t she already said that? Hannah rubbed the back of her neck.
“Can you come in today?”
“Ah … no. That’s the problem. I am on my way to the airport to catch a flight to Dallas for this huge budget meeting, and I won’t be back until late Thursday. Do you have any time then?” That was two days away. That would get her some pills.
“You really shouldn’t let a bad tooth go if you can help it. It might abscess.”
“I can’t miss this meeting,” Hannah said apologetically.
“We can work you in Friday morning,” the woman said. “May I have your name and date of birth, please?”
“Hannah Drake, July twenty-one, seventy-four,” she said, and heard the click of the computer keys on the other end. “If there is something Dr. Harrison could give me for the pain, I’d really appreciate it. This tooth is really killing me.”
“Hannah Drake?” the receptionist asked. “At forty-two oh eight Wilshire?”
Hannah’s heart leaped. She abruptly clicked off and dropped the phone. She’d already seen him! Dammit, dammit, dammit. Her heart was pounding now, her hands shaking. What a stupid mistake! What if she couldn’t get any pills? No, no, calm down, there are pain clinics all over Texas. She’d already been to two clinics in Austin, which made her a little anxious, but okay, if she used up all the Austin clinics, she could go to San Antonio. Then Houston—Houston was the mecca of pain clinics. And then there was Dallas. It would be all right.
Plus, there was always the Internet. But that scared Hannah. She could just picture the FBI showing up at her door. Or she could cut down on the number of pills she took by injecting them. She’d seen that on A&E’s Intervention, and had actually tried it once with a syringe she’d stolen from a doctor’s office. The pain pills had worked so quickly and powerfully that she told herself she’d only do that in emergencies. She didn’t want to get addicted.
And then there was Brian. Faceless Brian, his number in her wallet. Hannah imagined a college student with glasses, picking up OxyContin and hydrocodone in Mexico during spring break trips to South Padre Island. A kid who was helping the suburban moms whom doctors wouldn’t take seriously.
Dentist.
Hannah reached for her purse and fished around the bottom until her fingers gripped her makeup bag. She pulled that out, then took out a tube of lipstick and opened it. Several oblong pills emptied onto the kitchen countertop and she carefully doled out four pain pills. She usually took six in the morning, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She dug around the makeup bag and picked out a little blue pill, a Valium, and threw it in the pile to calm her nerves, because she couldn’t call around town sounding like a lunatic.
She put all the pills in her mouth and washed them down with her morning coconut water, then dialed another dentist. That one refused to prescribe anything without seeing her. She phoned another dentist. This one was happy to prescribe her something until she could get in late Thursday afternoon, and Hannah almost collapsed with relief. She figured if one dentist gave her pills, maybe another one would too. Hannah called two more dentists, both of whom refused to prescribe anything without seeing her.
Hannah might have methodically worked her way down the list, but she happened to glance at the clock. She had maybe forty minutes to go pick up her prescription before Mason woke up.
Forty minutes. She’d already made up her mind she was going to go while Mason was napping. He’d had a restless night and needed his sleep, and he could get so fussy when she was in a doctor’s office or at the pharmacy. What was the worst that could happen? He would wake up and cry a little, that was all.
“He won’t wake up,” she said to herself. “He never wakes up before ten.”
Hannah glanced down the hallway of her Craftsman house with the expensive rugs on polished wood floors and the framed pictures of Mason on the walls. Behind the closed door at the end of the hall, Mason lay sleeping.
It was such a pretty house. Loren had insisted they buy in Tarrytown—an area of Austin they really couldn’t afford—because they would “look successful.” He was like her mother had been in that regard. It had been so important to her that Hannah look successful, or beautiful, or smart, or accomplished. Hannah and Loren’s house wasn’t a large one, but it had all the necessary features: wood floors, stainless appliances, granite countertops, and lots of interior stonework and crown moldings. Hannah had done her best to make it a comfortable home for the three of them, but Loren … Loren had done exactly what her mother had done. He’d used her up, then chosen someone else.
Now she worried if she could afford this home for her and Mason.
Mason. Hannah grabbed her purse and hurried down the hall to check on her son. He was sleeping on his belly with his knees tucked up under his chest. She rolled him onto his side and made sure a bottle was within reach, should he wake up.
She hurried out to her car and, once inside, she pulled her sweater tighter around her. When she reached up to hit the garage door button on the window visor, her hand brushed against her forehead. She was surprised to find it was damp. Damp? She was perspiring a little. Jesus, wasn’t a cold sweat with pain a symptom of some sort of disease? She made a note to tell Dr. Blakely about it, but forgot by the time she reached the end of her drive.
The dentist’s prescription wasn’t ready, of course, so Hannah paced anxiously in front of the pharmacy counter, watching the clock, imagining Mason waking up and crying for her. She tried not to imagine how confused he’d be if she didn’t come. Would he be scared? Would he try and climb out of his crib? What if he fell? What if he was hurt and she wasn’t there? What if the house burst into flames because of some gas thing and he was killed?
With her anxiety ratcheting up, Hannah banged on the little bell at the counter. The pharmacy technician, a tall, good-looking kid, appeared. “I’m waiting for a prescription,” Hannah said. “I was just wondering how much longer.”
“Name?” he asked pleasantly.
“Hannah Drake.”
He typed that into the computer and studied the screen. He hit another button and studied the screen some more. What are you looking at? Hannah screamed in her head.
“I think the pharmacist is just about done. I’ll be right back,” he said, and disappeared again.
He returned a few moments later with the brown bottle. He looked at the label and typed something into the computer. “Any questions for the pharmacist?”
“No.” Hannah’s wallet was already open, her debit card in her hand.
The young man looked up, looked right at Hannah. “That will be sixty-five dollars.”
Hannah handed him her debit card. Why was he looking at her like that? What was he thinking?
“You’ll need to sign, please,” he said, and handed her a notebook. Was that a disapproving look? Hannah looked at the blue pages with the row of tiny stickers from pill bottles and the signatures beside them. She signed by a sticker and handed the book back to the young man. He, in turn, handed her the debit card and the slender white paper bag with the vial of pills inside. Hannah didn’t dare look at him again, just kept her head down and hurried out of there, certain the kid was making a note in that notebook: pain pill junkie.
In her car once more, Hannah swallowed a handful and washed them down with cold coffee from a mug she’d left in her car the last time she’d gone to work. She leaned her head back and waited for the pills to work their magic. First came the warmth, then the rising relief. Her body released cell by cell as the medicine cascaded through her, and she imagined landing in a vat of cotton candy, spinning around and around in the soft, wispy cloud. The walls that seemed to close in around her without the drugs began to fall away. The pain, the anxiety, life … all of it receded on a gentle wave. Hannah had what she needed; she could breathe again.
She glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to ten. She had ten m
inutes to get home. In ten minutes, she would be fine. In ten minutes, this would all be a distant memory, and Mason would wake up, and he would never know she’d been gone, and she wouldn’t remember it, either. No harm, no foul.
At the exit where Hannah intended to turn right, she slowed to look left, but she didn’t stop. She slid into the right lane without noticing the car in front of her had slowed to allow another car to turn.
She rammed into its back bumper.
The shock of the impact stunned Hannah, and she sat for a long, breathless, heart-pounding moment with her hands wrapped around the wheel, gaping at the car before her. Mason. That was all she could think of. Mason, her beautiful baby boy. Don’t vomit.
The man driving the car she’d hit was out at once, stalking back to look at the damage, and then casting a glare at her. Hannah quickly stuffed the white bag with her pills into her purse and made herself get out of her car too. “I am so sorry,” she said. Her hands were shaking. She couldn’t even see the damage; she could only see Mason, alone in his crib. At home alone, only eleven months old.
The man looked at the bumper, then at her. “Didn’t you see me?”
“No, no, I was looking back to see if any cars were coming, and I didn’t see you had stopped.”
He looked at her strangely, and Hannah realized she was nervously wringing her hands. She stopped.
“Are you all right?” he asked, squinting at her.
“Yes! Yes, I am so sorry, I just didn’t see you.” She realized cars were honking, trying to squeeze around them, and she nervously pushed her hair back behind her ears. It felt greasy.
“Let’s pull into the parking lot and I’ll call the police,” the man said.
Hannah’s heart plummeted. “The police?” She folded her arms tightly. “I don’t think we need to do that. Honestly, I don’t have time to do that. We can exchange information—”
“Lady, you just wrecked my car. The insurance companies are going to need a police report,” the man said brusquely, and eyed her, Hannah thought, with suspicion.
Swallowing down a sudden surge of nausea, Hannah returned to her car and followed him into the parking lot.
After they’d exchanged insurance information, the man paced beside his car, looking at his watch every little bit, talking on his cell phone. Hannah was leaning up against her red coupe—another Loren idea—trying very hard not to hyperventilate. She’d been plunged into the middle of a nightmare. She could picture Mason hanging on to the rail of his crib, crying for his mommy. She imagined him trying to climb out and falling to the hardwood floor, cracking his round little head open. She could see blood flowing from his nose and ears. She imagined him getting stuck in the slats of the rail and suffocating, his face purple, his eyes bulging, his fat little legs kicking desperately. Hannah was beside herself with fear and desperately wanted to take another pill, but she did not dare.
After what seemed like hours to her, a patrol car eased into the parking lot. Two officers got out and strolled over to have a look at the damaged cars. One of them, a tall, good-looking young man with light-brown skin, smiled at Hannah. “Rough morning, huh?”
“It’s my fault,” Hannah said. She thought if she just admitted it, got it out there, maybe they could do this quickly. “I was looking back to see if any cars were coming and I didn’t see that he had slowed down, and I hit him. I take full responsibility.”
“You do, huh?” the officer said, and leaned over to look at the damage to her car. “Do you have insurance?”
“Yes,” Hannah said, and started to fumble for it in her wallet. In her haste, she dropped it. The cop squatted down to pick it up at the same time Hannah did. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ve got it.” She grabbed her wallet and noticed, for the first time today, that she was wearing two different flip-flops. Good God. She quickly stood up, pushed her greasy hair from her face—Did I comb it? She risked a wary look at the cop. He didn’t look at her feet, and Hannah realized she was being paranoid. Men did not notice shoes … unless, like Loren, they were platform heels that were wrapped around a shiny silver pole.
She opened her wallet and handed him her insurance card.
“License?”
She handed him that, too, and looked at the man she’d hit. He and the other officer were looking at her.
“What have you been doing this morning, Mrs. Drake?” the officer asked her.
“What?” She unthinkingly pulled her sweater tighter around her.
The officer looked at her again, only this time his brown eyes looked very directly into hers. “I asked what you’ve been doing this morning.”
Hannah’s heart was pounding so hard now that she was certain the officer could see it. She forced a smile. “Running errands.”
He kept his gaze steady on her. “What sort of errands?”
“You know. Bank. Gas.”
“Well, Mrs. Drake, I’m looking around and I don’t see a bank or a gas station on this street.”
She was going to faint. The officer would arrest her and Mason would be taken by the state and she’d never see him again, all for a few pain pills. “I had to go to the pharmacy and pick up a prescription.”
He nodded. He looked a little closer at her. “It’s Hannah, right? Are you okay, Hannah?”
She nodded. She could feel the tears starting to build behind her eyes and thought that crying was the worst thing she could do now. She just didn’t seem to have control over her emotions these days; everything made her angry or weepy. “I’m fine.”
“Have you had anything to drink this morning?”
“Drink?” she said incredulously, and shook her head. “No, sir,” she said, and the damn tears began to fall. Please God, please, let me out of this. Let me go home to my baby and I swear I will never do this again. I swear it. “It’s … My husband is going to kill me,” she blurted. “We just paid the car off this month.”
Please, please, please.
The officer didn’t say anything to that. He stood calmly observing her. It was nothing less than a miracle that Hannah was still standing, and at the very moment she thought she would lose her composure and collapse in hysteria, he looked at the damage to her car and then at her insurance and driver’s license. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Remind him that accidents happen.” He gestured to the squad car. “I’m going to run these. Have you given the gentleman your insurance information?”
It had worked again. Being a reasonably well-dressed middle-aged white woman had worked to Hannah’s advantage again. Doctors, cops … no one ever suspected her. Thank you, God! “Yes,” Hannah said.
She stood by her car and forced herself to take deep breaths. When the officer returned, he handed her the insurance card and license. “Be careful, Mrs. Drake,” he said.
“I can go?”
“You can go.”
It was all she could do to keep from leaping into her car. “Thank you,” she said, and calmly opened the car door of her car.
Inside, she looked at the clock. It was almost eleven now. She was sweating; her entire body thrummed with fear and nausea, shuddering against the strong desire to punch the gas, to drive as fast as she could. She was on the verge of hyperventilating as she pulled into traffic and drove the speed limit to her house. But the moment she pulled in her drive, she leaped out and left the car door open as she raced up the walk.
Hannah burst through the door of her house and stood, listening. There was no sound. No sound! “Oh God!” she screamed, and ran to the nursery, her shin colliding with the umbrella stand as she raced to Mason’s room.
She threw open the door and saw the crown of Mason’s head through a gap in the bumpers of his crib. She lurched forward; Mason was on his stomach, his face turned away from her. Hannah grabbed for him, hauling him up like sack of flour. He must have been holding his bottle, because it hit the floor next to her foot. She turned him around and saw the snot on his face at the same moment he opened his eyes and screamed.
What if the wreck had been worse? What if she’d been injured? What if she’d been arrested? She had risked so much for the sake of those goddamn pills, and she would never, ever forgive herself. Never.
The accident had scared her so deeply that she marched to the bathroom, opened her OxyContin and hydrocodone bottles, and poured them into the toilet.
She was done. Never again!
But by mid-afternoon, Hannah was driving with Mason to another pharmacy to pick up the prescription the pain clinic had finally approved.
That night, after she’d put Mason to bed, Hannah wandered through her house with a full wineglass in hand. Her body was fluid; she was feeling languid and mellow. All the anxiety of the day was gone, and she was finally able to think.
She floated into the living room and stared at the state-of-the-art, fifty-two-inch flat-screen, high-definition, 3-D, cook-your-dinner television Loren had insisted on buying. And the Persian rug. And the ridiculous crystal light fixtures, like they were living in a palace instead of Craftsman house with manufactured Old Austin charm. Hannah had never liked the rug. It had been the subject of one hellacious fight between her and Loren, and she calmly turned her wineglass upside down and watched the pinot grigio splatter and pool, then slowly sink into the fibers of the rug. She dropped her glass on top of the spill. The carpet was so thick, the glass didn’t break.
Hannah turned her back to the mess and moved to the Italian leather couch, collapsing onto it. She loved this feeling, this weightlessness. She toyed with the idea of taking one or two more pills. If she took two more, she’d have twenty-two for tomorrow. That was two more than she needed in a day.