Vicious Cycle

by Terri Blackstock

  “He’s in jail.”

  Jordan rolled to her back, her wrist over her eyes. This was all wrong. “I didn’t want him to go to jail.”

  “Then why did you tell the police he kidnapped your baby?” Her voice was gentle, not harsh like Jordan would have expected. “Do you know how many years he could get for a crime like that? All he was doing was trying to help you.”

  “He shouldn’t have come to my house. I don’t know why he has to stick his nose in everything.”

  “Jordan, he didn’t take your baby. I want you to talk to the police. I want you to tell them the truth.”

  “Then I’ll get in trouble for lying.”

  “You can explain the pressure you were under with your mother. ”

  “Then my mom will go to jail. Then what will I do? They’ll throw me in some foster home.”

  “Jordan, is she the one who beat you?”

  Jordan wouldn’t answer.

  “If she is, then you need to tell the police. You could go back to New Day.”

  “But then I have to follow all those rules and give up everything that makes me feel better.”

  “Drugs don’t make you feel better, Jordan. Look at you!”

  The door swung open. “What are you doing here?” Her mother stood in the doorway, looking like she hadn’t bathed in days. The smell of her friends’ meth lab floated around her, infecting everything in the room. Jordan wanted to scream.

  Who called her? Why couldn’t her mother just go back to not caring?

  Barbara stood up and faced her. “Maureen, I found your daughter half dead. I called an ambulance.”

  “Get outa my way.” Maureen pushed Barbara aside, then bent down and bobbed her head over Jordan. “How you feelin’, baby?”

  Jordan wanted to spit in her face, but her mother would hit her again, and her bruises were still tender. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.” Her mother shot Barbara an accusing look. “See what he did to her?”

  “Mom, don’t. Lance didn’t do this to me.”

  She felt her mother’s anger rippling like a current on the air. Her sharp eyes cut through her, warning her to shut up.

  “I was just talking to Jordan,” Barbara said, “about the lie she told the police about my son.”

  “She didn’t lie,” Maureen insisted. “And if you don’t leave this room right now, I’ll file charges against you too. We’ll get the whole family locked up.”

  “For what? For saving her life?”

  “For harassment. I’ll get a restraining order so you can’t come within fifty feet of her.”

  “Come on, Maureen.” Barbara’s voice was getting loud. “You don’t think that’s going to stop me.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  Barbara bent over Jordan. “Jordan, it’s not too late to change your story. Please set the record straight so I can get Lance out. Don’t punish the people who try to help you.”

  Jordan lay frozen, staring at the track marks on her arm and the needle dripping fluids into her.

  Maureen grabbed Barbara’s arm and jerked her to the door, yelling at the top of her lungs for a nurse. Jordan wanted to spare Barbara this, but bucking her mother’s authority would only result in broken bones and more blood. It wasn’t worth it. As Barbara left the room, Jordan lay there in the mess she’d created and knew she couldn’t clean it up now.

  Chapter 27

  Barbara found Kent waiting for her in the waiting room near the neonatal unit, where he’d gone to make some phone calls. Shaken, she came in and dropped down next to him. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Did she wake up?”

  Her hands were trembling. “Yes, and I almost had her. But then Maureen came in and threw me out.”

  “Oh, so she finally showed up, huh? At least Jordan’s safe here. If Maureen tries to bash her face in, she’ll get busted.”

  “Kent, she was so close to changing her story. I don’t know what to do.”

  He took her hand. “I could try talking to her.”

  “No, it’s no use while her mother’s there. She’s thoroughly intimidated. We’ll have to wait.” Barbara glanced wearily around at the others in the waiting room. A young couple who sat across the room looked like they hadn’t slept in days. She wondered if they had a baby struggling for its life. Her heart ached for them.

  “So what do you want to do?” Kent asked.

  She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know. I need a spy, someone who works here who can keep an eye out and tell me when Maureen leaves.”

  “She will leave. She isn’t the type of mother who would hang around 24/7. You know anybody who works here?”

  She thought a moment, then it came to her. Karen Thompson, Gus’s wife, worked as a floor nurse for Obstetrics and Gynecology. She must be on this floor. She got her phone out, scrolled through her numbers, and called the receptionist at her church.

  The receptionist, an elderly woman who’d brought her daily casseroles when John died, answered. “Calvary … I mean, hello?”

  “Loretta, it’s Barbara Covington. I hope it’s okay that I called you on your cell phone. I knew you wouldn’t be working on Sunday.”

  “Hey, sweetie. You can call me anytime. What can I do for you?”

  “I need a phone number. Do you have Karen Thompson’s cell number?”

  “Know it by heart,” Loretta said. “I’ve been carrying food to them ever since Karen had her gallbladder out. Her cell phone is 555–3248.”

  Barbara felt terrible that she’d forgotten about the surgery. “Do you know if she’s back at work, Loretta?”

  “I think she is, darlin’.”

  As Barbara hung up, she felt a dismal sense of inadequacy for not meeting others’ needs the way Loretta did. How many people in her church were suffering, and she’d either forgotten or failed to notice? She’d seen Karen’s name on a prayer list somewhere and had slid right over it. She hadn’t even mentioned it to Gus last night.

  She almost decided not to call her, but she couldn’t think of anyone else. She could at least ask. She dialed the number, paced as it rang.

  “Hello?” The voice was quiet, a little rushed.

  “Karen, this is Barbara Covington. Am I catching you at a bad time?”

  “No, but I’m at work. I have a minute, though. How are you?”

  Barbara went to the door, looked up the hall. “I’m at the hospital on your floor, I think,” she said. “Listen, are you at the nurses’ desk? I need to come talk to you for a minute.”

  “Sure. Is something wrong? Gus told me about Lance.”

  “I’ll tell you about it in a minute if you have some time to talk.”

  “Sure. Come to the nurses’ station on the third floor.”

  Barbara clicked off the phone and got her purse. “Kent, do you mind waiting? She’s right down the hall.”

  “Take your time.”

  There was something nice about having someone waiting for her. She headed down a parallel hallway to avoid Maureen. At the nurses’ desk, she saw her friend. “There you are.”

  Karen looked tired. “Good to see you, Barb. What’s up?”

  Barbara hugged her. “First, how are you?”

  “I’m fine. It was pretty much Band-Aid surgery. Just a little tired. So who are you visiting?”

  Barbara launched into the story about Jordan. When she finally finished, she said, “I know this is a lot to ask, but since you’re here, would you mind keeping an eye out for when Maureen leaves so I can come and talk to Jordan?”

  “Sure,” Karen said, glancing toward Jordan’s room. “I’m on a twelve-hour shift. She’s not my patient, but I walk by that room a lot. It’s no problem.”

  “Oh, thank you. I’ll keep my phone with me and come at a moment’s notice.”

  “Barbara, what about the baby?”

  “She’s in the nursery. Baby Girl Rhodes—they haven’t named her. She had some seizures, probably from drug withdrawal. But she looks good. I saw h
er this morning.”

  Karen’s eyes rounded. “Is Jordan planning to give her up for adoption?”

  “Probably. She was registered with an adoption agency when she was at New Day. Loving Arms Adoption Agency, I think. But her mother has picked another adoptive couple, so it’s up in the air.”

  Karen deflated. “Oh. Well, I was just thinking … You know Madeline and Ben Thompson, my brother-in-law and his wife?”

  Barbara knew the couple from church. “Sure. What about them?”

  “They’ve been trying to adopt for over three years. She’s had four miscarriages. If the girl is thinking about giving the baby up, I know they’d love to talk to her about it. They had the home study a year ago and were approved. But they have to wait until a baby is available, which could take years — unless a mother chooses them.”

  Barbara knew what Madeline and Ben had been through with all the miscarriages. They’d managed to turn their tragedy into a testimony. “We can introduce them when her mom leaves, if Jordan’s in the right frame of mind. I can’t think of a better couple to be parents.”

  Karen glanced back at the desk. “You know what? I think I’ll swap with someone so I can get her as a patient. Might not hurt for me to get to know her. Then I’ll have more credibility when I introduce Madeline and Ben to her. And I’ll know the minute her mother leaves.”

  Barbara took her hand. “I can’t promise anything, Karen. We’re kind of sworn enemies to that family right now, and Jordan doesn’t have a record of making good decisions. Besides that, are you sure Madeline will want a baby that already has health problems?”

  “Yes,” Karen said. “She can handle it. They’ve told the adoption agency that they would take a special-needs baby. Somebody has to. God didn’t put that baby here to be ignored and neglected.”

  Barbara wasn’t sure it was wise to get Ben and Madeline tangled up with the Rhodes family. But there was no way to take it back now. Maybe it would miraculously work out.

  And at least now she had an ally on the hospital staff.

  Chapter 28

  That night the moonlight was bright, illuminating the trees beyond the gate to New Day. Emily watched the trees’ shadows dance and sway in the breeze, promising danger beyond those gates.

  Tomorrow, she’d walk out of here for the last time and start her life over. She didn’t want to admit it, hadn’t even admitted it to her counselor, but she was scared.

  A year had given her neurotransmitters time to heal. She’d learned all about it—how the opioid receptors in her brain had been damaged by all the drug use. It took a year—sometimes two—for the brain to heal and the cravings to fade away. And they had faded. For the past few months, she hadn’t spent much time dwelling on getting high. The dragon that had mastered her for so long wasn’t her master anymore.

  Yet this weekend had been tough. Just the knowledge that she’d soon be free had worked on her psyche, and she felt the dragon’s call again. Cravings had reared back up inside her, leaving her confused and worried.

  “You okay?”

  She turned and saw her friend Tia, her black hair blowing in the wind. Tia was older … in her late forties, and she had a tremor that looked like Parkinson’s, but was actually the result of years of drug use. Unable to get a job anywhere else, she’d convinced New Day to hire her after she’d graduated from the women’s program and had managed to stay clean for two years.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Emily said.

  “Thought you’d be in there having fun with the girls. After tomorrow, you won’t see them.”

  “I just needed some time to think.”

  Tia sat down next to her on the picnic table. “Girl, I know what you’re going through. I been there.”

  Emily grabbed her hair and twisted it to keep it from blowing in her face. “I want to be strong. I have so many plans.”

  “Long as you keep moving forward, you’ll be all right. But sometimes it’s not so easy. Two steps forward, one step back.”

  “No. Backtracking isn’t an option. I have this one shot. I’m not going to blow it.”

  Tia gave a dry laugh. “Don’t get cocky now. You get out there and get all high and mighty, thinking you don’t need anybody keeping you sane — ”

  “My mother will keep me sane. My brother will keep me grounded.”

  “They’re not always gonna be there. It comes down to you, my friend.”

  “And you don’t think I can do it?”

  “I know you can do it. You have a better chance than the rest of us who go home to a house full of dopers.”

  “Then what? You think I’m cocky, but I’m trying to be confident.”

  “I’m saying that if you get cocky, you’ll think you can do anything, go anywhere, be with anybody, drink anything, smoke anything …”

  Emily swallowed. “So you’re saying not to be so confident that I don’t know my own limitations, right?”

  “Knowing you’re weak—that’s what makes you strong. Remember when Paul asked for God to take away that thorn in his flesh?”

  “I remember.”

  “And what did God say?”

  Emily stared into the air. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

  “Right,” Tia said. “Paul said, ‘When I am weak, then I am strong.’ ”

  “So I should try to be weak?”

  “No. You should be strong by recognizing that you’re already weak.”

  Emily let her hair go, and it flapped crazily in the wind. She got up and hugged herself, warming her arms. “I’m worried about loneliness.”

  “Yep,” Tia said. “Loneliness is big.”

  “For a year I’ve been surrounded by girls all the time. Before that, there was always some guy. But when I get out, there’s nobody I can call. I can’t hang out with any of the people I knew before. My best friend Paige is still shooting up. I have to stay away from her.”

  “Got that right.”

  “It’s weeks before school starts in January. So I just sit around and wait? Watch TV? Play on the computer? Don’t go anywhere?”

  Tia slapped her legs and got up, put her arm around Emily. “You’ll figure it all out. But nobody said it’d be easy. It’s easier to go back to the dope house and get high. Shortterm easy. But then you wind up like me.”

  Emily felt the tremor in Tia’s hand, the weakness in her stance. She walked like a woman much older than she was, and she looked like someone’s grandmother. “I want to go to college,” Emily said. “I want to have a career, and meet a nice guy who doesn’t have all the baggage I have. I want to have a family.”

  “You can, girl. Wish I’d got a clue when I was your age. It’s all up to you.”

  Emily deflated and sat back down on the table, looking up at Tia. “What if I mess up?”

  “Then you catch yourself, you get back up, and you turn back right. You don’t use failure as an excuse to keep failing.”

  Fear tightened Emily’s lungs. “What if I’m no different than Jordan?”

  Tia bent down and put her face in front of Emily’s. “Emily, you’re ready. You can do this. You have all the tools. And you have God going with you this time. You cling to Him, He’ll help you through it. Your life don’t have to be a series of relapses. Some people get better on the first try.”

  “It’s not really my first.”

  “Then the third. Some people get better on the third or the fifth or the twelfth try. The rest of us … we have harder heads. We don’t learn until everything’s taken from us.”

  Tia knew what she was talking about. Her two children wouldn’t speak to her; her family had moved without leaving a forwarding address. She’d once supported her habit by selling herself, but even that wasn’t an option anymore. No one wanted someone who looked as old and damaged as she.

  But losing her options was the best thing that had ever happened to her, because it brought her to rehab, where she got the support she hadn’t had anywhere else. Two
years of sobriety after a lifetime of intoxication was a miracle. If Tia could do it, Emily could. No excuses.

  The door to her cottage opened, and light spilled out. “There she is!”

  She heard laughter as the girls came out, coming to coax her into a night of giggles and celebration.

  Tomorrow she would leave this era of her life behind. She hoped she was up to the challenge.

  Chapter 29

  As Barbara and Kent drove home from the hospital, Barbara’s spirits sank even lower. She’d been sure she would get Lance out today, but Jordan hadn’t come through. The thought of his spending one more night in jail made her nauseous.

  She stared out the window as Kent drove. “Emily’s getting out tomorrow. I was going to decorate the house to welcome her home. I was going to shop for her favorite meal. I had all kinds of plans.”

  “We can still do that. I can help you decorate for her. And then I’ll go to the grocery store. They have all-night stores here, don’t they?”

  She gave a grim laugh. “You’d do that?”

  “Of course. I’m here to help you.”

  The words gave her hope that she could do this, after all.

  Back at her house, she found the streamers and banners she’d bought last week at a party supply store. She’d bought one that said “Welcome Home,” planning to paint Emily’s name on it to make it more personal.

  There wasn’t time to do that now, and her heart wasn’t in it. Besides, she hoped to welcome Lance home too. She showed Kent where the ladder was, and he helped her hang the banner. “How does it look?” he asked. “Is it straight?”

  She stood back to look, but tears sprang to her eyes. “I don’t know … it’s all wrong.”

  “Really? It looked straight to me.”

  “No, I mean … my decorating for a celebration when Lance is in jail. What if the judge doesn’t let him out tomorrow?”

  Kent hammered the nail through the banner to secure it, then came down the ladder. “Barbara, stop beating yourself up. You’re the best mom I know. You’re trying to do what’s right for both kids, but you’re in a terrible spot. The kids know that. They’re not going to blame you for it.”