I can’t answer.
I can’t tell him that after all of those hours of therapy, I still feel at fault for my mother’s death. That I can’t understand the fact that I was a kid and I was just trying to protect my mother. My head knows it, but my heart… my heart isn’t listening. And my heart is what drives the addiction.
So I don’t answer him. I close my eyes instead.
After a long time, my father’s voice is quiet.
“There are a lot of people who love you, son. All of us stand behind you. You’re not alone.”
He leaves. I hear the door close, and I open my eyes.
I am alone.
I’m in a hospital room alone, and I chose this.
It’s a hell of my own making.
* * *
I spend a week in the hospital recuperating. They do the surgery on my knee, and I’m up and doing PT the very next day. I refuse any kind of pain medication, and the pain is excruciating.
I push through it.
It reminds me that I’m alive. It’s punishing. I deserve it.
After I’m released, I go straight to a rehab facility. My father arranged it, and Roger drives me.
“Thank you for saving my wife,” I tell him, because this is the first time I’ve seen him since everything happened. “We owe our lives to you. It’s a debt that I can never repay.”
Roger dismisses it. “Anyone would’ve done the same,” he tells me. “You’re a good man, sir. Just like your grandfather. It’s my honor to help.”
“Please drive my wife wherever she needs to go, ok?” I ask him as he pulls up to the facility. “Look out for her. Will you do that?”
“Of course, sir. Again, it’s my honor. I’ll watch out for her like you would yourself… right up until you come home.”
I don’t tell him that I’m not coming home.
“Thank you,” I say quietly instead. “You’re a good man.”
I limp into rehab, leaning on a cane.
I breathe in the pain, and breathe out the anger. I am a dragon, and my air is fire.
They show me to my room, and it’s nicer than I had wanted, a corner room with a view of gardens. I hadn’t wanted anything fancy. I wanted a cot and a toilet. Leave it my father to ensure my comfort.
I toss my bag into the closet and I flop onto the bed, face-down into the pillows.
I stay this way for a long time. I don’t even know how long.
“Are you ok?”
There is a muffled voice, and I wave my hand for them to go away. They don’t.
“Are you ok?” They are more insistent now.
I sit up.
It’s a woman.
“I thought this was a men’s only facility,” I tell her, rubbing my face. She’s middle-aged, soft-spoken. She’s dressed well, classy. Hounds-tooth slacks and a cream-colored turtleneck. Her hair is pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck.
“It is,” she answered. “So don’t tell on me.”
She comes in, and pours a glass of water from a pitcher, then hands it to me. “You need to drink this. It flushes out toxins.”
I snort. “It’s going to take more than that,” I say, but I take the glass and gulp the liquid down. I set the glass down, and then it occurs to me. “You’re my therapist?” I guess.
She sits in the chair next to the bed.
“What if I am? Will you talk to me?”
“Not today,” I answer. “I’m very tired.”
“You’ve been through a lot,” she agrees. “Why don’t you rest tonight, get something to eat, and I’ll be back in the morning.”
It’s a firm suggestion, said gently.
“Ok. We’ll see how I feel in the morning.”
She nods and slips out the door.
I pull Zuzu’s drawing out of my bag, and prop it on my nightstand.
Then I fall back asleep.
32
Chapter Thirty-One
My therapist is back in the morning, this time with two cups of coffee. She hands me one.
I sip at it, and I rub my face. She hadn’t even given me time to wake-up.
“This is an early session,” I point out. She smiles.
“I work best in the morning.”
“I don’t,” I reply honestly. She smiles.
“Tell me about you,” she suggests.
I pause. I don’t want to. But I know that until I get this over-with, it’s going to be like this every day.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“The beginning is always good.”
So that’s where I begin.
I tell her about everything. From my mother’s murder, to my childhood with my father, to my relationship with Mila, to my marriage, and through my captivity.
“That leaves us with today,” she points out. We’ve been talking for two hours already.
“Yeah.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because I don’t know what else to do. I have this… monster inside of me. And it will rear its head from now until eternity if I don’t figure something out.”
“If we can figure it out, will you go back to Mila?” she asks gently.
I stare straight ahead. “I’ll never risk her safety again.”
“You know, Pax. Bad things happen in the world. They aren’t all tied to you. Meaning… you don’t cause them. You don’t control them. You understand that, don’t you?”
“You’re kidding, right? The bad things that have happened to us have been directly tied to me, and decisions that I have made.”
“That’s how life is, though,” she says. Her voice is gentle and soothing, and I wonder how much training that entailed… to master just the right tone. “Sometimes, things happen that are out of our control. We must deal with those things, but we shouldn’t push our loved ones away.”
“You don’t understand,” I tell her.
“So help me,” she counters.
“Later. I can’t right now. I’ve had enough today.”
She stands up.
“You have a group therapy meeting in thirty minutes.”
I nod, and she’s gone. She takes the empty coffee cups with her, and leaves me with troubled thoughts.
I miss my wife.
I miss my daughter.
I miss my life.
I sigh, and lay my head down on the pillow.
I don’t mean to fall asleep, but I do, because my body is ragged and exhausted and needs to heal. While I sleep, I dream.
I dream of my wife. My dreams are rich and colorful and filled with her.
When I wake, I feel emptier than I ever have before.
* * *
Group therapy feels pretty useless today, because I don’t feel like I belong.
I sit back and observe, and listen to the other addicts share their issues, their triggers. None of it seems to apply to me. For years, I didn’t have the urge to use.
Talking about it though, with them, it makes me ache for the sting of the needle. It’s ironic. The very thing that is supposed to heal me, is making me want the poison all the more.
When it’s my turn, they wait for me to speak. I look around the circle, and they’re all waiting, and I have nothing to say.
“I’m Pax, and I’m an addict,” I say slowly. “I was held against my will, and forced to take drugs. The guy who arranged the whole thing wanted to take everything important in my life. My sobriety was just one of those things.”
I can tell that some don’t believe me. I get it. A lot of addicts make excuses and even make up stories to excuse their drug use. They don’t want to admit that they themselves are at fault, because then they themselves will have to fix it.
I understand.
That used to be me.
“Why do you want to get clean?” someone asks, and I know it’s an important question. You have to have a reason, in order to do it. That’s true of every goal in life. I shake my head.
“I’m tired of being chased by demons. I’
m tired of being a danger to everyone around me. I’m a ticking time bomb.”
They accept that, and move on to the next person. I sit like a piece of wood for the rest of the meeting. I feel out of place here, and I don’t know why. I guess it’s because I don’t want to identify as an addict.
But it’s what I am.
* * *
“That’s normal,” my therapist tells me the next morning. “Your addiction is a part of you that you don’t completely understand. Let’s work through it together, shall we?”
I nod, and she continues.
“Your childhood. You’ve told me that you felt like your father didn’t like you.”
“I used to. When I was growing up. Now I know that he was just really struggling with my mother’s death.”
“That’s the fact of it,” she agrees. “But when you were a boy, you didn’t know that. You felt rejected, did you not? You felt like you couldn’t trust your own father to want you. Correct?”
I think on that, and then I nod. “Yeah. I guess I did.”
“And your mother left you. She couldn’t help it, but she did. And you felt extreme guilt because you knew that it was your hand that killed her. You felt so much guilt about that that you suppressed all memories of it.”
I nod. “Yes.”
“So, you were a very troubled little boy, and no one knew it.”
“I’ve got baggage,” I agree. “We know that. That’s why I’m here.”
“You expressed that baggage in your early twenties by using drugs and being sexually promiscuous. You went through women like water, using them and tossing them aside.”
That makes me cringe. It feels like someone else, not me, who did that. But it’s true. I did it. I nod.
“Where are you going with this?”
“You felt like you didn’t deserve something real,” she finally points out. “It was never about those women. It was about you, and how you felt about yourself.”
I think about that. “I always gravitated to the drug users,” I tell her. “I guess because they didn’t expect much from me. They wanted to use. I was able to give them that.”
“And in return, they slept with you,” she says, and it sounds so ugly out loud. “They gave you the façade of intimacy, the barest amount. Just enough to keep you functioning, pretending that your life was just how you wanted it.”
“It was how I wanted it at the time,” I argue.
“You only thought that, I think,” she says thoughtfully, chewing at her lip. “You couldn’t bear rejection of someone real. Like you felt your father had rejected you.”
I’m stunned by that.
All along, I felt that my issues were caused by my mother dying, which didn’t make a lot of sense because she couldn’t help that. She didn’t choose death.
But my father… he chose to draw away from me. He paid for my school, he paid for everything I needed, he bailed me out of trouble time and again. But he was never able to give me what I needed the most.
He was never able to be vulnerable and show that he loved me.
“He does now,” I tell her, almost defensively. “He’s a good father.”
“Yes,” she agrees. “I can tell. But when he was younger, and he was in mourning, he couldn’t manage himself, let alone his relationship with you. And you were so small. It was a formative time for you. And now you have a deep-seeded fear of rejection.”
That’s why I always chose bar whores for years. They wouldn’t reject me.
The revelation is huge.
“That’s enough for today,” she decides, standing up and stretching. “We’ll meet again in the morning.”
I nod. “Okay. Thank you.”
When she’s gone, I curl up in my bed, and I stare at the wall.
I miss my wife. I miss my daughter.
I reach for the phone in a moment of weakness. The receiver is in my hand before I gain control of myself and put it back down.
No.
I’m strong enough to do this alone.
I won’t drag them into my shit.
I fall sleep, and the oblivion of sleep swirls around me like a drug.
33
Chapter Thirty-Two
When I wake, a stamped letter is sitting on my nightstand.
The mail cart must’ve gone by.
I recognize Mila’s handwriting on the envelope, feminine and swirly.
I swallow hard, and open it.
There is no note. Only a ring drops out. Her mother’s ring.
LOVE NEVER FAILS. Those words are inscribed on the inside, and my heart pounds. God, I miss my wife.
“What’s that?” the therapist breezes through the door, her eye on my hand. I hold up the ring.
“Mila’s parents had a rough marriage, tumultuous. But her mother believed that Love never fails, and had her ring inscribed. Mila wears it. She sent it to me. As a message.”
“That her love for you hasn’t failed,” the therapist says slowly.
I nod. “Yeah.” My throat feels tight.
“Your wife is pregnant, isn’t she?” she asks gently. I nod again.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t seem like the kind of man to walk out on his family,” she says. Just hearing it put like that sends a shiver up my spine and angers me.
“I’m not running out on my family” I say through my teeth. “I’m protecting them. I’m not balanced right now. I might not ever be. At any moment, I could slip and use again. If I’m not strong enough to stay sober.”
“How long were you sober this last time?” she asks curiously.
“Over five years.”
“And why did you start using again?” She knows why. But I humor her.
“I took pills for my knee. It needed surgery. And then, well, Leroy Ellison arranged to make me use drugs. He wanted revenge.”
It sounds so ridiculous out loud. Like something from a movie.
She stares at me. “You just said, he made you.”
“He did.”
“So you wouldn’t have chosen it,” she points out.
“But I chose to take the muscle relaxers for my knee,” I tell her and I’m angry now. I want her to stop trying to make me seem better than I am.
“But those were laced with methamphetamines,” she reminds me.
“Yes, but…”
“No buts,” she says gently, yet firmly. “They were laced with the most addictive substance known to man.”
“Yes,” I admit. “But…”
“No buts,” she says, getting up. “We’ll resume this session after dinner.”
She leaves, and I’m not hungry. I slip Mila’s ring on my pinkie.
It makes me feel close to her. Like I’m close, but still far enough away not to hurt her. It rips my heart out. I close my eyes and rest until the therapist comes back.
* * *
The therapist is relentless.
“Do you see the parallels?” she asks me after an hour. “Between the way you are behaving right now, and how your father behaved when you were small?”
I’m silent.
She smiles. “You see it. He checked out. He felt that distance between the two of you would protect you from his grief. He felt that he would hurt you with words that he couldn’t seem to control. That he might accidentally blame you for killing your mother. He knew it wasn’t your fault, but his heart was still healing. So he put distance between you.
And here you are. You know in your head that your addiction right now isn’t something you chose. But your heart is telling you to protect your family from harm.”
“The harm is me,” I tell her. “I’m the danger.”
“Life is dangerous,” she points out. “There is a risk in everything. But you are a good man. You are strong and loyal and true. That’s all we can ask of you, Pax. That’s all anyone can ask.”
“You don’t understand,” I tell her helplessly.
“But I do,” she argues. “More than you know.”
For some reason that lump is back in my throat, the one that I can’t swallow.
“You feel that you aren’t valuable enough to take a risk for,” she says ever so gently. “That Mila is better off without you, even though she loves you more than her own life. She has told you that numerous times, you said. And your daughter, and your unborn child, they need their father. Just like you needed yours.”
“But I could hurt them,” I tell her hotly.
She nods. “Yes, you could. And you will hurt them if you don’t go back home. That will do more damage than anything else you could do.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes as I soak that in, as I consider it.
Could she possibly be right?
Could my absence truly be worse than anything else?
It’s hard for me to comprehend.
“I took the liberty of getting something for you,” she finally says, and she pulls out an envelope. “I called the detective in charge of the investigation, and he sent this to me. It arrived yesterday.”
She hands the last journal page, the one I’d told her about. The one with the bottom torn off.
It’s hard to look at it, because when I do, I remember sitting on the floor with a gun pressed to my chin, ready to take my own life.
“Read it aloud to me,” she says. “I know it’s hard, because saying the words gives them power. But please. Read them aloud.”
I stare at the words, and reluctantly give them my voice.
I’ve thought a lot over the years about why Susanna had acted like she did that night.
She rejected me, and refused to go with me, and I have to admit, that was a surprise. It took the wind out of my sails.
I know now, though, why she did it.
She must’ve felt that I would kill her son.
She didn’t trust me when I said I wouldn’t.
If it had only been her and I, I know she would have gone with me in a split second. I would’ve saved her from that life. But her son came in, and she had to put on a show for him. She had to act like she didn’t love me like I loved her. I know it was a show. I saw how she’d looked at me every time I delivered their mail, day in and day out. She watched me, and she was lustful and she wanted me. I know it now, and I knew it then.
My Peace (Beautifully Broken #5) Page 15