She went on. “So I was hooked. I graduated, and got a job waitressing at Lu’s Diner. Lots of marines from Pendleton came in all the time, because we had good food, and all of us waitresses were cute. And I was on pills, but I was a nice girl. I had dreams. I had flair. Anyway, that’s where I first met Charlie.”
“He knew you took pills?”
“Yeah, after a while. But he was so good to me. He told me I was smart and beautiful. I loved him. And then I got pregnant. So I quit the pills. It was like going to hell. I quit cold turkey. It made me so sick. It was like having a fire under my skin all the time, and I couldn’t even sleep. But I did it. Charlie was so proud of me. He loved me then. He thought I was a good person. I loved to draw. He said I was an artist. He and I loved to talk about things. We loved movies. We laughed so much. Charlie was such an optimist. He was convinced that I would just put all of the shit behind me and be a good partner. A great Mom.” She raised her thumb to her mouth and bit the ragged nail. “I had every intention of doing that, too. But what a pipe dream that was.”
I ordered two more Cokes. We needed the table for a lot longer; this story wasn’t going to be quick.
She sipped at the Coke. “So we had Roberta. She was such a good baby. We were happy for the time being. Then Charlie was deployed, and I was alone. I was stuck with this kid, I didn’t know how to be a housewife or anything, and I got bored. I started having a few beers after she went to bed. That only took a tiny bit of the edge off. But the walls started closing in.” She sniffed and looked down at her drink. “Do you know how much kids cry? How much they whine? They won’t sleep good. They never shut up. So I had to do something to make her behave. When I hit her, she got quiet.” Rowena pulled at her eyelid, extracting a couple of lashes. She stared at them between her fingers. “I hit my own child.”
I wanted to believe she was a monster. I wanted to revile her. But she was so small, thin, and sick. Her veins showed blue and pulsed at her wrists and temples. This woman was clearly shattered. “Go on.”
“Yeah. I felt like I was living in a cage. So I looked around for some pills. They weren’t hard to come by. So yeah. I got high.” She looked at me and bit at a piece of dry skin on her bottom lip. She couldn’t seem to sit still. She pulled her backpack into her lap and pulled out a dingy pack of cigarettes, then put it back in and shrugged. “Why don’t they let people smoke in public any more? Total shit.”
“Is that when you and Charles broke up?”
“Oh, you want me to bottom-line all this? Yeah—this is a long story.” She took another pull of her Coke. “No. Not then. He stuck by me. Well, really, he stuck by Roberta, because he loved her and wanted to protect her from me. Because I graduated from pills to heroin. But you know that.”
“I know that.”
“Okay, okay. Yeah, he stayed around as long as he could, but then I was just another sicko, drunk, kid-abusing junkie, and pretty soon, he couldn’t stand me. Right? Who could? I am a loser. No mystery there. So he took Roberta and I signed her away. Put my name on some document he got from a lawyer that said I had no rights to her, and didn’t want any. I didn’t even care at the time. I just wanted my next needle, you know?” She stopped and tried to swallow, looking out the window.
I shredded my napkin and waited.
“Rebecca, what is the best you have ever felt? Was it when you picked out your prom dress? Ate your first lobster? Found a new bike under the Christmas tree? Well, that is nothing. Nothing compared to the glorious way you feel when the H hits your veins. It’s better than an orgasm, better than the happiest happiness. It is like nothing else in the world. So giving up your kid? Nothing. Giving up your guy? Phfft. I gave up everything for smack.”
“But you’re clean. You said you’re clean.”
She shoved her glass across the table. “I always wanted to get clean. Even while I was shooting up, I wanted for this high to be my last high. I tried rehab. More than once. But I always went back. But then I got on Methadone. It worked for a while, but you have to go to a Methadone clinic every day to get your dose. My place was three bus rides away. Then it closed. So I relapsed. But then I scored some Suboxone from a friend who was selling it. It’s a new drug to help people get off heroin. It works. You can get it by prescription, but only from a few doctors. And they can only give it to a few patients a year.” She snorted. “Go figure. A drug that stops heroin addiction—but only a handful of addicts have access to it. So we have to stick with heroin or get Suboxone on the street, like I do. And pretty soon, they’ll start cutting it with smack or other crap. So I don’t know how long I can stay clean.”
“So you have substituted one drug for another one?”
She cocked her head and shot me a snotty look. “That’s right, Miss holier-than-thou. But this drug blocks the need for heroin. I am not getting high on it.”
“Rowena. Okay. But I don’t need your life history. I want to know why you are HERE.”
Rowena rolled her eyes at me. As if I were an idiot. “I am here because I am straight. I love my daughter. I want to see her and talk to her while I am straight. I want her to know I love her. Because I know that I won’t stay straight. Understand? I know that I will not be straight forever. That is not the way my story is going to end, and I want Roberta to remember me this way. Can you understand? I love Roberta. But I love drugs more than any other human. Addicts love drugs, period.”
She slammed her hands on the table. The conversation was obviously over, and I was both relieved and unsettled. “Well, you can’t just go over there with me right now. I have to prepare them. And you know Bob does not want to see you. She has made that very clear.”
“I know. But I can wait a bit. I’m staying at the YMCA. I have money. I can be here for a few days. Long enough for you to talk her and Ella into giving me this one chance. You can do that. They will listen to you. And all I want is a little time. Five minutes. That’s all I want.”
It was a very tall order. “I am not at all sure that I can.” But this woman sitting across from me was resolute. She radiated a desperate confidence.
Rowena pulled out a cell phone. “What’s your number? I’ll program it into my phone. And here’s mine. Please. Get back to me. Please.”
We exchanged information, and when we stood to leave the restaurant, Rowena threw her arms around me in a crushing hug. I stood like a statue. She dropped her arms. I watched her march away, her shoulders pulled up close to her ears, her head thrown back like a soldier’s.
▷◁
By the time I got back to Ella’s, the dear woman was in a state. Her hair, what there was of it, stuck up all over her head. She had gotten up with her walker and managed to make herself some tea, but it stood on the coffee table, the cup almost full. Ella’s walker was knocked over where she’d apparently kicked it as she got into her “easy” chair. She sat, her dress bunched up in her lap, her knee-high panty hose showing. She didn’t even look up from rubbing her forehead and twitching in her chair.
“Ella. No worries. I can pretty much guarantee that Rowena is not here to kidnap Bob. I sat with her for a long time, as you know, and she told me her story. She is pitiful.”
Ella looked incredulous. “What kind of bill of goods did she sell you? This girl is unstable!”
“I know she is. But Ella, the important thing is that she knows she is. She has no illusions about herself. She is currently taking some kind of drug that helps people stay off heroin, and while she is”—I used air quotes—“clean, she wants to see Bob.”
Ella wrung her hands. “Why?”
“She wants to see Bob to reconnect with her. She wants Bob to remember her as a sober person. She wants to tell Bob she loves her. I guess. She says she’ll settle for just five minutes with her.” Now that I was saying it, it did sound a little farfetched. A cross-country trip for a mere five minutes.
“Did you tell her she could?”
I shook my head. “No. I told her that all of this was up to Bob. And to you.”
Ella seemed more agitated than ever. Her head trembled on her neck, she twisted in her seat, bunching her skirt even farther up into her lap. “I feel sick. Just sick about this.”
“Shall I call Dr. Bankson?”
“No. No. I don’t need a doctor.” And with that, Ella fainted in her chair.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Bob and I sat beside Ella’s gurney in the ER. Luckily, Dr. Bankson was on call; a nurse told me she was on the way. They had hooked Ella up to an IV, and though she seemed fine, nobody wanted to take any chances. The nurse said her vitals were “in the satisfactory range,” but we had no idea what that meant. Bob, in the meantime, chafed her gran’s hand and apologized over and over.
“Oh, Gran, I am so sorry! I shouldn’t have run upstairs and left you all alone! It’s all my fault. No it’s HER fault!”
“Let’s take things one step at a time, okay, Bob? We need to wait for Dr. Lauren, and in the meantime, we need to keep calm. Let’s not think about all the other stuff right now.” I gave her a warning look.
“Oh, right, Gran. We need you to get better! Oh, Gran!” And Bob leaned her head down onto the gurney next to Ella’s. With their eyes closed, they looked like two angels right then. A bright one and a faded one.
Dr. Bankson bustled in, holding Ella’s chart. “It says here that you got very stressed. How are you doing now?” She moved to the other side of the bed, where she could stroke Ella’s wrist and look at the monitors. “You seem to be settling down. But I think we might want to put you on an anti-anxiety medication, just temporarily. It won’t conflict with your other meds.”
Ella’s eyes popped open. “It’s a terrible thing.”
Dr. Lauren pulled up a chair and sat by the bed. “What is?”
Bob stood and blurted, “My mom is here. She just showed up. We don’t like her. No. I hate her! She wants to see us. And it upset Gran!”
Lauren nodded to the nurse, who pumped something into Ella’s IV. Ella’s eyes immediately drooped. “Here is what we are going to do. We have just given your gran some medication to make her rest calmly. I am going to admit her into the hospital here for just one night, so that I can make sure she’s okay. So right now, the best thing we can do is let her get a nap, okay?”
Bob looked down at Ella, who by this time was snoring gently. “Okay. You promise she will be better tomorrow?”
Dr. Lauren beamed at Bob. “I promise. And, Bob, you look tired, too. I think you need to go home and rest also. Can you just stay here for a few minutes and look after your gran while we wait to transfer her to her room? I want to chat with Rebecca.”
Bob laid her head down again next to Ella’s and again shut her eyes. Lauren motioned me out into the hall.
“I would like to shoot Rowena right now! For all we know, Ella might have had a stroke and died! This is just too much!” I tried to keep my voice down, but a couple of nurses at the nurses’ station glanced our way.
“Beck, do you want me to prescribe a few Valium for you? I know that this has been a shock to all of you. You seem to be holding everybody together, but Valium might be helpful.”
I crossed my arms. “No. I’ll be okay. I just need to get Bob home. I can call my mother, and she can help out. Thank God, I can call my mother.” The irony of my need for my mother right then as Bob’s mother was wreaking havoc did not escape me.
“All right. You have my number if you change your mind. There is a bed for Ella available on the orthopedic ward for the night. Third floor. I suggest you two go home, take naps or at least rest, and come back this evening to see Ella. Visiting hours start at five and go until nine.
I was suddenly exhausted. “Right. We will do that. Thank you so much.”
By the time we got home, Janey had received my text. There were brownies and hot chocolate waiting for us.
We sat in Ella’s kitchen, nibbling. Neither one of us was hungry.
Janey put foil over the pan of brownies and put them in the cupboard. “Bobby, you can have one after supper.”
“I won’t want any supper. I feel sick to my stomach.”
I did, too. Janey took matters into her own hands. “Bobby, you go upstairs and stretch out for a little while. You looked tuckered out. And Beck, go home and do the same thing.”
Bob started to argue. “But visiting hours!”
Janey leaned over and kissed Bob on the cheek. “Honey, if you fall asleep, I promise to wake you up in plenty of time. You, too, kiddo.” Janey rubbed my arm and gave it a pinch. “Now git out of this kitchen, both of you.”
I walked into my apartment, lay down on the sofa, and fell asleep clutching my cell.
▷◁
Bob and I stopped on the way to the hospital and got her some butter pecan ice cream, her favorite. Bob also insisted on getting her a roll of cherry Lifesavers, “Gran’s favorite,” and a bunch of daisies, despite the fact that I reassured her that Ella would come home tomorrow.
“Doesn’t matter. She can take them with her. She needs something to cheer her up.”
The subject of Rowena did not come up until we sat beside Ella’s bed, watching her dab at the ice cream in the cardboard cup. Ella set the ice cream on her rolling bed table and gently pushed it away. “What are we going to do about this?”
I stood up and began fussing with the flowers, moving them from the bed table to the windowsill. Stalling.
“Beck, honey. Sit back down. We have to talk about this.”
Bob made her position very clear. “I don’t want to see her. You can’t make me.” She pulled her legs up in her chair and clutched them with both arms. Her sneakers were untied. Her face was flushed. She flashed a defiant look at me. “I don’t have to see her if I don’t want to.”
Ella looked at her great-granddaughter, wound up like a spring, threatening to uncoil at the both of us. “Bobby, I don’t want to see her either. But think about it. She is your mother. She is so weighed down by her own troubles. She traveled a long way to get here, because she must have something to say to you and me. I worry that if we don’t let her talk with us . . .” I thought Ella stopped herself just in time.
Bob’s eyes widened.
Just then, the nurse came in to take Ella’s vitals. It was a welcome interruption. She listened through her stethoscope and frowned. “Mrs. Bowers, your blood pressure is up.” She made a notation on her iPad and turned to us. “I am afraid you two will have to go now. Mrs. Bowers needs to rest.”
I was relieved, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there, get Bob home to Janey, and haul ass over to Mom’s. I watched as Bob unfolded herself, kissed Ella sullenly, and turned to go.
“Wait just a minute, Bobby! I want to tell you something!”
Bob swiveled back to her gran. “Closer, honey; it’s a secret.” Bob approached the bed and leaned over Ella, who whispered something in Bob’s ear. Bob seemed to relax a little, and she kissed Ella on the cheek. “Okay, Beck, we can go now.”
On the way home, Bob was silent. I turned on the radio and fiddled with the tuner.
“Can we just leave the radio off? I need to think about things.”
“Sure, kiddo.”
Janey was waiting for us. As soon as I pulled into the driveway, the front door opened, the light shining behind Janey’s comforting bulk. “Come on in, honey!” She roared. “I have some soup and toast waiting for you!”
Bob undid her seat belt and scooted out of the car. “Janey! I am starving!” With that, Bob disappeared into the house, and Janey waved to me as she shut the door behind them.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Mom held her door open with one hand, and handed me a glass of beer with the other. “You sounded like you needed this. Now sit down and tell me what on earth is going on!”
It took me about ten minutes to tell her the whole story. As I recounted everything from the “forgiveness letter” to the saga of Rowena’s heroin habit, Mom’s expressions went from sympathy, to anger, and back to sympathy.
“And I get it, Mom. Who am I to judge? This woman has had a hell of a life. But I don’t understand why she needed to drag herself across the country to inflict herself on Bob again. And endanger Ella, who is already so frail.” I finished the final inch of beer in my glass with one swallow.
Mom shrugged. “You sound just a little bit on the defensive to me. Are you jealous of Rowena?”
I spluttered. “What are you talking about? The woman is a junkie and God knows what else!” I banged my glass down on the table so hard, it’s a wonder it didn’t shatter. “She’s a disaster!” I was shaking. “What sort of woman does this? Imposes herself on her daughter out of the blue like this? A child who has been devastated by her irresponsible and immoral lifestyle. So she’s temporarily ‘clean,’ and that justifies fucking with Bob’s mind? Damaging her emotionally and physically?”
Mom puffed out her cheeks and let the air out gently. “For one thing, have you listened to yourself? We are talking about Bob’s mother. I think the term ‘junkie’ is quite harsh. And you seem to be implying that Rowena is more than that. A prostitute? A thief? You sound as if you are judging her. And might there also be a little bit of envy of this woman who, despite her unfortunate situation, is so incredibly important to Bob and Ella?”
I let that sink in for a minute. Before I could respond, Mom continued, “Let’s put this in gentler terms, okay? You have told me a story of a young woman who has had a tough life so far. She seems to have admitted just how gripped she really is by her addiction. But she is clean at the moment, having gotten herself on this drug that is controlling her craving for heroin. Am I correct so far?”
Crossing the Street Page 26