Crystal Lies

by Melody Carlson

  “I guess so.”

  “But didn’t you just tell the group that you were served divorce papers last week?”

  “I know…”

  “But it’s still uncomfortable.” I nodded.

  “Well, don’t worry, Glennis. I’m not out to get you.” He tossed me a mischievous grin. “I’m only offering my friendship.”

  “Thanks.” I felt some of the tension draining away. “So, how’s it going?”

  “How’s it going?” I echoed, almost wanting to throw my head back and laugh hysterically. “Well, my life is a lot like a roller-coaster ride, Marcus. Up and down, and just when I begin to relax a little, it turns on me and goes sideways. I get so tired of it.”

  He nodded. “Unfortunately, that’s life with an addict.”

  “The divorce doesn’t help either.”

  “No, I’m sure it doesn’t.” He stirred his coffee. “But that’s what makes it so important for you to get control of your life.”

  “Control?” I rolled my eyes. “That sounds more and more like the impossible dream to me. I honestly don’t believe I’ll ever have control of anything again.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Glennis. You can get control, but you can only get it over your life and your decisions. You have to know by now that you can’t control anyone else.” Then he laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to start lecturing you. Sometimes I forget to turn it off.”

  “That’s okay. I probably need some extra lectures.” I set my cup down. “I do keep telling myself that—I mean that I can’t control anyone else’s life. Not Jacob’s or Sarah’s or Geoffrey’s. I’ve even got the AA prayer taped to my refrigerator. My neighbor Jack gave it to me. He’s the old guy who’s been trying to get Jacob to go to AA with him. I’ve read it so many times that I’m sure I must have it memorized by now.” Then I recited it, albeit somewhat sloppily. “Give me the grace to accept what I can’t change…the strength to change what I can…and the wisdom to know the difference.” I smiled like a schoolgirl. “How’s that?”

  “Very good. I wish I had a gold star to give you.”

  “But saying it and living it are two different things.”

  “It takes time, Glennis. Just like with an addict in recovery, it’s a daily thing that takes a lifetime to live out.” He took a sip of coffee. “So, tell me, what are your daily routines? What are you doing to keep yourself healthy and on track these days?”

  “Well, I’ve really been trying to get back to some kind of schedule since Sherry’s son died.” I’d already told the codependent group about Matthew’s death. I knew they would understand. “I think his death was sort of a wake-up call for me. Or maybe I was just being codependent again, you know, doing it for Sherry.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s not so bad when you’re the one who benefits from it.”

  “That’s sort of what I’ve been telling myself. Anyway, I’m back to jogging every morning, but I’m not quite as obsessed as I used to be. I try to keep it around thirty to forty minutes. Then I take a shower and clean my apartment, which takes about five minutes. Of course, I do regular things like the laundry and buying groceries.” I paused, trying to think of something else, something not quite so mundane.

  “And that’s enough to fill your day?”

  I shrugged, then looked down at my coffee, studying the reflection of the overhead lights on its dark liquid surface.

  “What do you do with the rest of your time, Glennis?”

  I sighed and looked up. “Not much. To be perfectly honest, I probably spend a lot of time just looking out the window, hoping that Jacob is going to show up and tell me he’s ready for recovery. Or if he does pop in or call me with some little emergency, like last week when he needed a tetanus shot for stepping on a nail, well, I stop whatever I’m doing and let my little routines just tumble to the side while I try to fix things for him, hoping he’ll realize how much I love him and want him to get help.”

  Marcus laughed. “You are such a natural codependent, Glennis. You could be our poster girl.”

  I frowned.

  “Sorry. And, just for the record, a lot of people with codependent traits are very loving and caring people. They don’t mean to enable or cripple their loved ones. It’s just that they think their love is going to fix everything.”

  “How can you stand to spend time with me, Marcus?” I told him. “I mean you work with addicts and codependents all day long. Why would you even offer to have coffee with me during your free time?”

  “Maybe it’s because I’m a bit codependent myself.”

  “You?” I found this hard to believe.

  He chuckled. “The truth is, it’s almost impossible to be in my line of work without being a little that way”

  “So you want to fix everyone too?”

  “Well, I know without a doubt that I can’t fix anyone. But I don’t mind using what I know to help people find their own answers—as long as they’re willing to take the steps themselves.”

  “Right.” I tried not to think about Jacob now Tried not to imagine some way I could trick him into entering rehab, some way I could help him put his life back together again with someone like Marcus holding his hand. I knew I should know better.

  “You mentioned that you have a teaching certificate,” he continued. “Do you think you’ll take that up again?”

  “I’m not sure.” I frowned. “I doubt I’d be any good at it now.”

  “It’s not surprising for you to feel that way. After everything you’ve gone through in the past year or so, well, it just stands to reason that you’d feel less capable than before.”

  “Less capable?” I forced a laugh. “I feel like a complete and utter failure, Marcus. I feel like everything and everyone I touch falls apart. And if it doesn’t fall apart, then it’s probably my turn to fall apart. Honestly, I can’t even imagine myself standing in front of a classroom and teaching again.”

  “Did you enjoy it before?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It seems so long ago since I got my degree in education. At the time it felt like the right thing to do, and I really do like children. But now I wonder why I didn’t pursue something, well, something more creative.” I couldn’t believe I’d just admitted that.

  “Creative?”

  I shrugged. “I know it probably sounds silly. Like I don’t even know who I am or what I’m capable of doing. But I suppose that’s how I feel right now”

  “That’s not silly. Under the circumstances, it’s totally understandable.”

  “So I’m really not sure what I’ll do.”

  “What kind of creativity interests you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Then I paused to consider his question. “I used to love gardening and arranging flowers. It seemed like the only creative outlet I had, back in my old life. But besides that, I’ve always been interested in interior decorating, and my friend Sherry thinks I’m good at it. I also like antiques.” I shrugged. “I guess I don’t really know what I’d like to be when I grow up.”

  “But it sounds like you’re heading in a direction, Glennis. You should give yourself some time to really consider what you love doing and what you’re really good at. Think about what kind of options there might be in that field, and then allow yourself to dream a little.”

  “Dream?” I felt skeptical now. Couldn’t he see that my life was too messed up to dream?

  “Yes, the older I get, the more I believe we all need to dream more.”

  “I don’t think I even know how,” I admitted. “The only dream I have is to see Jacob get clean, and even that gets wearisome.”

  “Of course you want him to get clean. But that’s not the dream for your life, Glennis,” he continued. “I believe that God plants dreams in everyone.”

  “Well, if that’s true, then mine is probably dead.”

  “Maybe it’s not dead as much as it is buried by the circumstances of your life. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen God use trials and challen
ges to dig into our hearts and shake us up until the dreams finally rise to the surface.”

  “Are you suggesting that God ordained Jacob’s drug problem and my divorce just so he could shake up my dreams?”

  “No. Not at all. You have to know by now that the people we love make their own choices, both good and bad. We can’t control their choices, but their choices can affect our lives. Right?”

  I nodded.

  “But we still get to choose for ourselves, Glennis. And if we choose to trust God, things can turn completely around for us. God can turn bad into good.”

  “I’d really like to believe that.” I looked down at my now empty cup. “But it’s so hard.”

  “Glennis.” His voice softened. “I…uh…I don’t usually tell people my own story, but I think I’d like to tell you.”

  “You have a story?” Suddenly I wondered if he had been an addict himself. I remembered my first impression of him, with his long ponytail and tie-dyed shirts, and how I’d assumed he was an old hippie. Maybe I’d been right.

  “Everyone has a story,” he continued. “Mine is about Hope’s Wings and how I became a rehab counselor.” He looked intently into my eyes. “I’ll tell you if you’re interested.”

  “Of course I’m interested.” I leaned forward to listen.

  “Well, in some ways my story’s not unlike yours. I was married too, I thought happily, although I realize now that I wasn’t being a very good or attentive husband back then. I worked long hours and put all my best energy into my growing psychiatric practice. My wife and I had only one child, a daughter. She would’ve been twenty-nine now.”

  I swallowed hard when he said “would’ve.”

  “You’re probably guessing right. Yes, she got involved in drugs. And just as the shoemaker’s children go without shoes, I, the trained psychiatrist, was oblivious to my child’s cries for help. Looking back, I can see that all the signs were there. But at the time I was either in denial, or I simply failed to notice. Or maybe both. I’ve heard you talk about your husband’s attitude toward Jacob’s problem, and in some ways I have to admit that I wasn’t much different. I think I actually believed that Hope was simply going through a rebellious stage and she’d soon outgrow it and move on. I knew she was a very bright girl, and I guess I really believed she’d figure out that drugs weren’t the answer and get on with her life.” He set his spoon in the empty cup.

  “But she didn’t?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t even know that she was hooked on crystal meth. To be honest, I really didn’t know much about that specific drug or its addictive properties, which aren’t much different than cocaine’s. I’d been out of med school for nearly fifteen years by then, and I rarely treated patients with chemical dependencies. Plus, this was about twelve years ago, and I was convinced that the drug generation was over and done with. Karen, my wife, felt differently, and she kept nagging me to do something about Hope. As if she thought I could fix things.”

  “I used to do the same thing with Geoffrey.”

  He nodded. “Finally, when it became clear that Hope had a very serious problem, I jumped in. She was only seventeen and still in high school, and I thought the answer was for me to play police dad. I started enforcing tight curfews and demanded to know where she was and whom she was with. I even followed her sometimes. In many ways I turned into the classic codependent. Not unlike you. And my daughter, not unlike Jacob, could play me like a fiddle. But what I didn’t fully realize was that the drug had gotten a real hold on her, and, naturally, she became very adept at hiding this from me. I even thought that she’d kicked the habit and gotten clean at the end of her junior year. And maybe she had. I guess we’ll never know for sure…but late in August, just before her senior year, she died of an overdose.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I could see his eyes glistening, and I knew that I was close to tears myself.

  He cleared his throat and scratched his head as if he was trying to remember something. “I know I was going somewhere with this whole thing…”

  I searched my memory, retracing our conversation. “Oh yes,” I finally said. “You’d been telling me how God uses hard things to give us dreams.”

  “Right.” He sighed. “I guess this is why I don’t usually share this story at the rehab center. It sort of messes with my mind.”

  “I appreciate your sharing it with me.”

  “Well, the point I was trying to make was that Hope’s death really rocked my world. I honestly didn’t think I would ever get over it. Not only did my practice fall completely apart, but Karen left me shortly after Hope’s death. She met a guy within the same year, and they got married and even had another child. He’s about ten now.”

  “That must’ve been so painful.”

  “I honestly didn’t think I’d survive it. But it did break something in me. I suppose it was my pride.” He ran his finger around the handle of his coffee cup. “And at my lowest point, right when I was about to give up, I somehow had the sense to cry out to God.”

  I nodded.

  “And slowly, very slowly, I began to recover. But during that time I realized that more than anything I wanted to start a rehab clinic. There had been nothing available—not locally anyway—when Hope really needed help. Not that she would’ve gone in necessarily. But even so, I felt driven to create a place where people with addiction problems could go for help. That’s when I started Hope’s Wings.”

  “Hope’s Wings…” I used my napkin to stop a stray tear. “For your daughter.”

  “It seemed right.”

  “I had no idea you were the founder.”

  “That was my dream that sort of came out of the ashes.”

  “Wow. That’s an amazing story, Marcus. Why you don’t share it more often?”

  “I don’t really like telling it for several reasons.” He folded his paper napkin into a neat triangle. “For one thing I can never be sure that I won’t completely lose it during the telling. Also I don’t really like people knowing that I’m the founder of Hope’s Wings.” He sort of laughed. “Who knows, they might complain about how shoddy the place is, and I don’t know if I could take that.” Then he grew more serious. “But mostly I don’t like talking about Hope because I know it might make parents fear the worst—that their own child might die of an overdose too.” He studied me closely. I could tell he was worried that this might be the case with me, too.

  “Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I already fear the worst.”

  “I know.”

  “But you told me anyway. Why?”

  His brow furrowed. “I guess I hoped it would encourage you to dream again, to remind you that good can rise out of something hopeless.” He paused, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Or maybe there was more to it than that…”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe I wanted to make a deeper connection with you.” I considered this. And while I couldn’t help but feel flattered, I also felt a bit uneasy.

  “I value your friendship, Glennis.”

  “Thanks, Marcus. I value yours, too.”

  He looked at his watch. “Well, I have an early meeting in the morning. I guess I should call it a night.”

  After Marcus walked me back to my car and said good night, I felt as though something had occurred that night. Something unexpected and somewhat confusing, but a gift nonetheless. I got into my car and turned on the ignition, then wondered what was going on. More than that, I wondered if I was ready for anything to be happening at all.

  Shortly after Sherry returned from the mountains, I invited her to have lunch at my apartment. “But this time I don’t want you to bring anything,” I’d told her the night before.

  It was the Monday before Thanksgiving, and I hadn’t seen Jacob in days. I’d been trying to function in a normal fashion, bearing in mind what Marcus had said as well as Sherry’s encouragement before Matthew’s death. I wanted to at least look like I had my act together. I suppose in some ways I was as muc
h a liar as my son.

  “Your place looks great,” Sherry said, forcing a sad little smile to her face. “Much better than last time.”

  I hugged her. “And you look better than the last time I saw you too,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Feeling?” She set her expensive designer purse on the counter and sighed. “I’m not sure if I have any feelings left, Glennis. Most days I feel like I’ve been completely drained, wrung out, and hung up to dry.”

  “I think I know what you mean.” I handed her a hot cup of cinnamon spice tea. “Well, I may not know exactly what you mean, but I understand.”

  She looked into my eyes and nodded. “Yes, I think you do.”

  “And we don’t need to talk about it,” I assured her as I put the finishing touches on the salad, a Cobb, Sherry’s favorite.

  She sat down on a stool across from me and watched as I chopped the turkey into small pieces. “It’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it so much. It’s probably good therapy”

  “I’m sure Dr. Abrams would agree. She’s always encouraging me to process my pain. She says that I repress too much.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  “But I’m not as bad as I used to be. When I think of how much I repressed when I was with Geoffrey, it’s a wonder I didn’t blow up or have a complete breakdown.” I smiled. “Although I suppose I have experienced some partial breakdowns over the years.”

  “How do you measure a breakdown?”

  “I’m not sure. Too bad there’s not some sort of seismic meter for it. Like a nervous-breakdown Richter scale. That way people would know when to watch out or back off.”

  She smiled, a little bigger this time. “So, tell me, just how does Dr. Abrams suggest you process your pain?”

  “Mostly by not burying it. She keeps encouraging me to start writing about it in a journal.”

  “And are you?”

  “Not so much. For some reason I can’t make myself write this kind of stuff down. It feels too painful to see it in bold black and white. As if that makes it more real somehow. Isn’t that weird?”

  “No. I totally understand. I don’t think I could write anything about Matthew just yet. I mean it’s hard enough even to speak about it.” She turned and looked away, and I wondered if that was a hint to change the conversation.