Carry Me Home

by Jessica Therrien

  The Chinese woman calls 911 and blocks me from leaving, standing in the doorway like a club bouncer. My first instinct is to bowl her over and run, but something about cutting drugs from my throat has been eye-opening. Eventually I’ll have to atone for my sins. Maybe this it that moment. Besides, no matter how fucked-up he is, I can’t walk out on Shawn, leaving him to die. It makes me think of Littles. Running from her didn’t mean escaping what happened, it meant carrying it around with me forever.

  We wait in that dread-filled room together for the ambulance to arrive. The come down takes its hold, and I feel like a block of cement against the wall. I swallow down the salty tang of blood at the sound of the EMTs’ footsteps. I’m scared to death I’m going to jail. That Shawn’s fucking dead.

  I stand as they check his vitals and try to wake him, but nothing works. Finally they lift his limp body onto a gurney. I know the police will be here any minute.

  Right on cue I see the cop car pull into the lot.

  “Shit,” I whisper. It’s Mendoza. Of course it is, that motherfucker.

  I slump against the wall and wait for him to show as I second-guess myself. It was a mistake to stay here, but I don’t have the energy to run. Maybe I can work a sympathy angle on him.

  Then just like that, God gives me a pass.

  Shawn jumps to his feet, breathing hard and staring at the two EMTs like they’re aliens.

  “See he’s fine,” I say, standing in a rush, pushing past the heaviness. “He just drank too much. Can we go?”

  But it’s too late. Mendoza is at the door, and I know I’m not getting out of this. He gives me a look like a disappointed father and it pisses me off.

  “Oh just fucking arrest me already. Get it over with.”

  He escorts me to the cruiser and leaves Shawn with the medics. We don’t talk as he drives. I’m surprised he isn’t giving me his “you’re a good girl” speech.

  I start to recognize the streets we’re on, and catch his eyes in the rearview as we pull up to Mom’s pink apartment. He stops, comes around to open the back door and removes my handcuffs.

  “One chance,” he says. “That’s all I’m giving you. Make it right with your mom and get clean or I’m pushing you through the system.”

  I rub my wrists as he folds the cuffs and follow him up the steps. He unlocks our front door. Apparently he’s gotten closer to Mom than I thought. That kind of pisses me off too, but what he’s doing right now is pretty cool, so I lay off of him.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  Before I walk through the door I realize this is about the fourth miracle that’s saved me. I look up at the blue sky, wondering if God really heard me. Either way, I made a promise.

  * * *

  It takes me all night, and even the next day, to recover from my high. I stay in bed, ignoring the distant image of my mother who keeps coming in to check on me. Every time I want to smoke a little bit, just to take this horrible edge off, I think of those strings down my throat and my promise. Finally when I get the strength to move, I manage my way to the shower.

  I stand under the running water, a weak, skeletal being. Hardly human. I can’t move. My body is fading, failing. I’m dehydrated, despite the water pooling around my feet. I give up on standing and sit on the floor of the slick tub. The pain is a cloak draped heavily over my shoulders. It’s everywhere. I feel the dirt in my pores, fighting its way out. My senses are sharpened to a point of excruciating discomfort. The light is too bright, the sound of everything hurts my ears. I can hear the grind of my teeth whenever they touch.

  I sit in the bath, with the shower beating the top of my head, and my legs stretched out in front of me, scrubbing and scraping my arms and legs. It feels like my skin is dying. I stay until my pruned feet and hands begin to peel.

  Eventually I work up the energy to shave my legs, though I still don’t stand. The stubble is minimal, but I’m more eager to shave another layer of dead skin off my body. Another layer of the poison that’s working its way through my pores.

  When the shower turns tepid I start to cry. I lose control. Tears blur my vision and drip from my chin. I’m drowning in something so much worse than water.

  I don’t even remember cutting myself, but the blade must have slipped against my leg. The cut is deep, and the bath fills with blood. I panic, and drag myself over the edge onto the floor. My strength is gone. I’ve wasted into nothing. I’m literally starving to death.

  I can’t even manage to pull a towel from the cupboard. Instead I roll myself into a ball, watching the blood flow from my skin in beautiful patterns. It trickles onto the floor, but I’m in a trance. My thought process is gone. I don’t care.

  I close my eyes and let myself bleed.

  CHAPTER 39

  Ruth

  MAYBE IF I HAD stayed, I think to myself. Maybe she would have been home more. I would have noticed she was on drugs. Maybe I could have talked her out of it.

  As I sit by her bedside in our apartment, I can’t stop blaming myself. She says she’s feeling better, but I’m not leaving just to have her sneak out the window and disappear. I’ll sit here day and night until she’s over this.

  After Mom’s pleading phone call, I dropped everything to get here. I could hear it in her voice. Things were different. Desperate.

  Lucy was awake when I barreled through the door, but she was ghostly thin, the sockets of her eyes shadowed with the hint of death. She sat at the kitchen table, wrapped in towels and nibbling the corners of a piece of bread as Mom brushed her wet hair.

  She told me the story of lying on the bathtub floor, praying she’d live through her last fix. Her rock-bottom moment.

  I can only picture it. I wasn’t there.

  The roots of her hair wet with sweat, eyes rimmed with red, damp air clinging to the shower walls as she lay in a mildewed puddle of bad choices.

  I’m just glad she’s alive. I’m eager to talk to her, to convince her it’s time to get her life together, but I’m also worried it won’t come out right or she won’t listen. She’s been sleeping a lot, so I’ve had time to think about it.

  When she stirs I reach out to let her know I’m here.

  “Hey,” I whisper.

  “Hey.”

  I’m still not used to the way her face has elongated with weight loss.

  “Can you eat?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What should I get?”

  “Toast.”

  Mom peeks in, like she has every ten minutes for the last hour.

  “I’ll get it,” she says.

  I nod and Lucy sits up.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  “Almost normal.” Her voice croaks, and she reaches for her water, wincing as she sips.

  “Normal enough for me to ream you for being an idiot?” I raise my eyebrows at her, hinting at a smile. I’m only half-teasing.

  She attempts a laugh. “Yeah. All right. Let’s hear it.”

  I sigh. I want to yell at her, scream that she could have killed herself, but she already looks so defeated.

  “You could have died. I don’t know what I would do if that happened.”

  “Be relieved.” She laughs.

  “No,” I say, hurt she thinks that. “You do drive me crazy. I really want to hate you. I mean, believe me, I’ve tried. But I can’t.”

  “Thanks. I guess.”

  I shove her shoulder. “Oh shut up. You know what I mean. I love you.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I love you, too.”

  I move from the kitchen chair I’ve been using into bed with her, and we both lean against the back wall.

  “I just wish you’d get your shit together already.”

  She pulls her knees up, making a little tent with the covers. “I will. I want to. This time I really want to.”

  “So, I’ll help you.”

  “How? You’re leaving.”

  “I have three weeks. I could stay with you until then.”

  “Okay.” S
he nods, accepting my offer, but doesn’t smile.

  “What? You don’t think it’ll work? Three weeks is enough to detox and get straight, right? I’ll stay with you every night.”

  “And then what? I can’t stay here. I can’t live with Mom and Mendoza. He has a key to the apartment you know? Eventually it’ll get to me. I’ll leave, and it’s only a matter of time before I’m back in it.”

  I know she’s right. In the silence, I shuffle through alternative options. I can’t trust anyone else to see her through this. I abandoned her once, and look what happened.

  Only one idea stands out as feasible. It splits my heart in half to think about it. I haven’t worked up the courage to cancel my Long Beach plans. Everything is still set up for me to attend Cal State, just in case. I could stay.

  “We’ll figure it out.”

  I sleep next to her for that first week, or at least try to sleep, but my choice has me up, counting pros and cons, shunning the quiet plea of my heart.

  There are a thousand reasons I should hate my sister, and only one reason I don’t. We bleed the same blood. That single genetic factor ties me to her in ways science can never explain. It doesn’t mean I love her. In fact, I’m sure I don’t. It’s something deeper than love, some nagging thing I can never be rid of. Whatever it is, this link that keeps me chained to her, it comes from being tied together at the soul. No matter how many times I try to pull free, it holds us together—always.

  I must have fallen asleep because I wake up to a mound of disheveled sheets next to me. It takes me a few blinks to clear my eyes before I sit up in a panic, realizing she might be gone, not just in the bathroom. At first my heavy sigh is the only sound in the quiet space, but soon I hear her breathing.

  She’s writhing on the floor next to the bed, curled up in a ball.

  “Hey,” I whisper through her incoherent murmurs. She was getting better. This doesn’t make sense. “What’s going on? Are you on something?”

  I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, and abandon the covers.

  Her mumbling turns into moans of agony as she clutches her stomach and rolls back and forth under our grandmother’s old quilts.

  When she doesn’t acknowledge me, my brow sinks in the same way Mom’s does.

  I growl out a frustrated sigh. “Will you tell me what’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know...” she whimpers.

  When I realize she’s not on drugs, the bitterness in my heart melts into worry. I kneel down in front of her, forgetting all her wrongs, forgiving all her faults.

  “Where does it hurt? Is it from the drugs?”

  She sobs, but doesn’t answer.

  I glance at the red digital image of the bedside clock. It’s late, but Mom’s still at work. Saturdays she doesn’t come home until around 2am.

  “I’m calling Mom,” I say, hoping she’ll answer.

  With each ring I beg her to pick up, but she doesn’t, which leaves me to figure out what to do.

  Lucy’s moans continue, rushing my indecision.

  “Um. Okay. I’m taking you to the E.R.” I tell her.

  She stays curled, but nods her head.

  I’m in a t-shirt and underwear, so I throw on my wrinkled sweat pants and grab my purse.

  “Can you stand?” I ask, helping her up. She’s doubled over as I half carry her to the used Nissan my grandparents got me for my 18th birthday.

  In the car, her chattering teeth keep me tense. I don’t turn on the music, so we both sit in the cold quiet, silently urging the lights to change green.

  When we get to the hospital they make us wait in the bright white waiting room. It’s full of broken souls and slovenly dressed monsters sleeping on rows of chairs. I hold Lucy close as we walk, protecting her from the room of zombies and germs. I wish I didn’t have to touch anything.

  She sits next to me and leans into my shoulder. Her trembles make me glare at the woman forcing us to wait. The receptionist is chewing gum and picking her nails while my sister sweats out some kind of poison. Lucy could be dying and this woman is more interested in her fucking nail polish.

  “Lucy Wilcox.”

  The relief I feel at the sound of her name loosens the knot in my stomach, but it cinches up again as they leave us to wait in a different, smaller room for an imaginary doctor. After an hour, I’m sure he doesn’t exist, and if he does, I already hate him.

  Lucy has withdrawn inside herself, keeping whatever pain she’s in locked behind her tightly closed eyes.

  A nurse with teddy bear scrubs and a thin brown ponytail comes to check on us.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks without looking at her. She hones in on the computer screen designated to our temporary cubicle.

  Lucy doesn’t open her eyes. “Still feels like I’m going to throw up from the pain.”

  “I’ve got something for that.”

  She sticks a needle into the clear plastic IV tube and it flushes into Lucy’s veins. The nurse slides the curtain closed, and I watch her white sneakers rush away below the hem of it.

  In the time it takes me to text Mom our room number Lucy jumps up into a sitting position, like she’s been startled out of a dream.

  “What?” I ask.

  Her eyes are wide and fearful. They dart back and forth as she looks around the room, like she’s a scared child searching shadowed corners for ghosts.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I have to get out of here.” She keeps biting her lip. Her chest heaves in anxious breaths.

  “What’s going on?” She pulls the tape off of her IV.

  “What are you doing?” I’m too shocked by her sudden coherent insistence that at first I don’t try and stop her.

  When she rips out the tube, I gasp and jump to my feet. “Whoa. Whoa. Lucy. Stop.”

  I try to grab her wrists, to stop the rough tugging at the monitors and IV wires she’s tangled in, but she won’t even look at me.

  “How do you know they’re helping me? What if this is poison?” She pushes the shiny metal IV pole and it crashes into the computer cart. “Where are my clothes? Never mind. I have to get out before they catch me.”

  “Lucy!” Her face is beaded with sweat, her eyes rabid. She’s always been stronger than me, and despite my trying to hold her on the bed, she gets away and yanks the curtain open.

  “Help!” I scream, but a male nurse is already running toward us. He catches her under the armpits and our nurse is right behind him.

  Lucy’s screams are visceral and chilling.

  I stand back in helpless horror and watch as the male nurse holds her down on the bed while the other prepares another needle.

  “Please, Ruthie,” she begs me through throat-scratching sobs, tears sliding into her hair. “Please!”

  “It’s a reaction to the Reglan,” the male nurse tries to explain through her cries. “I’ve seen it happen before. She’ll be okay.”

  Whatever they inject her with instantly calms her, though she’s almost catatonic. Her arms and legs hang haphazardly to the sides, but she manages to turn her head and look at me.

  “Don’t go to Boston.” Her eyes close. “Will you stay? I need you. I can’t do this without you.”

  I don’t even need to think about it.

  “Okay,” I say, brushing her tousled hair to the sides of her face. “I’ll stay.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Mom

  OUTSIDE THE PHARMACY’S SLIDING glass doors the slightest flush of grey light gives away the morning. Lucy is curled into one of the green chairs with her eyes closed.

  Her face is sickly thin. I hardly know her anymore. As I wait for our last name to appear on the screen, I wonder if she’ll ever come back.

  Ruth is sitting next to me. She hands me my phone. I hadn’t even heard it ring.

  “Oh. Hello?” I walk toward the sliding doors when I hear Art’s voice.

  “How’s she doing?” he asks.

  “She has PID.”

  “What�
��s that?”

  “Pelvic Inflammatory Disease. I guess she’s had it for a while and has been ignoring the symptoms, thinking it was the drugs or something. I don’t know. It’s basically an infection in her uterus. We’re getting antibiotics.”

  “So she’ll be okay?”

  “I hope so. Who knows if she’ll stay...”

  “Just be there for her now. Don’t worry about what happens next.”

  “How can I not? She’s my daughter, Art. I want her to be home. I’m just worried if...how you and I—”

  “Wait,” he stops me. “Don’t finish that thought. I’m not stupid, I know she has certain ideas about me. And I know if it’s me or her, you’ll choose her. That’s okay. I just... don’t want to say goodbye. I’m not ready.”

  “I’m afraid being with you will push her away.”

  “I can keep my distance.”

  “For how long? Forever? Eventually we’ll have to deal with it.”

  “So we’ll wait until we have to. I love you, Rachel.”

  I sigh, holding his words close, like a secret I’ll never share.

  “I love you, too.”

  I’m still reliving the conversation when I walk back into the pharmacy. Ruth has my purse and is paying for the medicine. I watch as she talks to the pharmacist, listening intently as she gets instructions. She has questions, of course, always so overly thorough in a way I’ve never been.

  I meet her at the counter.

  “What did he say?” she asks after getting a receipt.

  “Art?”

  “Yeah. You look upset.”

  “Oh, no. I’m fine...”

  She raises her eyebrows waiting for me to fess up. There’s never been a secret between us, not on her side or mine. It’s impossible to hide even the slightest emotion from her, so I don’t even try.

  “I love him,” I say, looking back at Lucy, still curled up like a sleeping kitten in the chair. “And Lucy...well.” I laugh. “She doesn’t. I don’t know if I can be there for her and still stay with him. It’ll come between us. So I feel like I have to choose.”

  “You don’t. Lucy and I talked. I’m not going to Boston. She’s moving with me to Long Beach.”