Two Kingdoms, Chapter Five
Sun, Aug. 25th, 2013 02:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
judicious_imitationTitle: Two Kingdoms, Chapter Five
Canon: Polyfaceted
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Original characters (Meyers family); Brenda (Young) Meyers/Bill Meyers; past Brenda/Brett Saunders
Rating: R
Word Count This Chapter: 3,484
Warnings This Chapter: Takes place immediately post-suicide attempt; abortion and guilt over it; discussion of spousal rape and rape of a teenager; discussion of spousal abuse; burgeoning alcoholism; drug use and addiction; underage prostitution in return for drugs (not graphic).
Summary: In this chapter, Karen has tried to commit suicide. She starts dealing with it in her own, completely unhealthy way, despite her parents' efforts.
Master Post
Chapter Four
Bill rubs his eyes and drinks his awful vending machine coffee in an effort to stay awake. In the past three days, the whole time Karen’s been in the hospital, he’s probably slept ten hours. While he used to be accustomed to getting about that little sleep, he’s been out of the army for three years and now likes getting a decent amount of sleep whenever he can. It’s difficult when his daughter has tried to commit suicide, though. He and Brenda have hardly gone home, even, just long enough to assure Will they’re alive, shower, and change their clothes—and that in shifts. He’s just indescribably glad that Sam and Dawn haven’t started their college terms.
Brenda comes out of the procedure room to tell him, “They’re moving her to Recovery. We can take her home in about an hour.”
Bill nods. He’s well aware that sedation isn’t common for four-month abortions; he’s just as aware that, for Karen, in her current state, it was the only option. He and Brenda will have their fight over that later, at home, in the privacy of their bedroom, but only after they have their daughter home and in her own bed. “I can drive if you want to sit with her.”
“Thanks, babe.” She rubs her face. “I’m going to go back with her. Want to come?”
“They’ll let me?”
“I know the higher-ups. Come on.”
He gets to his feet and winces, hoping she doesn’t catch it.
No such luck. “Pressure sore?”
He considers lying. “Yeah,” he says instead. The only times his leg’s been off in the last three days has been when he showers. “I’ll take care of it once we have her home.”
She nods, accepting that. “Come on.”
Karen looks like a sleeping angel when they get back to her. Brenda nearly shoves him into the chair by her bed and leaves to get another, and he takes their daughter’s hand, careful not to disturb the pulse ox. She shifts in bed but doesn’t wake.
“How’d it go?” he asks when Brenda comes back and sets a chair beside him.
She sits and rolls her head. “She’ll be fine. I have a prescription in case she hurts.”
Which they’ll lock up, along with everything else, to try to make sure this particular event doesn’t happen again. “Sam or Dawn can fill it. I set up her next therapy appointment. Called the school, too.”
“She’ll probably be out for a while. Maybe gossip will die down.”
He snorts. “Really think so?”
She sighs. “No, but I can hope.”
Karen mutters something, and Bill leans over to brush back her hair with his free hand. “Waking up, Kare?”
Her reply is incoherent. He glances at Brenda.
“She should wake up soon,” she says. “It was mostly nitrous, but he also gave her a heavy benzo.”
He tightens his grip on Karen’s hand. Benzos are half of what got them into this. Of course, they’re the half that slowed things down enough that she survived. “Can she take her antidepressants tonight?”
“As long as she’s eaten.” Brenda reaches over to rub Karen’s knee. “Come on, honey, time to wake up.”
They sit like that for another ten minutes or so, mostly quiet but occasionally telling Karen to wake up, before she opens her eyes, looking soft and bleary. “M’I done?” she mumbles.
“All done, sweetheart. We can go home soon,” Bill tells her.
Karen nods. “Kay.”
“How do you feel?” Brenda asks softly.
Karen shifts. “Fine.”
He can’t tell if that’s a lie, even if she does mean just physically. Either way, he leans over to kiss her forehead. “You’ll be home soon,” he tells her. “You’re all right.” Which is a lie.
Karen continues to slowly come out of the haze of sedation over the next half-hour or more until the nurse in charge of Recovery deems her all right to go home. Brenda sends him out of the curtained space so she can help Karen dress, and he goes to get the car.
When they get home, Brenda fixes him with a look and suggests, “Why don’t you take care of your leg?” so he takes Will to their room with him and deals with the pressure sore forming at the base of his stump while Will chatters away.
Karen’s on the couch, curled up with a heating pad to her stomach, her head pillowed on Sam’s leg, when they get back downstairs. Sam strokes her hair, over and over. Dawn brackets her other side, rubbing Karen’s hip in a slow circle. A movie, one of Karen’s favorites, plays on the TV. Will heads straight for his mother, who’s in the armchair and watching the kids. The oldest pair look ready to fight off anyone who comes near Karen—probably anyone other than Zach, at the moment. Maybe they’ll make an exception for Will.
“Beautiful,” Bill says evenly, balancing with a hand against the wall, “we need to talk.”
“I thought you’d say that.” She kisses Will’s forehead and asks Dawn and Sam, “Do you mind watching him for a little while longer?”
“No,” Dawn says for both of them.
Brenda nods sharply and stands. She offers her arm, and he’s not so upset that he refuses the help getting back up the stairs. Down is easier than up on one foot.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she says before they’ve even reached their room.
“Do you,” he says flatly.
“I knew it as soon as she said it’s a sin.” She closes the door behind them, and he hops over to sit on the bed. “I’m not apologizing for raising them in my faith.”
They did agree, at the beginning of their relationship, to not interfere in how the other raised their children when it came to religion. This, as far as he’s concerned, is very different. “She tried to kill herself instead of have an abortion,” he snaps, “because she thought abortion is a sin.”
“That’s not the whole reason,” and she sounds tired suddenly.
“Oh?” He has to force himself to keep his voice from rising. “She tell you something else, did she?”
Brenda sits on the chair in the corner of the room, facing him. “I,” she says, “also got pregnant as a result of rape, if you’ll remember.”
That stops him dead. He didn’t remember, and he should have.
“I kept my baby,” she continues, “and Karen’s never going to know that. But I was in a position to have my child. I was not fourteen, abused by a teacher, or terrified of how my parents would react. I can imagine if I was, though.”
He finds his voice. “You were twenty-six and married.”
“And I was terrified of how my husband would react.” She swallows. “I thought about doing the same thing as she did, Bill, but only for a second. I had Sam. If I hadn’t had Sam…”
“Did you think of it over abortion?” he snaps.
“I thought of it over having to face Brett every day,” she says. He’s surprised she’s keeping her voice steady. Even though she’s mostly been away from him for ten years, she usually has at least a tremor when she talks about it. “And Karen thought she’d have to keep seeing Whittaker and facing what he was doing to her.”
Bill hadn’t considered it from that perspective. He should have, but nothing’s ever happened to him to make it an obvious thing to think about. His encounter with teenage pregnancy involved being two years older, full consent, and being the male in the equation. He deflates. “Why didn’t she come to us?”
“Shame, guilt, fear.” Brenda sighs. “She probably has a dozen reasons. I did for not going to my parents, and I was an adult. She’s only a child.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “How do we help her?” he asks helplessly. He hasn’t been in this territory before. Dawn never had anything approaching depression other than when he was hurt, and that didn’t even require medication, just counseling. Where Karen is now is entirely foreign.
“We go back to family therapy.” Brenda’s hands clench together. “We keep medication locked up. We make sure she sees her psychiatrist and therapist every single time she has an appointment, as often as they say she needs to go in. We spend a lot of time with her. And we don’t push her to talk to us.”
He nods. It makes more sense to him to get her to get everything out, but Brenda would know better. “I’ll be with her every day. Will might help.”
“I hope so.” Brenda rises. “I’m going to make her grilled cheese. You want anything?”
“The baby,” who’s hardly a baby anymore at two. “And ice,” he adds reluctantly.
“I’ll send him up with it.” She steps over and bends to kiss him. “If she wants to talk to Father Patrick, I’m taking her,” she adds when she pulls back.
His hands tighten into fists at that.
“He’s pretty liberal, and he’s definitely reasonable,” she says. She’s told him that before. “He won’t tell her it’s a sin. His counsel might be good for her.”
“All right,” he says grudgingly, even though she wasn’t asking for him to okay it.
“Will and ice, coming right up.” She leaves the room, the door standing open behind her.
He rubs his eyes again, trying to stave off exhaustion.
Will comes up a moment later, proclaiming, “Cold,” as soon as he hands Bill the ice.
“I know. Want to come talk to me?” He knows the answer to that already.
Will beams and climbs onto the bed, following as Bill shifts up the bed to lean back against the pillows and positions the icepack. Will flops beside him and starts to talk about the last few days as best he can, given he’s not yet two and a half. Bill fights to keep his eyes open and to talk to his son; once Will winds down into sleep, he feels a lot less guilty about letting his own eyes fall shut. The rhythm of Will’s breathing sends him to sleep; muddled, he thinks briefly what Karen’s child might have been like if this had this all been ten years later and consensual before it strikes him how stupid that is.
*
Brenda pulls down the bottle of Jack to make hot toddies to fight the symptoms of the colds she and Bill have caught from Zach. She frowns at the amount left and calls, “Have you been drinking this?” toward the living room.
“Drinking what?” he calls back. He sounds terrible; then again, she probably sounds nearly as bad.
“The Jack Daniels.” She knows he has the occasional drink to help get to sleep at a remotely reasonable hour, but she doesn’t think he has in a couple of months, at least.
“No.” She hears footsteps, and his voice is closer when he asks, “Why?”
She holds up the bottle, then turns as the tea kettle whistles.
“Have you been drinking it?” he asks after a moment.
She shakes her head and pours the water over the teabags. “Unless it’s been in my sleep.”
He’s quiet a moment, then begins, “Karen…”
“She’s tall enough,” Brenda agrees, “and Zach’s a little young to steal drinks.”
“Sam or Dawn over Christmas?” he offers.
“Did they ask you?” Their nineteen-year-olds are allowed the occasional drink, at home and with permission.
“No.” He blows out a breath. “So Karen.”
She turns to face him. “We should talk to her.”
“And say what? ‘Karen, have you been stealing whiskey?’”
Brenda grimaces. “That’s one option.”
“Have another?”
She sighs. “We could try, ‘Karen, have you started drinking?’”
“You think she’d tell the truth?” Bill asks.
She would like to say that, yes, she trusts Karen to be truthful about it, but the problem is that she isn’t sure any longer and hasn’t been for months. “It’s worth a shot.”
He glances upward. “I’ll get her.”
Brenda nods wordlessly. They could call her, but Will and Zach should both be asleep. While he leaves, she goes about adding the whiskey and honey to their tea.
“… not in trouble,” she hears Bill say as he and Karen come toward the kitchen.
Karen doesn’t say anything in response. She glances between Brenda and Bill once they’ve reached the kitchen but stays quiet.
“I need to ask you something,” Brenda begins.
“Okay…” Karen says slowly.
“Sweetheart, have you started drinking?”
Color rises in Karen’s cheeks. “No!”
“We won’t be angry if you have,” Bill says; he has to see as clearly as Brenda does that she’s lying.
“I’m not drinking,” she says forcefully.
“It’s just that there’s less whiskey than last time we checked,” Brenda says calmly, “so we were wondering.”
“So you accused me!”
“We’re not accusing,” Bill says, his voice just as calm as Brenda’s. “We’re asking, that’s all.”
“I’m not drinking,” Karen says again, her voice hard. “It’s not allowed with my medication.”
Which is true, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t. Brenda keeps the thought to herself, though, glancing at Bill. “Okay, sweetheart,” she says.
“Can I go now?” Karen asks, her voice still hard.
She nods. “You can go.”
Karen storms off, tossing over her shoulder, “I’m not drinking!”
They stay quiet until she’s upstairs, judging by the stomping; Brenda takes out the teabags and passes Bill one of the mugs. Once she’s certain Karen’s well out of earshot, she says, “We can’t keep open booze down here.”
“No,” he agrees grimly, “we can’t.”
“We’ll make room upstairs.” She wraps her hands around her mug and sighs. “I don’t want to accuse her of lying.”
He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t help anything,” he agrees. “We’ll keep an eye on her.”
That’s all they’ve been doing since the beginning of January, keeping an eye on her; there’s no other option, though. They can’t leave her to fend for herself in any way. “Do you think we should search her room?”
He lets out a harsh laugh. “Do you?”
“She’d never talk to us about anything if we did.” Brenda has to wonder if it’s worth the risk.
“We can ask Dawnie and Sam to talk to her,” he offers.
“They wouldn’t tell us what she said if she asked them not to,” she points out.
“No,” he agrees, “but they might be able to help her without talking to us.”
It’s a heavy responsibility for nineteen-year-olds, but Brenda’s sure they’d do it if asked. Before they left for school, they both seemed to feel as guilty as Brenda and Bill that they hadn’t caught anything before Karen’s attempt. “I’ll talk to Sam.”
He nods and sips his drink. “Dawn’s to call me tomorrow. I’ll ask her then.”
She smiles thinly. “Make sure Karen doesn’t hear.”
He gives her a look, presumably for stating the obvious, but says, “Let’s finish the movie.”
They sit nestled together on the couch, their drinks on the table in front of them and the bottle of Jack on the floor, and Brenda turns the movie back on. She doesn’t really focus on it, though. “We need to do something,” she says a good five minutes in.
“We’ll talk to the kids, get them to try to help.” Bill shrugs, his arm sliding against hers. “Unless you’ve got a better idea.”
Reluctantly, she shakes her head. “Nothing that won’t make things worse.” It’s bad enough trying to get Karen to talk to them now; she can’t imagine how it would be if they alienated her.
He pecks her cheek. “We’re doing what we can.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, too.
She sighs. “That’s the hell of it.”
*
Karen rises, wiping spit from the corner of her mouth as Devon closes his pants. He digs in his pocket and hands her a small, zipped-shut bag of pills. “If you want anything more…” he says, eyes lingering on her chest.
She just manages not to shudder in revulsion. “I know.” Thing is, for stuff harder than oxy, she knows another guy who takes the same payment. She doesn’t have to let anyone touch her to get it if she doesn’t want to, and she definitely doesn’t want to.
He shrugs. “Hey, just offering.”
“Yeah, thanks.” She glances toward the door. “I’m heading out.”
He flops down on his beaten-up couch and waves a hand. “Call me when you want more.”
“Uh-huh.” She hurries up the basement stairs and through Devon’s parents’ empty house. She’s never once seen them, no matter what time she comes here.
Later, when she’s lying on the grass in a West Hartford park, staring up at the spinning clouds, she vaguely considers the concept of chasing the dragon. She could, if she wanted. It would be easy enough to get it, just using her mouth. Or she could snort.
But right now, the oxy’s doing its job, driving the persistent anguish back. It doesn’t always anymore, just like booze doesn’t always, and she’s sensible enough to not mix the two. She’s tried E, and it sometimes works. It’s also made things worse a few times, which is pretty much the opposite of good.
The next time she’s out of oxy, she doesn’t call Devon. She calls Victor and asks, “Can I see the dragon?”
He laughs, full and rich. Victor could have people falling all over him for his voice alone, and he might; she’s not sure. “You know the price, kid.”
“I do.”
“Come tomorrow afternoon.”
She has options when she gets there, once she pays the same way she pays Devon. She never gets much from either of them, but she can come back as often as she wants if she’s prepared to pay for it. Usually, she is, much as she hates the way she pays them. It’s better than stealing money, though.
“What’s your poison?” Victor asks. He’s laid out a few things: meth, crack, powder, heroin, black heroin. There’s less of the powder and heroin than the others, though a decent amount of black.
“I want to stop thinking,” she tells him, “but I’m not going to shoot.”
He picks up the baggie of black and dangles it in front of her. “Try it.”
He shows her how to smoke it using a cigarette and foil, and the high is sweeter than anything else she’s tried. It drives out the pain and replaces it with a sweet lassitude, relaxing even the ever-present knots in her temples and at the base of her skull. She stays at Victor’s until she starts to come down, and he lets her just watch his TV, doesn’t even try anything.
Later, she wanders home, a pack of cigarettes and a little more black in her pocket, the little foil tube tucked into the pack. Her parents aren’t home, and she goes up to take a warm shower while her mind gradually clears.
She keeps going back to Victor after that. Nothing Devon has can touch it, and Victor likes her. Likes how she pays him, sure, but he also likes her enough not to try anything and to be more generous than he probably should be. It’s fine by her, works to do what she needs it to. Victor keeps her in weed and cigarettes, too, and he’ll provide booze if she wants it. That, she gives him ten bucks for and gets back a fifth of cheap gin. It’s the only thing she has to provide cash for. The few times she wants something besides black, like E or acid, he gives her extra.
She does her best to keep it from her parents, though; she goes to Victor’s when they’ll be gone, and when she smokes at home, it’s out back after they’ve gone to bed. She has a sweater she wears whenever she smokes to keep the cigarette smell on it only. They might figure it out, she doesn’t know.
When she’s sober, she thinks how much it would hurt them if they knew, and she thinks how much Victor probably wants to work her toward paying him in a different way. When she’s high, though, neither thought bothers her. She’d even pay Victor that way if he got her high first, probably. She likes him well enough, even if she’s not attracted to him.
The one time she tries powder, she does pay him that way, after chasing the dragon. The powder makes things worse, though, and it hurts her heart. She doesn’t try it again, and Victor doesn’t push her to pay that way again.
Her dealer likes her. He gives her a choice. He doesn’t push.
It makes sex with a man the most appealing it’s ever been.
It doesn’t hurt that she gets to escape right after, every time.
Chapter Six
Canon: Polyfaceted
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Original characters (Meyers family); Brenda (Young) Meyers/Bill Meyers; past Brenda/Brett Saunders
Rating: R
Word Count This Chapter: 3,484
Warnings This Chapter: Takes place immediately post-suicide attempt; abortion and guilt over it; discussion of spousal rape and rape of a teenager; discussion of spousal abuse; burgeoning alcoholism; drug use and addiction; underage prostitution in return for drugs (not graphic).
Summary: In this chapter, Karen has tried to commit suicide. She starts dealing with it in her own, completely unhealthy way, despite her parents' efforts.
Master Post
Chapter Four
Bill rubs his eyes and drinks his awful vending machine coffee in an effort to stay awake. In the past three days, the whole time Karen’s been in the hospital, he’s probably slept ten hours. While he used to be accustomed to getting about that little sleep, he’s been out of the army for three years and now likes getting a decent amount of sleep whenever he can. It’s difficult when his daughter has tried to commit suicide, though. He and Brenda have hardly gone home, even, just long enough to assure Will they’re alive, shower, and change their clothes—and that in shifts. He’s just indescribably glad that Sam and Dawn haven’t started their college terms.
Brenda comes out of the procedure room to tell him, “They’re moving her to Recovery. We can take her home in about an hour.”
Bill nods. He’s well aware that sedation isn’t common for four-month abortions; he’s just as aware that, for Karen, in her current state, it was the only option. He and Brenda will have their fight over that later, at home, in the privacy of their bedroom, but only after they have their daughter home and in her own bed. “I can drive if you want to sit with her.”
“Thanks, babe.” She rubs her face. “I’m going to go back with her. Want to come?”
“They’ll let me?”
“I know the higher-ups. Come on.”
He gets to his feet and winces, hoping she doesn’t catch it.
No such luck. “Pressure sore?”
He considers lying. “Yeah,” he says instead. The only times his leg’s been off in the last three days has been when he showers. “I’ll take care of it once we have her home.”
She nods, accepting that. “Come on.”
Karen looks like a sleeping angel when they get back to her. Brenda nearly shoves him into the chair by her bed and leaves to get another, and he takes their daughter’s hand, careful not to disturb the pulse ox. She shifts in bed but doesn’t wake.
“How’d it go?” he asks when Brenda comes back and sets a chair beside him.
She sits and rolls her head. “She’ll be fine. I have a prescription in case she hurts.”
Which they’ll lock up, along with everything else, to try to make sure this particular event doesn’t happen again. “Sam or Dawn can fill it. I set up her next therapy appointment. Called the school, too.”
“She’ll probably be out for a while. Maybe gossip will die down.”
He snorts. “Really think so?”
She sighs. “No, but I can hope.”
Karen mutters something, and Bill leans over to brush back her hair with his free hand. “Waking up, Kare?”
Her reply is incoherent. He glances at Brenda.
“She should wake up soon,” she says. “It was mostly nitrous, but he also gave her a heavy benzo.”
He tightens his grip on Karen’s hand. Benzos are half of what got them into this. Of course, they’re the half that slowed things down enough that she survived. “Can she take her antidepressants tonight?”
“As long as she’s eaten.” Brenda reaches over to rub Karen’s knee. “Come on, honey, time to wake up.”
They sit like that for another ten minutes or so, mostly quiet but occasionally telling Karen to wake up, before she opens her eyes, looking soft and bleary. “M’I done?” she mumbles.
“All done, sweetheart. We can go home soon,” Bill tells her.
Karen nods. “Kay.”
“How do you feel?” Brenda asks softly.
Karen shifts. “Fine.”
He can’t tell if that’s a lie, even if she does mean just physically. Either way, he leans over to kiss her forehead. “You’ll be home soon,” he tells her. “You’re all right.” Which is a lie.
Karen continues to slowly come out of the haze of sedation over the next half-hour or more until the nurse in charge of Recovery deems her all right to go home. Brenda sends him out of the curtained space so she can help Karen dress, and he goes to get the car.
When they get home, Brenda fixes him with a look and suggests, “Why don’t you take care of your leg?” so he takes Will to their room with him and deals with the pressure sore forming at the base of his stump while Will chatters away.
Karen’s on the couch, curled up with a heating pad to her stomach, her head pillowed on Sam’s leg, when they get back downstairs. Sam strokes her hair, over and over. Dawn brackets her other side, rubbing Karen’s hip in a slow circle. A movie, one of Karen’s favorites, plays on the TV. Will heads straight for his mother, who’s in the armchair and watching the kids. The oldest pair look ready to fight off anyone who comes near Karen—probably anyone other than Zach, at the moment. Maybe they’ll make an exception for Will.
“Beautiful,” Bill says evenly, balancing with a hand against the wall, “we need to talk.”
“I thought you’d say that.” She kisses Will’s forehead and asks Dawn and Sam, “Do you mind watching him for a little while longer?”
“No,” Dawn says for both of them.
Brenda nods sharply and stands. She offers her arm, and he’s not so upset that he refuses the help getting back up the stairs. Down is easier than up on one foot.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she says before they’ve even reached their room.
“Do you,” he says flatly.
“I knew it as soon as she said it’s a sin.” She closes the door behind them, and he hops over to sit on the bed. “I’m not apologizing for raising them in my faith.”
They did agree, at the beginning of their relationship, to not interfere in how the other raised their children when it came to religion. This, as far as he’s concerned, is very different. “She tried to kill herself instead of have an abortion,” he snaps, “because she thought abortion is a sin.”
“That’s not the whole reason,” and she sounds tired suddenly.
“Oh?” He has to force himself to keep his voice from rising. “She tell you something else, did she?”
Brenda sits on the chair in the corner of the room, facing him. “I,” she says, “also got pregnant as a result of rape, if you’ll remember.”
That stops him dead. He didn’t remember, and he should have.
“I kept my baby,” she continues, “and Karen’s never going to know that. But I was in a position to have my child. I was not fourteen, abused by a teacher, or terrified of how my parents would react. I can imagine if I was, though.”
He finds his voice. “You were twenty-six and married.”
“And I was terrified of how my husband would react.” She swallows. “I thought about doing the same thing as she did, Bill, but only for a second. I had Sam. If I hadn’t had Sam…”
“Did you think of it over abortion?” he snaps.
“I thought of it over having to face Brett every day,” she says. He’s surprised she’s keeping her voice steady. Even though she’s mostly been away from him for ten years, she usually has at least a tremor when she talks about it. “And Karen thought she’d have to keep seeing Whittaker and facing what he was doing to her.”
Bill hadn’t considered it from that perspective. He should have, but nothing’s ever happened to him to make it an obvious thing to think about. His encounter with teenage pregnancy involved being two years older, full consent, and being the male in the equation. He deflates. “Why didn’t she come to us?”
“Shame, guilt, fear.” Brenda sighs. “She probably has a dozen reasons. I did for not going to my parents, and I was an adult. She’s only a child.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “How do we help her?” he asks helplessly. He hasn’t been in this territory before. Dawn never had anything approaching depression other than when he was hurt, and that didn’t even require medication, just counseling. Where Karen is now is entirely foreign.
“We go back to family therapy.” Brenda’s hands clench together. “We keep medication locked up. We make sure she sees her psychiatrist and therapist every single time she has an appointment, as often as they say she needs to go in. We spend a lot of time with her. And we don’t push her to talk to us.”
He nods. It makes more sense to him to get her to get everything out, but Brenda would know better. “I’ll be with her every day. Will might help.”
“I hope so.” Brenda rises. “I’m going to make her grilled cheese. You want anything?”
“The baby,” who’s hardly a baby anymore at two. “And ice,” he adds reluctantly.
“I’ll send him up with it.” She steps over and bends to kiss him. “If she wants to talk to Father Patrick, I’m taking her,” she adds when she pulls back.
His hands tighten into fists at that.
“He’s pretty liberal, and he’s definitely reasonable,” she says. She’s told him that before. “He won’t tell her it’s a sin. His counsel might be good for her.”
“All right,” he says grudgingly, even though she wasn’t asking for him to okay it.
“Will and ice, coming right up.” She leaves the room, the door standing open behind her.
He rubs his eyes again, trying to stave off exhaustion.
Will comes up a moment later, proclaiming, “Cold,” as soon as he hands Bill the ice.
“I know. Want to come talk to me?” He knows the answer to that already.
Will beams and climbs onto the bed, following as Bill shifts up the bed to lean back against the pillows and positions the icepack. Will flops beside him and starts to talk about the last few days as best he can, given he’s not yet two and a half. Bill fights to keep his eyes open and to talk to his son; once Will winds down into sleep, he feels a lot less guilty about letting his own eyes fall shut. The rhythm of Will’s breathing sends him to sleep; muddled, he thinks briefly what Karen’s child might have been like if this had this all been ten years later and consensual before it strikes him how stupid that is.
Brenda pulls down the bottle of Jack to make hot toddies to fight the symptoms of the colds she and Bill have caught from Zach. She frowns at the amount left and calls, “Have you been drinking this?” toward the living room.
“Drinking what?” he calls back. He sounds terrible; then again, she probably sounds nearly as bad.
“The Jack Daniels.” She knows he has the occasional drink to help get to sleep at a remotely reasonable hour, but she doesn’t think he has in a couple of months, at least.
“No.” She hears footsteps, and his voice is closer when he asks, “Why?”
She holds up the bottle, then turns as the tea kettle whistles.
“Have you been drinking it?” he asks after a moment.
She shakes her head and pours the water over the teabags. “Unless it’s been in my sleep.”
He’s quiet a moment, then begins, “Karen…”
“She’s tall enough,” Brenda agrees, “and Zach’s a little young to steal drinks.”
“Sam or Dawn over Christmas?” he offers.
“Did they ask you?” Their nineteen-year-olds are allowed the occasional drink, at home and with permission.
“No.” He blows out a breath. “So Karen.”
She turns to face him. “We should talk to her.”
“And say what? ‘Karen, have you been stealing whiskey?’”
Brenda grimaces. “That’s one option.”
“Have another?”
She sighs. “We could try, ‘Karen, have you started drinking?’”
“You think she’d tell the truth?” Bill asks.
She would like to say that, yes, she trusts Karen to be truthful about it, but the problem is that she isn’t sure any longer and hasn’t been for months. “It’s worth a shot.”
He glances upward. “I’ll get her.”
Brenda nods wordlessly. They could call her, but Will and Zach should both be asleep. While he leaves, she goes about adding the whiskey and honey to their tea.
“… not in trouble,” she hears Bill say as he and Karen come toward the kitchen.
Karen doesn’t say anything in response. She glances between Brenda and Bill once they’ve reached the kitchen but stays quiet.
“I need to ask you something,” Brenda begins.
“Okay…” Karen says slowly.
“Sweetheart, have you started drinking?”
Color rises in Karen’s cheeks. “No!”
“We won’t be angry if you have,” Bill says; he has to see as clearly as Brenda does that she’s lying.
“I’m not drinking,” she says forcefully.
“It’s just that there’s less whiskey than last time we checked,” Brenda says calmly, “so we were wondering.”
“So you accused me!”
“We’re not accusing,” Bill says, his voice just as calm as Brenda’s. “We’re asking, that’s all.”
“I’m not drinking,” Karen says again, her voice hard. “It’s not allowed with my medication.”
Which is true, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t. Brenda keeps the thought to herself, though, glancing at Bill. “Okay, sweetheart,” she says.
“Can I go now?” Karen asks, her voice still hard.
She nods. “You can go.”
Karen storms off, tossing over her shoulder, “I’m not drinking!”
They stay quiet until she’s upstairs, judging by the stomping; Brenda takes out the teabags and passes Bill one of the mugs. Once she’s certain Karen’s well out of earshot, she says, “We can’t keep open booze down here.”
“No,” he agrees grimly, “we can’t.”
“We’ll make room upstairs.” She wraps her hands around her mug and sighs. “I don’t want to accuse her of lying.”
He shakes his head. “It wouldn’t help anything,” he agrees. “We’ll keep an eye on her.”
That’s all they’ve been doing since the beginning of January, keeping an eye on her; there’s no other option, though. They can’t leave her to fend for herself in any way. “Do you think we should search her room?”
He lets out a harsh laugh. “Do you?”
“She’d never talk to us about anything if we did.” Brenda has to wonder if it’s worth the risk.
“We can ask Dawnie and Sam to talk to her,” he offers.
“They wouldn’t tell us what she said if she asked them not to,” she points out.
“No,” he agrees, “but they might be able to help her without talking to us.”
It’s a heavy responsibility for nineteen-year-olds, but Brenda’s sure they’d do it if asked. Before they left for school, they both seemed to feel as guilty as Brenda and Bill that they hadn’t caught anything before Karen’s attempt. “I’ll talk to Sam.”
He nods and sips his drink. “Dawn’s to call me tomorrow. I’ll ask her then.”
She smiles thinly. “Make sure Karen doesn’t hear.”
He gives her a look, presumably for stating the obvious, but says, “Let’s finish the movie.”
They sit nestled together on the couch, their drinks on the table in front of them and the bottle of Jack on the floor, and Brenda turns the movie back on. She doesn’t really focus on it, though. “We need to do something,” she says a good five minutes in.
“We’ll talk to the kids, get them to try to help.” Bill shrugs, his arm sliding against hers. “Unless you’ve got a better idea.”
Reluctantly, she shakes her head. “Nothing that won’t make things worse.” It’s bad enough trying to get Karen to talk to them now; she can’t imagine how it would be if they alienated her.
He pecks her cheek. “We’re doing what we can.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself, too.
She sighs. “That’s the hell of it.”
Karen rises, wiping spit from the corner of her mouth as Devon closes his pants. He digs in his pocket and hands her a small, zipped-shut bag of pills. “If you want anything more…” he says, eyes lingering on her chest.
She just manages not to shudder in revulsion. “I know.” Thing is, for stuff harder than oxy, she knows another guy who takes the same payment. She doesn’t have to let anyone touch her to get it if she doesn’t want to, and she definitely doesn’t want to.
He shrugs. “Hey, just offering.”
“Yeah, thanks.” She glances toward the door. “I’m heading out.”
He flops down on his beaten-up couch and waves a hand. “Call me when you want more.”
“Uh-huh.” She hurries up the basement stairs and through Devon’s parents’ empty house. She’s never once seen them, no matter what time she comes here.
Later, when she’s lying on the grass in a West Hartford park, staring up at the spinning clouds, she vaguely considers the concept of chasing the dragon. She could, if she wanted. It would be easy enough to get it, just using her mouth. Or she could snort.
But right now, the oxy’s doing its job, driving the persistent anguish back. It doesn’t always anymore, just like booze doesn’t always, and she’s sensible enough to not mix the two. She’s tried E, and it sometimes works. It’s also made things worse a few times, which is pretty much the opposite of good.
The next time she’s out of oxy, she doesn’t call Devon. She calls Victor and asks, “Can I see the dragon?”
He laughs, full and rich. Victor could have people falling all over him for his voice alone, and he might; she’s not sure. “You know the price, kid.”
“I do.”
“Come tomorrow afternoon.”
She has options when she gets there, once she pays the same way she pays Devon. She never gets much from either of them, but she can come back as often as she wants if she’s prepared to pay for it. Usually, she is, much as she hates the way she pays them. It’s better than stealing money, though.
“What’s your poison?” Victor asks. He’s laid out a few things: meth, crack, powder, heroin, black heroin. There’s less of the powder and heroin than the others, though a decent amount of black.
“I want to stop thinking,” she tells him, “but I’m not going to shoot.”
He picks up the baggie of black and dangles it in front of her. “Try it.”
He shows her how to smoke it using a cigarette and foil, and the high is sweeter than anything else she’s tried. It drives out the pain and replaces it with a sweet lassitude, relaxing even the ever-present knots in her temples and at the base of her skull. She stays at Victor’s until she starts to come down, and he lets her just watch his TV, doesn’t even try anything.
Later, she wanders home, a pack of cigarettes and a little more black in her pocket, the little foil tube tucked into the pack. Her parents aren’t home, and she goes up to take a warm shower while her mind gradually clears.
She keeps going back to Victor after that. Nothing Devon has can touch it, and Victor likes her. Likes how she pays him, sure, but he also likes her enough not to try anything and to be more generous than he probably should be. It’s fine by her, works to do what she needs it to. Victor keeps her in weed and cigarettes, too, and he’ll provide booze if she wants it. That, she gives him ten bucks for and gets back a fifth of cheap gin. It’s the only thing she has to provide cash for. The few times she wants something besides black, like E or acid, he gives her extra.
She does her best to keep it from her parents, though; she goes to Victor’s when they’ll be gone, and when she smokes at home, it’s out back after they’ve gone to bed. She has a sweater she wears whenever she smokes to keep the cigarette smell on it only. They might figure it out, she doesn’t know.
When she’s sober, she thinks how much it would hurt them if they knew, and she thinks how much Victor probably wants to work her toward paying him in a different way. When she’s high, though, neither thought bothers her. She’d even pay Victor that way if he got her high first, probably. She likes him well enough, even if she’s not attracted to him.
The one time she tries powder, she does pay him that way, after chasing the dragon. The powder makes things worse, though, and it hurts her heart. She doesn’t try it again, and Victor doesn’t push her to pay that way again.
Her dealer likes her. He gives her a choice. He doesn’t push.
It makes sex with a man the most appealing it’s ever been.
It doesn’t hurt that she gets to escape right after, every time.
Chapter Six
