Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
WHITE LION, “WHEN THE CHILDREN CRY”
Eve
“What’s this?” I asked the next day after getting discharged from the hospital. There was a bag in the back seat.
Dad started the car. “A few things to get you by for the next thirty days.”
Mom shot me a sad smile over her shoulder.
“Uh …” I chuckled. “We’re not going home first? What about Thanksgiving? This is happening now ?”
“Addiction doesn’t care about holidays, Eve. This way you’ll be home by Christmas.”
I didn’t have an addiction. What was happening? I thought it was a threat, a test to see how I’d react. I kept my mouth shut the previous day. It wasn’t fair.
“I didn’t get to talk to Erin or Grandma. I didn’t get to say goodbye to … Josh.”
“It’s for the best, honey,” Mom said.
“How is not saying goodbye for the best? Does Erin even know I was in the hospital?”
My parents shared a look.
“To help you save face, we’re telling anyone who asks, that you are on a mission trip.” Dad glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
“You’re lying to people?”
“We’re protecting you,” Mom said.
“From what or who?”
I looked out my window and quickly batted away my tears. The longest I’d been away from home was two weeks, and that was with friends and adults from the church who I knew. I wasn’t ripped away from my life and everyone I knew for a month over Thanksgiving.
They were protecting themselves.
Erin would know it was a lie. The truth would come out. And what about Kyle? He was okay with letting me leave? Of course he was. After all, he was taking Josh back to Colorado.
I envied Sarah for getting the hell out of Devil’s Head. I envied her for falling for someone who put her first above everything and everyone else in the world.
For the rest of the trip to St. Louis, no one said a word. My heart ached a little more with each passing mile, and my eyes never stopped leaking painful tears.
“We’ll get you checked in, and be back to visit before Thanksgiving,” Dad said, opening his door.
I grabbed my bag and climbed out. “Don’t bother. I don’t want to see you.” I headed toward the entrance.
“Eve,” Mom said, following me.
I whipped around right before reaching the door. “I’m doing this for you. Only you. So don’t forget it. And don’t do anything stupid and selfish like slitting your wrists or driving off a bridge.”
“Eve,” Dad said in a sharp tone.
Mom swallowed hard and blinked back her tears.
I ignored my dad.
“Eve,” Mom whispered.
“Just answer me. Do we have a deal?”
She slowly nodded.
“Great. Let the fun begin.” I opened the door and headed for the front desk.
“Can I help you?” A smiley blonde asked.
“Eve Jacobson,” my dad said.
I didn’t make eye contact with anyone. The lady took me through a long list of questions. I had to consent to being admitted because I was eighteen. And I could leave whenever I wanted to leave.
But the look on my dad’s face was a reminder that if I left early, I wouldn’t be welcomed home.
My parents left me with hugs and whispered “I love yous.” Then I was escorted to another room where they went through all of my belongings.
I fucking hated my life.
Despite crying myself to sleep every night, the people at the rehab facility were friendly. It was the kind of prison I imagined convicted celebrities went to. I got outdoor time every day and three square meals.
The surprising bonus was the therapy sessions, group and individual. There were some really messed up people in the group sessions.
“Eve, would you like to add anything today?” the therapist asked after I stayed silent for the first week.
On one hand, it felt weird sharing intimate family details with strangers, but I also thought it might feel freeing to bounce my woes off people who wouldn’t take sides because they didn’t know me or my family.
“My name is Eve, but you already know that.” I wrinkled my nose while tugging at the arms of my sweatshirt. “I guess I’m one week sober.” I shrugged because I had gone much longer than a week without alcohol.
I wasn’t an addict. But celebrating sobriety seemed to be the theme, so I went with it.
“I started drinking when I was fourteen. I came home early from a friend’s house, and I overheard my mom and dad arguing in their bedroom. My mom was crying. My dad was like, ‘What have you done?’ And my mom said she couldn’t do it. He said, ‘Do what?’ And the next thing I heard was him whispering, ‘You’re pregnant?’ She said it was too much. She didn’t want four kids, and she knew it was awful and sinful, but raising three girls, two years apart, and being a pastor’s wife who took care of the congregation like an extension of our own family was too much. Dad asked if she took the whole bottle of pills and said she could die. She said …” I fought the unexpected rush of emotions.
Their argument had played in my head too many times to count. It usually made me angry. But this was the first time I tried to say the words out loud.
I cleared my throat, offering a sheepish smile as I blotted the corners of my eyes. The group of eight offered nothing but sympathetic looks.
“She said she’d rather die than start all over again.” Scraping my teeth over my bottom lip, I stared at my lap. “And I wondered, why? Then I thought of all the times she told me I was going to be the death of her. And I couldn’t remember her ever saying that to my sisters. So I’ve always felt it was me. I was the child who made her think that death would be preferable to having a fourth child. And had she waited any longer to get pregnant with my younger sister, she might have tried to end that pregnancy too. But I was two when my younger sister was born, so I must not have been awful yet.”
I laughed, scratching my head and glancing around the windowless room. “Sorry. That was a lot, and I still haven’t explained the alcohol part.”
“It’s fine, Eve,” the therapist said. “And if you don’t want to share everything today, you don’t have to.”
“I feel like I’m almost there, so why quit now?”
She nodded and smiled.
“My mom spent several days in the hospital or somewhere. I don’t know. We weren’t allowed to see her. Dad said she was having ‘routine testing.’ But that’s all the information he gave us. When mom returned home, she was herself. They didn’t mention the pills or a baby. And after a few months, I realized there was no baby. Not anymore. Then I overheard some older kids from school talking about their hangout spot in the woods not too far from my house. I knew they were drinking, and one of them, who had recently lost his dad, said life didn’t suck after a few drinks. The next weekend, I had my first drink. And he was right, life didn’t suck as much after a few drinks.”
“It’s not your fault,” one of the other patients said. She was an older lady with weary eyes but a kind smile. “I have four kids. Great kids. But by the fourth I was past the point in my life where I felt like I wanted to change diapers or chase a toddler. My third child was already sixteen. The idea of starting the eighteen-year process all over again was unimaginable. But I did it. However, I don’t blame any woman who doesn’t feel like she can. And I’m sure your mom wasn’t thinking of you when she took those pills.”
She didn’t know my mom, but I wanted to believe her.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Do you have family coming for Thanksgiving?” A guy who looked close to my dad’s age asked as I sat on a park bench in the courtyard and watched two squirrels.
“I doubt it.”
He gestured to the bench.
I nodded and scooted over to make room for him. He sat next to me and lit a cigarette.
“Can you have that here?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He took a puff and blew out the smoke. “They want me to get better, not kill myself.” He laughed.
I grinned.
“I’m Raymond,” he said, offering me the cigarette.
I shook my head. “I don’t smoke.”
He wiggled it closer to my hand. “But you could.”
I stared at it. “I have getting my ears pierced, bangs cut, and a perm on my list before smoking.” I took the cigarette. “But I bet there’s not a salon in this place.”
He laughed.
I took a puff and instantly coughed, handing the cigarette back to him.
“It’s glorious, isn’t it?” he asked.
“It’s not really.” I wrinkled my nose.
“It’ll grow on you.”
“But what does it do for me?”
“Keeps you from being hungry.”
I shrugged. “I’m not fat. Who cares? I like food. I’m an excellent cook and baker.”
“No shit?” He gazed at me.
“No shit,” I chuckled.
His lips pursed as he took another long puff.
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
Raymond twisted his lips and turned his head to blow the smoke away from me. “Seventy-two days. But who’s counting?”
“I thought this was a thirty-day program?”
“I suppose it depends on what you’re here for.”
I brought a knee to my chest and hugged it. “What are you here for?”
“You name it. I took it. There’s not much I haven’t swallowed, snorted, or shot up my veins. What about you? Wait, let me guess. I’m pretty good at this.” He angled his body toward mine, eyes narrowed. “You look like a coke girl.”
“Cocaine?” My head jutted backward. “No.” I laughed. “Supposedly alcohol, but I think I’m here as a punishment for having sex with my dad’s best friend’s younger brother.”
“How old are you?” He took another drag.
“Eighteen.”
“So how can you be punished for sex if you’re a legal adult?”
I frowned. “I live at home, and my father is the preacher of a small town.”
“What town?”
“Devil’s Head.”
“Never heard of it.”
I laughed. “No one has.”
“Ya get knocked up?”
I shook my head.
“Then what’s the problem? Premarital sex?”
“Well, yes, but mostly the ten-year age difference.”
“Pfft … that ain’t nothin’. I was with a woman who was fifteen years younger than me. Of course, I was thirty. Did a little time for statutory rape, but when I got out five years later, we got married.”
“But you’re no longer married?”
He gazed off into the distance, puffing his cigarette. “She died.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too. We had a kid together. That’s why I’m here getting my shit together because I just found out I’m going to be a grandpa in five months. It’s amazing what you’ll do for family.”
“Amen,” I said.
He looked over at me and smirked. “You’re here for your family?”
“I’m here so my mom won’t kill herself,” I mumbled.