Chapter 27 #2
“I gave her more OxyContin than was prescribed.” Meghan’s voice was low. “That time she said they fell in the toilet? They hadn’t. She’d just taken them all.”
“What?” Rachel’s mouth opened and closed as she struggled to find the words, to form them. “Meghan, don’t you realize how dangerous that was? OxyContin is a very strong drug—”
“I know. But you don’t know what it’s like—you’ve never known what it’s like—to be home with Mum all day!
” Her voice came out in a desperate screech, tears starting in her eyes, trickling down her blotchy face.
“How much pain she’s in, how hard she has it.
How she moans and begs. You’re never there, Rachel.
You think you are. You think you’re working harder than anyone, but you’re never there. ”
The accusation in Meghan’s voice made Rachel reel back as if she’d been struck.
She felt the words like hammer blows, shattering her illusions.
She’d thought Meghan had had it easy, lounging around with Nathan and Mum, watching Real Housewives and eating crisps.
And there had been some of that. Rachel had seen the evidence herself.
“If you had it so hard,” she asked, “why didn’t you tell me? Why did you just give Mum more drugs without even asking?”
“Because you never wanted to know. I know you think I’m lazy. And maybe I am. Maybe I should have worked every night at the pub or somewhere else, but you’ve never even listened.”
“You’ve never told me!” Rachel’s voice rose to match Meghan’s. “How on earth could I know how difficult you were finding things, if you never told me?”
“Because you never asked. You come in every evening moaning about how messy the kitchen is, how Nathan is such trouble, doubting that I’ve even looked in on Mum. What am I supposed to think? That you’d believe a word I said?”
Rachel sank onto a chair. Her head was spinning and starting to ache. “Tell me when this started.”
“Which part?”
“The OxyContin,” she snapped. “The overdose.”
“It wasn’t . . . I didn’t think of it like that. She wasn’t overdosing.”
“She was having more than her prescription, Meghan. That’s called an overdose.”
“But it wasn’t like that,” Meghan insisted. “It was just a little extra, to take the edge off. The doctor had upped it once, and he even said he might have to do it again.”
“So you thought you’d prescribe it yourself?”
Meghan’s expression hardened. “You really don’t know what it’s been like. How much pain she’s been in.”
“Maybe she hasn’t told me because she didn’t want to admit she’s taking so many damn pills!
” Distantly Rachel knew she was being unfair, even cruel.
Distantly she recognized the truth of what Meghan was saying, wrapped up as it was in a lot of self-justification.
Rachel hadn’t been there. Working eight or ten hours a day scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets might actually have been easier than being stuck at home with a fussy baby and an invalid mother.
Distantly she recognized that perhaps she’d always known that, and she felt a hot rush of shame.
“So how much OxyContin did you give her?” she finally asked.
“Just a couple of extra pills a day. Sometimes not even that. Only when she really seemed to need them . . .”
“She might have been addicted, Meghan—”
“I looked that up on the Internet. That whole addiction-to-prescription-pills thing is mostly a myth. It’s not addiction if you actually need them to manage your pain.”
“If that’s the case, you go to your doctor and ask for more. Why didn’t you tell the GP about this?”
“It was easier just to do it,” Meghan mumbled. “And make excuses for why she needed more. You’d be surprised at how easy it is.”
“I am. I am surprised by all of this.” She subsided into silence; it felt impossible to order her thoughts. “So why do you think you’re to blame for Mum’s stroke?”
“What if . . . ? What if it was caused by too much OxyContin?” Meghan’s voice was barely a whisper. “The last few weeks she’d been asking for more and more. I tried to fob her off, but . . .”
“So you do think she overdosed.”
“I don’t know,” Meghan cried. “But that’s what I’m afraid of. And I’m afraid of taking care of her now, of how much work it will be. You’ll just go on cleaning houses. I’m the one who will pick up the slack.”
“You’ve never picked up the slack,” Rachel retorted before she could stop herself.
“See what I mean? You’ve never believed I do anything around here.”
Rachel took a deep, steadying breath. “First things first. I don’t think the OxyContin caused her stroke.”
Wary relief flashed across Meghan’s face. “You don’t?”
“Mr. Greaves never mentioned it, and they’ve done loads of blood tests. Besides, she was a ticking time bomb, with her smoking and weight. But we can check. Have you looked on the Internet?”
“I didn’t want to.”
Sighing, Rachel heaved herself up and went into the sitting room. Nathan was curled up on the sofa, asleep. A CBeebies presenter was showing luridly colored birthday cards to the TV screen. Rachel turned the TV off and then booted up the computer in the corner of the room.
Meghan stood beside her, biting her already ragged nails and shifting from foot to foot.
Rachel clicked on the Internet browser and typed OxyContin overdose causing stroke.
“Isn’t that a little biased?” Meghan muttered.
“Do you want to know or not?”
“An Internet search doesn’t mean anything, anyway.”
Rachel didn’t answer as she clicked and waited for the results to come up. Hartley-by-the-Sea’s Internet was, according to the Westmoreland Gazette, the slowest in the county.
Finally the results came up, and she clicked on the first one, a question on one of the many self-help medical sites, and read the answer.
“OxyContin is not associated with stroke, although it has a variety of side effects, including anxiety, sedation, insomnia, mood changes, et cetera. OxyContin in overdose gives pinpoint pupils, respiratory depression, and hypotension.”
They were both silent for a second, and then Meghan let out her breath in a rush. “So it wasn’t the OxyContin.”
“So now you believe the Internet?”
Meghan managed a wry smile. “It’s never wrong,” she said, and Rachel let out a tired laugh. She glanced up at Meghan, ashamed to see how relieved her sister looked, how little she’d known about what Meghan was going through.
“You can knock that off your worry list, I suppose.”
“Yeah.”
They were both silent, staring at the computer screen. “I’m sorry, Meghan,” Rachel said quietly. “I should have realized what you were going through. How hard it was for you.”
Meghan lifted one bony shoulder in a shrug. “I could have said. And I know you work hard.”
“Life’s been pretty crap for both of us.” Rachel sighed. “Maybe it will get better.”
Meghan glanced towards their mother’s bedroom door. “Maybe,” she agreed without much conviction.
“I mean it,” Rachel said, and she realized she was speaking the truth. “We’ve cleared the air and we can work together now. Things can get better. For all of us.” And for once she thought she believed it.