Chapter 17 Ruby
Ruby
I wiped my mouth and turned to see Grandma standing in the bathroom doorway, her hands to her throat. ‘Tell me that’s not true.’
I could have, but now that I had in some way vomited up the truth, I could not swallow it down.
All those days of talking, pretending not to hear people’s horror stories, letting Amber treat me like a ‘survivor’, Jack repeatedly calling me a liar.
Something had changed while I was there, but I did not feel relief at telling the truth.
I felt horror and guilt. I curled up on the bathroom floor and started to cry.
‘I’m sorry.’ But Grandma had already moved down the hall and I heard her pick up the phone.
Who was she calling? I ran out and pulled the phone from her hand. Her face was red.
‘You destroyed his life, your sister’s life, your parents’ lives.
Now I know why you drink. You can’t live with yourself.
Well, I can’t live with you either.’ She reached for the phone again, but I held it tightly.
She clutched at her head then and said, ‘You have to tell …’ but her words became indistinct, and she slid down the wall and sat heavily on the floor as she passed out.
‘Oh God, Grandma, please, are you okay? Grandma!’
Her eyes were unfocused, one side of her face slackened.
‘Grandma!’
She lost consciousness. I knew enough to know this was a stroke.
I had the phone in my hand and I didn’t hesitate.
I called the emergency services and begged for an ambulance.
I had learned that aspirin could help stroke victims – or was that heart attacks?
I couldn’t remember. I ran to the medicine cabinet and then tried to get some tablets into her mouth, but it was slack and she couldn’t swallow. Was she dead?
My mother met me at the hospital ER. ‘What happened? What did you do to her? Were you there in her house? Why did you leave rehab?’ I was sobbing hard.
They had taken Grandma into triage but made me wait outside.
She was given a shot of something in the ambulance, but she hadn’t woken up.
Mom left me and went to the nurses’ station and was allowed through to the treatment cubicles.
I prayed silently for Grandma to the God I had abandoned.
She was the only person I trusted. Maybe it’s why she was the second person to whom I finally told the truth.
‘You can’t live with yourself,’ she’d said, and she was right. Oblivion was preferable to reality, but reality had caught up with me.
That’s when I stopped drinking.