38

ANNIE

This entry is not for Luke. I don’t even know who I’m writing to anymore. I’m just writing out of habit now.

I left the rehab clinic. I’m sitting under a bus stop halfway back to Montgomery. I hitchhiked here, but the truck driver had to turn off. I was going to flag down another car, but then I thought that maybe I should go back and now I just don’t know what to do so I’m sitting here, and I’m lost in the truest sense of the word.

I know that all I had to do was tell Luke that the thought of sitting in the big group therapy sessions made me so anxious that I couldn’t sleep at night. Those words would be liberating, like so many of the others that I’ve never managed to say. Luke would have given me that kindly, patronizing look and proposed some overtly simple solution. Medication, perhaps, or maybe just some compromise where we could talk about my anxiety before he forced me to go.

But instead, I did what I always do. I was ashamed of my failure, and the shame spawned the monster, and I let it loose. Now I’m in the deepest hole of my life.

I’m going to jail. I keep saying those words to myself, trying to wrap my mind around what it means. I gather all of the facts I know about prison and try to piece together a picture of what my future looks like. I’m not actually scared of losing my freedom. I mean...maybe I would be, if my life wasn’t already such a disaster zone. No, I’m only scared of the distance from Daisy, and the permanence of a conviction. One day my sentence will end, but I’ll be a felon. For all of the mess of my existence until now, I’ve managed to avoid labels that would hinder me from rebuilding a life worth keeping. How will I get a house for Daisy? How will I get a job? Those problems are far in my future, I know, but they loom large in my mind now because a conviction is almost like the final straw for me. Things are already awful, but once I’m convicted, the hope is fading that things would someday, somehow be better.

I’ve met Judge Brown only once. He spent twenty minutes with me, he dropped a bomb on me and then he walked away. He had no understanding of where I’ve come from, or where I want to go. I tell myself he was trying to protect Daisy—and isn’t that what I want, too?

But I’m more than a mother, and although I barely feel it right now, I’m more than an addict, too. I’m a person and I have a history and fears and flaws and strengths, and I deserved for the court to understand me before they made a ruling that tried to shoehorn me into a box. Rehab has never worked for me—the social pressures are simply too demanding.

And now, as expected, I’ve lost my temper and I’ve walked out of the rehab facility and they’ll arrest me. And all because of one more bad decision, it might be years before I get Daisy back, if I ever can at all.

What do I do now? What I want is to go to Daisy—to take her in my arms and remind myself why I have to do better. I want for Lexie to make me a cup of tea and to calmly talk all of this through and help me figure out a solution.

But I know that I can’t do that. The last place in the world I can go today is to Lexie’s house. She told me the address, but if I go there, I can only imagine that she’d have to call the police.

So what alternative is there?

It’s calling to me even now—the sweet bliss of relief and release. All I need to do is flag down a car, find some cash and get in touch with my old network. I could have a bag of powder in my hands in an hour. I’m already telling myself that if I get high, I’ll be able to think clearer and I’ll find a solution to this tangled mess. If I get high, I’ll feel brave again and I’ll be able to do the right thing, whatever that is. This will not be the first time I’ve convinced myself that heroin will give me courage instead of rob me of my dignity.

But I’ve been sober for weeks—if I use now, I lose the ground I’ve gained. Unlike just about everything else in life, sobriety absolutely is a black-and-white issue—you are actively using, or you aren’t. And the call of the high is so strong that it seems inevitable, but so much of my life has seemed inevitable—and where has that got me? Why do I rail only against the things that could help me, and never against my habit toward self-destruction?

I don’t have any of the answers. I don’t know which way to turn to find a light at the end of the tunnel. I just know that I’m blocked in on all sides, but it’s my own fault, and no matter what I do now, I’ll probably be taken away from my daughter and put in jail.

The thing is...there’s not much about this life I have left that’s worth staying sober for. Not without Daisy.

Oh, Daisy.

I remember watching the pregnancy test while the second line became visible. I knew by then. I’d felt you moving...gentle butterflies, unmistakably new sensations that spoke to a monumental shift in the purpose of my body. These skin and bones have had little purpose over the past thirty years other than as a magnet for abuse; by others and even myself. But then suddenly, a miracle happened within this body, and everything should have changed, and everything did change.

When I saw that second line, I stopped floating through my days. Oh, you might doubt that now, since I’m still a walking disaster but... I haven’t had purpose since I let go of my dreams all of those years ago. But then I had you, and I had something to live for. I still stumbled. I still failed. But I kept trying, because when you were under my heart, I felt like my optimism had returned.

I feel so desperate now, Daisy. That word just isn’t big enough for this feeling, but it’s the closest I can use to describe it. I feel like I’m struggling for air, struggling for hope, and it’s all my fault and I’ve ruined everything for the both of us.

Well. Not the both of us. You’re in Aunt Lexie’s house right now, and if it’s half the home she described to me, then you’re in a very nice place indeed...certainly a better place than I could have offered you.

Maybe a better place than I can ever offer you now.

I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know where to go or who to call.

And I can sit here all day and all night and I can fill all of these pages with this despair, but at the end of the day, I’m going to have to take a step in some direction.

Or curl up and die here.

I actually wish it were that simple.