I’d managed to push away most of the thoughts about the business with the gift card until Keisha and I got into the car after book group.
I wanted to come up with a theory involving Landon’s gift card that wouldn’t implicate either Keisha or me in what had happened, and since Henrietta’s story was still fresh in my mind, I did a brief overview, looking for comparisons between that situation and this one. Who was at fault for the situation with Henrietta? Who turned a family’s tragedy into a billion-dollar biological enterprise? Could there be one person in the line who could raise a hand and take the blame? Was it the doctor who ordered the biopsy? Was it the scientist who first noticed the immortal cells? Was it anyone at all?
Certainly the issue with Keisha and me wasn’t on the same scale as Henrietta Lacks, but was I willing to ignore the morality and ethics in hopes that someone else would one day shoulder my accountability? I shook my head. I was making this too complicated, trying too hard to make a comparison between completely different things.
I took a breath and centered my thoughts. “We need to talk about this afternoon, Keish.”
She shifted in her seat and looked ahead. “What about it?”
“The gift card.”
I paused, waiting for her to explain herself. The light turned green before she answered.
“I’m sorry,” she said, quiet and timid.
I had braced myself for defensiveness and justification, perhaps because that had been my reaction to John’s first accusations against her. I wasn’t prepared for humility, and it caught me off guard enough that I didn’t have a quick answer, only more questions. It was essential that I not show my emotions.
“Why did you take it?”
“I needed money.”
“You have a job.”
“Yeah, as of two weeks ago.”
“You took it before you started getting tips?” I said. For some reason, that made me feel better, though I couldn’t be sure why. “I’d been giving you money. What did you need that I hadn’t covered?”
She was quiet for a few seconds, then took a breath. “I owe people money, Shannon, and I had to make a payment.”
“Why do you owe people money?”
She fiddled with her phone, turning it over and over in her hands, maybe willing a text message to come through so she could put her focus elsewhere.
I reached over and took the phone from her hands, placing it in my lap instead. “Why do you owe people money, Keisha?”
“I’m an addict, Shannon,” she said, the humility in her tone edged with anger. “Drugs are expensive.”
A burst of heat shot through me. “You’re still using?”
“Not right now,” she said. What did that mean? That she wasn’t high right this minute, or that she hadn’t been using for a period of time? “But I had to borrow money from friends last time, and they needed it paid back. I held them off as long as I could while I was looking for a job, but I had to give them something.”
“When was the last time you used?” I couldn’t believe I was staying so calm when inside I was freaking out. I was having a discussion about illegal drug use! I was talking about it as though we were discussing her messy bedroom. I had to be calm about it, though, because if I freaked out, she’d shut down. The calmness was a blessing, and I prayed that it would stay with me for as long as I needed it.
“Before I came.”
“Those two weeks after you left your mother’s?”
She was quiet for several seconds.
“Keisha, if you aren’t honest with me, I will have to talk to your dad.” It wasn’t until after the words were said that I realized what I’d really said—if she was honest with me, I wouldn’t be honest with John. I opened my mouth to restate the words in a way that didn’t put her dad and me on opposite sides of the fence she was balancing on, but it was too late. She started talking—and talking fast—filling in details I didn’t want to know about.
She’d started borrowing money from friends before Dani kicked her out; then, when she was on her own, she made promise after promise in order to get her fix. Why anyone thought she was good for the money she promised, I would never understand.
“And then I called you. If you and Dad hadn’t let me stay with you, I don’t know what I would have done.” She’d turned in her seat so she was looking at me, tears running down her face. “I’d probably be dead, Shannon, I was using so much.”
I wanted to stop this conversation, end it right here, but I couldn’t. I’d already bartered away my husband’s trust. I had to at least maximize what I got out of it. “Have you used since coming to our house?”
The pause caused my chest to tighten.
“Twice,” she said.
My stomach turned to stone. She’d used in our home! “When?”
“Once, the day after I came. I had a small hit so as not to go into DT’s. And then a couple of weeks later.”
“With Jessica?” I asked, remembering that night exactly one month ago when she’d gone out and not come home until four in the morning.
“Yeah, but I only took a little of her oxy.”
“A little is too much, Keisha,” I said, torn between anger and just plain sorrow. “You can’t do any drugs. That’s what we agreed to. You brought drugs into my home? Around my son?” I had to shake my head to get rid of the thoughts of Landon walking in on her putting a needle in her arm—though I didn’t think she’d done much IV drugs. Snorting or smoking was her method of choice.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, crying even harder. “I’m so, so sorry. I haven’t used since that night, I swear. I haven’t touched anything but beer since then.”
“You can’t drink either, Keisha,” I practically yelled. “You’re an addict, and when you drink or use, your meds don’t work. You can’t touch anything that’s going to throw off your chemistries. How many times do I need to explain that to you?”
She pulled her knees up to her chest and dropped her head, sobbing. I stopped yelling and took a breath, reminding myself yet again that she was not an adult, mentally or emotionally. She was still a child, unable to see very far into the future or to understand consequences the way she should at her age.
Calmness, please.
“How much money do you owe?”
She turned her head, still resting on her knees, and wiped at her eyes. “Sixteen hundred dollars.”
I nearly choked. As soon as the shock passed, however, I recalled the street value of many of the narcotics I was charged with controlling as a pharmacist. Oxycodone sold anywhere from five dollars to twenty-five dollars a pill. For someone dependent on ten pills a day, that could be a $250-a-day habit. More than $1,700 a week.
“I’ve paid back almost $200 already, and they’ve agreed to let me pay them two hundred a week until I’m done.”
“That’s why you took Landon’s gift card?”
She nodded. “I thought I could borrow the card, then replace it in a couple of weeks. I didn’t think he would notice, and it would keep Tagg off my back.”
“Tagg?” I repeated.
“The guy who spotted me the money,” she said quickly, then lowered her voice. “Shannon, these are bad people I got mixed up with—really bad. If I don’t pay them, I don’t know what will happen to me.” Her chin quivered, and makeup was running down her face.
I kept looking forward, weighing everything she was telling me. Was it true? Could I trust it? But why would she make this stuff up? It was so incriminating; she had nothing to gain from lying about any of it.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again as I turned onto our street. I pulled to the curb a few houses away, not ready to alert John and Landon we were back.
“I have to tell your dad,” I said.
“What!” she nearly screamed, causing me to jolt as I looked at her. “You said you wouldn’t tell if I was honest. You told me you’d help me.” Her whole face crumpled with anger, fear, and . . . betrayal. “You lied to me.” She reached for the door handle—was she going to run? I grabbed her arm just as she pushed open the door. She tried to shake me off, so I grabbed her with my other hand too.
“Wait,” I said, my mind racing. “Don’t go. Let us figure this out.”
She didn’t close the door, but she did look at me. “Dad’ll make me leave,” she said, her chest constricting with sobs she was barely keeping at bay. “You know he will.”
“Maybe not,” I said, “He might—”
“Yes, he will,” Keisha said, wiping at her eyes and tucking her chin to her chest. “He made me sign that contract so he’d have a way to get rid of me.” She met my eyes with her tortured ones. “He didn’t want me to come home in the first place, did he? I could tell by the way he acted when he picked me up. He could barely talk to me at all. I embarrass him.”
I held her eyes, unable to think of anything to say. She was right—he didn’t want her to come, and he was embarrassed by the choices she’d made. I understood why he felt that way, why this was so hard for him, and yet I didn’t agree with the way he was handling it: leaving the work to me and keeping Keisha at arm’s length.
I’d gone along with John’s rules and his contract because I wanted to appease him long enough for Keisha to prove that I was right and that we could help her. On the surface it was working; even below the surface she was improving—she’d gone a whole month without using. That was a big accomplishment, but John wouldn’t see it that way. He’d see the broken contract and the fact that she’d lied to us as proof that she was too high a risk. What would he think of the lies I had told? Of the ways I’d protected her already?
If he did kick her out, where would she go? Back to the mother who hadn’t known Keisha had been using right out of rehab? Dani hadn’t even bothered to call Keisha in the weeks she’d been with us. Or, would Keisha go back to the friends who had no problem loaning her thousands of dollars to keep her high?
I groaned and closed my eyes, letting go of Keisha’s arm and leaning against the seat. I raised my hands to my face. “I don’t know what to do,” I said, feeling completely overwhelmed. I had to think, and I needed to be the strong one. I started counting by threes in my head, a cure-all for keeping back emotion. Three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-four.
Keisha put her hand on my arm this time and pulled the door shut with her other hand. “I’m so sorry, Shannon. Maybe I should just leave. I’m sure I can find somewhere else to go. You guys shouldn’t have to deal with this.”
I opened my eyes and looked at her. “Where would you go?”
She looked away. “I don’t know,” she said. “But . . . I make trouble everywhere I go. I’m so messed up. I don’t deserve everything you guys have given me.”
“We love you. We want good things for you.”
Keisha removed her hand and looked out the window so that I could only see the back of her head. “Sometimes I think it would better if I just overdosed and got it over with.”
“Don’t say that,” I said to her, unable to hold back the tears anymore. “Don’t ever say that.”
She turned back to me, more tears in her eyes, and looked at me with such pitiful sadness that I couldn’t help but lean over and take her into my arms. We both cried all over again, and when I finally pulled back and tucked her hair behind her ear, I forced a smile. “We’re going to get through this, okay?”
Keisha shook her head and looked into her lap. “I don’t know how,” she said. “Every day I want to use. I dream about it at night, and every time I get stressed out, I think that if I could just chill for a few hours, I’d be able to think straight again.” She looked up at me. “Want to know the biggest reason I don’t act on those cravings?”
“Why?” I asked.
“You. I know how disappointed you would be. I know you’re already so disappointed.”
I shook my head, more tears rising. “It’s not disappointment. It’s fear. Drugs and alcohol enslave you, Keisha; they have already robbed you of so many years—so much life. I don’t want them to own another minute of your potential.”
“See,” she said, managing a watery smile. “You’re the only person who sees any potential in me at all.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “You’re dad does.”
Keisha shook her head. “He’s waiting for me to mess up, I can feel it.”
“Then prove him wrong,” I said. “Go to NA, find friends you can trust, live your life in a way that you can be proud of. If you’re proud of your choices, your dad will be twice as proud.”
“I’m trying,” she said, almost pleaded. “I’m trying so hard.”
She was trying. She’d cut off her old friends, gotten a job, and enrolled in school. Those were big accomplishments—especially for a girl who’d only been out of rehab six months. I hugged her again, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. “We’re going to make this work,” I said. “I promise.”