Addiction (13 page)

Read Addiction Online

Authors: G. H. Ephron

BOOK: Addiction
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Jensen's waxy face colored slightly. “How odd. Perhaps the files have been moved to a more secure place, now that …”
“If the concern was confidentiality, I'd have thought patient records would have been moved as well. But they haven't been. Besides, the office is locked. Daphne let me in.”
“As I say, I wouldn't know. But as director of the unit, it's my business to make sure all confidential files are kept confidential.”
“Director of the unit?”
Jensen coughed. “Why, yes. Dr. Destler has appointed me to take over Channing's responsibilities.”
“Acting director?”
“Uh, no. I believe the appointment is permanent.”
Had this been in the works all along? “Sounds as if congratulations are in order,” I said.
He waved away the remark. “I hardly think so, given the circumstances.”
FRIDAY WAS my mother's birthday. I'd wanted to take her out to dinner, but she insisted on getting together for breakfast. It was the only time she could squeeze me in, as she put it. As usual, I was a little late. Also as usual, she wasn't waiting. At eight sharp, she rapped on my door. I opened it.
Her white, perfectly combed and curled head came barely up to my chin. She was wearing a purple running suit with pink flowers painted on the jacket and up the side of one leg.
“French toast?” she chirped, and immediately disappeared into the apartment in the other half of my two-family. I locked up and followed, down her dark entry hall into the kitchen, warm with light, redolent with the smell of brewing coffee.
“But I thought I was going to take
you
out,” I complained. She already had a cup of coffee poured for me. “It's your birthday.”
“So, happy birthday to me. Shouldn't I get what I want?”
I sighed. “And you want … ?”
“To stay here and make French toast for my handsome son.” She beamed at me.
“You were afraid I was going to take you out for dim sum.”
My mother looked aghast. When it comes to food, my mother
doesn't like surprises. She's afraid of what she'll find nestled in the warm Chinese dumplings that about a half-dozen Chinatown restaurants serve early in the day—my idea of heaven.
“Don't worry. I'm not sure we could even get dim sum during the week.”
“Well, that's a relief.”
“I was going to take you to the Spinnaker on top of the Hyatt. They're supposed to have a terrific breakfast.”
“That's the one that goes around and around?”
“Great view.”
My mother made a face as if she'd bitten into a very sour pickle. “Restaurants shouldn't twirl. They should stay in one place so you can properly digest your food. And so expensive. I'll bet three dollars, just for orange juice.” My mother pulled a quart of Tropicana from the fridge, shook it, and poured me a glass.
“Don't you want any?” I asked.
“I've already eaten,” she announced, and poked at the contents of a yellow mixing bowl. There was a fresh challah on the counter, its burnished crust gleaming, and in the bowl were two slices soaking in eggs and milk. Butter was melting in a frying pan. Real butter. My mother thought margarine was a plot—I'm not sure what kind, but a plot nevertheless.
There was no point trying to convince her to let me take her out. She'd taken charge. And to be honest, the prospect of her French toast weakened my resolve.
The pan sizzled as she dropped in the first soggy slice, then again as she dropped in the second one. Then the gentler sound of the bread sighing as it expanded, each slice turning into an airy pillow as it cooked. The rich smell filled my head, taking me back to our apartment in Brooklyn, to the kitchen that was bigger than any other room.
“How's that little girl doing?” my mother asked.
“She's … I don't know actually. She's been going through a difficult ordeal. Plus she's addicted to Ritalin. That's what they give …”
“Psssh,” my mother exhaled. “Ritalin I know what is. How many times I wished we could have given your brother, Steven, a magic pill to calm him down.”
“Not me?”
“Not you. You were easy. Except that you only ate Corn Toasties Breakfast for three years. That and a glass of milk.”
The mention of Corn Toasties brought back the smell—something between cardboard and corn husks. Now I couldn't bear the sight of them. What my mother didn't know was that every day, on the way to school and on the way home, I was stopping in at the local candy store for chocolate egg creams, then at the bakery for a big black-and-white cookie, iced half with chocolate and half with vanilla. I've never found cookies to match, anywhere in Boston. And I've looked.
“Did you ever consider taking Steve to a psychiatrist?” I asked.
My mother smiled and shook her head. “Those days, if you couldn't see a problem, it didn't exist.”
Maybe if they had, it might have saved my brother three unhappy marriages. Or maybe not.
I was halfway through my second helping when my mother said, “I've got to be down the senior center in forty minutes.”
Down the
senior center? Sixty years in Brooklyn and five in Boston, and already she had a Boston accent. At least she didn't say
seen-yah centah
like a native.
She disappeared, then came back a few minutes later wearing her parka and wheeling a black, zippered overnight bag. I stuffed a last piece of French toast into my mouth before she whisked the plate away. She gave the dishes a quick rinse, stacked them efficiently in the dishwasher, added some soap, and started it up.
“Ready?” she asked, and glanced at the clock on the stove. “Thirty-two minutes to departure.”
“To where?”
“Windsor.”
“Canada?”
“Too far to go by bus, if you ask me.”
“Gambling?”
“And drugs,” she said with a straight face. She waved away my surprise. “A person could go broke paying for pills in this wonderful country of ours. And I usually win. Blackjack,” my mother added, well pleased with herself. “Can't win
bubkes
on slots, you know.”
“I can easily help you pay for …”
“That's not the point. Do you know how much money those drug companies steal from us?
Gonifs,
all of them,” she said, and wheeled her suitcase out the door.
Annie was out of town for the weekend. Saturday and Sunday passed in a blur of chores I'd agreed to look after in my mother's apartment. I replaced broken window ropes, rewired a light switch, put a new washer in a leaky faucet, patched some cracks in her bathroom ceiling, and painted. Between jobs, I called in to check on the unit.
I arrived at work Monday and stopped first at the nurses' station, as I always do. Gloria was sitting at the desk—very unusual for a woman who never sits down on the job. She raised her head when I came in and flicked her eyes in the direction of the waiting area. Sergeant MacRae was sitting there, reading a newspaper. Beside him was a uniformed female police officer. They were early.
When I asked how Olivia was, Gloria shook her head. “They caught her last night, trying to break in to the med room,” she whispered.
“Damn. That's just great. Perfect timing.”
“I already read her the riot act,” Gloria said. “She's trying to pull herself together.”
I went over to MacRae. He lowered the newspaper. “You're a little early,” I told him. “Ms. Temple's father will be here at nine.”
I expected him to complain, to say Olivia's father didn't need to be here since, after all, she wasn't a suspect. But he didn't. He just introduced me to his colleague, Officer Connor, a large, thick woman with a pleasant face.
“Coffee?” I offered. They declined. MacRae went back to his newspaper.
I poured myself another cup and carried it down the hall to Olivia's room. She was standing, staring out the window. Her elbows poked out from her T-shirt sleeves; her jeans rode low on her hips. Her face was scrubbed, her hair damp.
“They're here,” I said. “You okay?”
She bit her lower lip and nodded. “Where's Daddy?” she asked. An eyelash lay curled on her cheek.
“We'll wait for him. He should be here soon.”
She gave a ragged inhale. She was shivering.
“You're not feeling so good, are you?” I asked.
From her look, I knew she thought I had the IQ of a frog. “I can't concentrate. I ache all over. All I want to do is sleep. You took me off the Ritalin too fast.”
“I heard you went looking for some yourself last night.”
“I
need
it to help me think straight.”
She clearly did need help. Even sugar pills. On the other hand, why settle for a placebo when we might have a bona fide treatment for her with Kutril? I felt in my pocket for the floppy disk Daphne had given me. “We might have something …” I started.
“What is it about ‘I need it that you don't get?” she demanded, cutting me off. The vehemence of the words made her head shake. The edginess, the raw mood, seemed excessive for withdrawal from a therapeutic dosage. Olivia had probably been taking a lot of Ritalin, and for a long period of time. She put her hand up to her temple and grimaced. Then her glance drifted down to the mug of coffee I was holding. “I'd like to see you give up coffee. You drink about a gazillion cups a day.”
“No way,” I said.
“Yo way,” she shot back.
I looked at the coffee. It was my fourth cup that morning.
She folded her arms over her chest. “I'll bet you couldn't give it up.”
Before I could think better of it, I said, “Sure I could.”
“Bet you couldn't.”
“Bet I could.”
“Prove it.”
I realized I was getting into a pissing contest with a kid. The problem was, she'd hit a nerve. I was drinking too much coffee. I needed it to maintain my equilibrium, as Gloria pointed out any time I arrived at work insufficiently precaffeinated. I didn't like to think of myself as dependent on any substance. The thought that I might not be able to cut back, never mind quit completely, rankled me.
I gave Olivia my X-ray look. “And in return?”
“Would you really?” Olivia asked, her eyes wide in disbelief.
“Depends on what you're offering.”
“Wow,” Olivia said. “Okay. I'll try.”
“You won't sneak any more drugs?”
“Promise.” She ran a finger across her chest one way, then back the other. “Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.” It was the kind of thing a charming six-year-old would say. Or was this an adolescent capable of murdering her mother?
I raised my cup. I took a deep inhale, then walked over to the sink. “Okay, then. Here goes.”
Ready, set—I hesitated. It was like that moment when you're standing on the end of a diving board over an unheated pool. I held my breath and dumped the coffee down the sink. I immediately regretted it as I watched the rich brown liquid swirl down the drain.
Gloria appeared at the door with Drew. Gloria's face was tense, her mouth set in a thin line. Something was wrong, something more than our collective anxiety about Olivia's impending encounter with the police. When I saw Drew, I realized what it was. His button-down shirt looked as if he'd slept in it, and his tie was loose at the neck. He was clean-shaven, in a manner of speaking—but there was a bit of tissue paper stuck to one of the nicks on his face, and patches of grizzly gray shadow where he'd clearly missed. His face was pale, and his lips were overly pink.
He held his arms open to Olivia. In an instant, Olivia went from looking sick to looking frightened. “Now?” she whispered. She went over to him and buried her head in his chest. He stroked her hair, his jaw quivering.
“Drew,” I said, “could I have a moment with you?”
“Daddy?” Olivia said.
“We'll be back in a minute,” I said, and propelled Drew from the room. I continued down the hall, out of earshot.
I stood close to him and said in a low, intense voice, “What in the hell are you thinking of, coming in here drunk?”
Drew blinked at me, his mouth open. At least he smelled of toothpaste and aftershave, not liquor. He seemed stunned. The surprise rapidly turned to anger. “I'm … not … drunk,” he said, the words slamming into the wall behind me.
“Shh,” I said. “There's no need to shout.”
He swallowed and looked around. “I'm not drunk.” He ran his hand back and forth across his mouth.
“You don't think the police are going to get the same impression?”
He looked down at the floor. “Last night. Maybe I had too much.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose.
“Did you find the Ativan?”
“Couldn't find it.”
“Is there anyone you can call? Are you seeing anyone?” I asked.
“Not anymore,” he answered.
“I mean, are you seeing a therapist? Are you getting any treatment?”
“No.” His eyes were rheumy.
“Seriously, Drew. You need to get help. And right now, you've got to pull yourself together. Olivia needs you. So help me God, if you screw this up, I'll get you banned from the hospital.”

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