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“Yeah.” I sank into the nearest easy chair and stared at the floor, wanting to slide through the cracks. “You're right.” I knew Mom was nearby in the kitchen. She didn't, as a rule, get into the middle unless necessary. Suddenly, I knew that she, too, felt violated. Used. And rightly so.

Dad handed me the money for the court cost, and I knew he did it only because it would ease some of his and Mom's financial strain. On another level, I knew he did it because he loved me.

But loving me shouldn't mean keeping me up all my adult life. Loving me shouldn't mean I was entitled to drain all their savings as I'd done, ruined their retirement years.

I realized another thing. Despite all my screaming and demands, all my bravado and arrogance, I'd been fearing this time — when being set “free” became a stark reality.

It was here. Now.

I have my space.

And it spooks me.

“You must take the steps. There is no elevator.”

— A Recovering Addict Proverb

 

 

 

 

 

Tonight, when Dan complained about Faith's deficits, I reminded him. “We've come so far, honey. If you'll just remember back to a little over two years ago when Faith went off the deep end …”

Two years earlier:

I'd known something in Faith's behavior was off-kilter. Had felt it for weeks. It went beyond her sitting on the porch smoking herself to death and avoiding viable relationships. Her temper, never pleasant to deal with, grew increasingly caustic. Paranoia sprang up in every attempt at conversation, beyond her usual wariness. She kept to her room more with her door locked.

Unfamiliar cars appeared in the driveway and she would jump in and disappear with them for spells. Not overnight. She drew the fuzzy line there, just enough to keep from being tossed out. Dan fussed and I tried to calm him. “We can't expect her to vegetate here, Dan,” I
would say to placate him. “She needs a little time outside her four walls.”

But I was uneasy.

Still, I didn't expect the axe to fall the way it did.

“I'm so sorry,” I said to the hospital medical staff at the nurse's station.
They all looked at me with abject pity. Embarrassment overwhelmed me, and I turned away and went back to Faith's room in the ER.

“Get me some food!” she shrieked. “
Now!”
Purple stains blotched her hospital gown, medicinal remnants of the stomach purging. Her eyes remained glazed, slightly wild.

Her hateful, abrasive attitude and demands had, by now, driven the staff up the wall. She'd already insulted and ordered one poor nurse from her room. I'd overheard the staff discussing committing her to the psychiatric ward, but they had no available beds at that time.

I knew they saw me standing nearby, but by then, they didn't truly care that I heard them. After all, I was part and parcel of the package called Faith. It shamed me.

The crisis had erupted just hours before when Faith came stumbling down the stairs at home, nearly incoherent. “I want to die,” she declared. “Just let me die.”

I'd heard her dramatics before, but this time seemed different. And since her suicide attempt, I really heard her when she wished for death. She slumped into a kitchen chair, head on the table, and continued a black diatribe of pain and death wishes. Soon, the tone changed and she began twitching and screaming with pain.

Dan called 911 and the ambulance arrived within minutes. I followed the ambulance in my car and Dan
followed minutes later in his. He never knew when he would get an emergency call from his asphalt crew.

Once at the hospital, Faith was able to sign herself in, taking responsibility for any arrears. This was critical because Dan and I could not assume any more liability for her. At the same time, she also forbade the staff to reveal any blood test results to her parents.
Déjà vu.
Again, there was nothing we could do about it because she was of age.

The day was a nightmare permeated with Faith's shrieks and demands. Both Dan and I felt shredded and helpless as she ran the show. Hours later, after pumping her stomach of whatever and running an IV, the doctor on call called us out into the hallway.

“Listen,” he said quietly, “you two seem like good folks. You don't deserve this. I can't reveal anything about what we found in Faith's system because she's of age and insisted we not. But I will say this — if you don't put her out and force her to stand on her own two feet, she
will
end up dead.”

We left the hospital in separate cars because Faith had focused in on me to browbeat and Dan refused to let her do that. By the time we all got home, the two of them were going at it like gangbusters. I knew the neighbors could hear them and no amount of my shushing them cut a dent.

The language was harsh and unrestrained. Faith's profanities went beyond her customary swearing.

“You're outta here,” Dan yelled at one point and tried to bodily remove Faith. She went so limp he couldn't even push her. I was amazed at how strong she was following the health crisis she'd just experienced.

“I don't have anywhere to go!” she screamed at him.

“Call one of your friends who're always showing up at odd hours. Where are they now? Huh?”

“I hate you. I hope you drop dead!”

Dan laughed his angry laugh. “Tough. I'm not going to die any time soon so you just as well decide to leave peacefully because you … are … going.”

I stood aside, shock splintering me as it all escalated, getting worse and worse. At one point, as Dan struggled with Faith to get her out of the bathroom with her holding onto the door with both hands, Dan fell against me and I nearly stumbled.

“Mama!” Faith screamed. “Are you all right?” I heard genuine concern in her voice as Dan turned to examine me. “Have you hurt her?” she cried, glaring at her father.

“I'm all right,” I murmured through numb lips. “Look, all this fighting isn't solving anything. Dan, let's give Faith till morning to find someone to come get her.”

So in the end, that's what we did. Dan didn't give an inch.

And somewhere deep, deep inside me, I knew that the end was here. That old familiar, sickening grip of betrayal held me captive, turning my insides and extremities numb and cold. It stole my hope.

Dan was right. We were, finally, on the same page.

I could no longer protect Faith from herself.

It was her turn.

Today, I reminded him. “So you see, Dan, she has come a long, long way toward at least a more normal life.”

He sighed and rocked sedately in the chair next to me as we listened to April evening sounds. Soft mild breezes whispered through the Tulip Tree, whose huge buds now shriveled while vivid yellow and purple pansies still stood proudly along our sidewalk, unaware that in a few weeks, they, too, would succumb. Birds chirped and a squirrel frolicked along spruce limbs and sprang to a white-blossoming dogwood tree.

“Yeh,” he said quietly. “You're right. One has to look back sometimes to gauge how much distance has been covered. I'm just so tired, honey. You know I love Faith. With all my heart, I love her. It's just hard for me to watch somebody waste their life away.”

“I know.” I sighed. “But she is looking for a job. Let's just chill out and trust God to set things right.”

Dan winked at me and reached for my hand. “We can believe all we want for somebody. But that person must be willing to change.”

It happened out of the blue.

Priss called me. “Deede, can you come over here? I have something to show you.”

“Sure,” I replied, concerned. Priss never summoned me to her house. She usually came to mine on a whim. “Is anything wrong, Priss?”

“Just come on over.”

By the time I got there, I was tied in knots. My gut told me something reprehensible had happened. But what?

Priss met me at the door of her beautiful log home. It was, like Priss, extraordinary. Its golden wooden exterior and interior were warm and embracing. Simple but elegant. The country décor completed the sense of welcome.

But Priss' face was ashen as she took me by the hand and led me into her bedroom with its Paul Bunyan furniture. “Sit on the bed,” she said as she reached into the matching dresser drawer and pulled out a Greenville Newspaper and handed it to me.

“Wh — ?” I looked over the page and then I saw her.

Faith. A photo of her lounging in an easy chair accompanying the half-page article. The heading read, “Woman searches for biological grandmother.” The story told of my date and place of birth and expressed how nature itself compelled one to search out their natural roots.

My fingers lost their grip and the paper slid to the floor and landed with a quiet slide. So at odds with my churning insides. “Why?” I whispered.

Priss sat down on the quilted bedspread beside me and took my icy hand in hers. Hers, too, were cold.

“What are we gonna do,” I murmured hoarsely. “What if Mom finds out?”

“Honey,” Priss looked at me with stricken eyes, “she probably already knows. She takes the Greenville News.”

“I can't believe Faith did this,” I said as tears pushed behind my eyes. “Didn't she know that — ” I couldn't say another word as tears spilled over.

For once, Priss couldn't console me.

She, too, wept.

“Why, Faith?” I could hardly control my rage.

“Mom,” Faith said gently and I knew she, too, fought emotions. “I wanted to do it for you.”

“But Faith, why so public? Why didn't you do something more — subtle?”

“Because the block on adoption records is like an ancient castle fortified by not only moats and chains but crocodiles and every manner of fire-breathing dragon, Mom. It was the only way I could get your vital statistics out there, taking a chance that your birth mother might see it and recognize who you are.”

“What if Noni sees it?”

“What if she doesn't?”

“But she subscribes to this paper.”

A long silence. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Faith looked at me then, regret in her eyes. “I'm sorry, Mama.” She shook her head slowly, her eyes misting. “I wouldn't hurt Noni for anything. I guess I just wasn't thinking.” An elaborate, clumsy shrug. “Mark up another dumb thing for me. I just can't get things right, can I?” She got up and retreated upstairs, her steps slow and heavy.