The Perfect Marriage (14 page)

D
enise, Derrek, and Wilma sat in the conference room they’d been escorted into and waited for the doctor to come in. Denise
had called her mom while she and Derrek were en route.

“What’s taking them so long?” Denise said, standing up and pacing back and forth. “Why won’t they come tell us what’s going
on?” She hugged herself and wondered why she felt so restless. It was as if she couldn’t sit still, and she could kill Derrek
for flushing her coke down the toilet. He’d had no right, and it wasn’t like she’d been planning to do any more than a line
or two, anyway, so she hadn’t seen what the big deal was.

“Honey, why don’t you sit down?” Wilma told her. “I know this is a tough time, but why don’t you try to relax.”

“I can’t, Mom! I need to know what’s wrong with my baby.”

Wilma raised her eyebrows. “Honey, I was only trying to help. I’m sorry.”

Denise sighed. “No, Mom, I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

“I know you’re worried. I am, too, so there’s no need to apologize.”

Denise glanced over at Derrek, and while she hadn’t noticed it before, he looked as though he’d aged twenty years. His face
was consumed with sadness, and he hadn’t said a word since they’d walked in there.

“Why won’t somebody please come tell us something?” Denise ranted, walking over to the door and opening it. She looked up
and down the hallway, but didn’t see any doctors heading their way. “Geez.”

Denise closed the door, sat down in her chair and stood back up again. She just couldn’t be still, and now she caught Derrek
gawking at her. “What?”

Derrek shook his head and kept staring at her, but he still wouldn’t say anything. Denise could tell her mother felt uncomfortable
and had sensed a while ago that something wasn’t quite right between her daughter and son-in-law. She smiled, though, and
pretended nothing was wrong.

“I’m sure Mackenzie is going to be fine,” Wilma said. “You know that granddaughter of mine. Always on the go and involved
in every kind of school activity there is. So knowing her she passed out from exhaustion.”

“I hope you’re right, Mom. I hope it’s nothing serious.”

Another ten minutes passed and the attending physician finally walked in. He was a handsome man, maybe in his early fifties.

“I’m very sorry to have kept you waiting, but we’ve had a time trying to get that little young lady of yours stabilized. It’s
good to see you, Derrek,” he said, shaking his hand, “and I’m sorry it’s not under better circumstances. I assume this is
your wife.”

“Yes, this is Denise, and my mother-in-law, Wilma.”

“I’m Dr. Lancaster,” he said. “Well, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just come right out with it: Your daughter took
a lot of pills, and she overdosed. We’re doing a tox screen, of course, but since we found what looked to be one Vicodin left
in an unlabeled bottle, we believe that’s the culprit.”

Denise sucked in her breath. “You must be mistaken.”

“No, we had to pump her stomach, and the only reason we knew to do that was because the paramedics searched through her backpack
and found this.” Dr. Lancaster passed a folded piece of paper over to Derrek. “And just so you know, only the paramedics,
one of the ER nurses, and myself have seen this, so I’m hoping you’ll just be able to deal with this privately. I’ve known
you for a long time, Derrek, so we’ll try to keep this as quiet as possible.”

Denise frowned and moved closer to her husband. “What does it say?”

Derrek read it, passed it on to Denise, and covered his face.

“Sweetie,” Wilma said. “What does it say? And what little thug forced her to take those pills?”

Denise folded the letter back up and gazed at Dr. Lancaster. She fell back in her chair while tears streamed down her face.
She was in a daze. “I…really don’t know what to say. I mean, I can’t believe our daughter would do something like this. She’s
such a smart girl, and this is so unlike her.”

Dr. Lancaster didn’t say anything.

Derrek turned to her. “But you know everything she said in that letter is true. Everything, Denise. And this whole drug madness
was too much for her. We pushed her over the edge, and it’s all our fault.”

Denise stood up. “Oh dear God, what have we done? What have we done to our little girl?”

Derrek sniffled a couple of times and wiped his face. “So what now, Doctor? Is she going to be okay?”

“Well, as I said we did get her stabilized, but her nervous system was suppressed and she stopped breathing. Actually, the
paramedics had to revive her on the way here, so we’re now breathing for her. We had to intubate her, and we’re also waiting
to see how high her liver enzymes are. The thing with Vicodin is that you’re dealing with two totally different components.
On the one hand, you have hydrocodone, which is an opiate, hence the reason she had breathing problems, and then there’s the
acetaminophen component which can cause liver failure.”

Denise had been afraid of this because she knew breathing problems and liver issues were the top two symptoms of a Vicodin
overdose. “Do you think she lost too much oxygen?”

“We’re not sure. Once we do more tests, we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on with her brain function. And of course,
the hope is that she’ll wake up very soon.”

Denise opened her mouth to ask another question, but there was a knock at the door.

Dr. Lancaster turned around. “Yes?”

As the door opened, Denise saw her father.

“I got here as fast as I could,” he said, wearing one of his usual fifteen-hundred-dollar suits. Although, it might have cost
more since he’d been known to spend as much as two thousand, depending on what mood he was in.

“Dr. Lancaster,” Denise said. “This is my father, Charles.”

“Nice to meet you.” Charles took a seat next to his wife. “So is my granddaughter okay?”

Dr. Lancaster stood up. “If you don’t mind, I’ll let everyone else fill you in, so I can get back to my patient. But I’ll
keep you updated as often as I can.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Derrek said.

Everyone else thanked him, too, and he left.

“So what’s going on?” Charles asked.

Denise didn’t know how to tell him, and she could tell her mother wasn’t about to say a word. But Derrek spoke up right away.

“She OD’d on Vicodin.”

Charles lowered his eyebrows. “She what? How?”

“She took a load of pills and passed out.”

“But why would she do that?”

“Because your daughter and I have been addicted to drugs for more than a year now, I lost my job three days ago, and we don’t
have a dime to our names.”

Denise closed her eyes. How could Derrek do this to her? How could he tell her father everything, not to mention all at once?
He knew what kind of man he was dealing with, so why would he try to make trouble for them?

Charles cracked up laughing. “What is this, Denise, some kind of sick joke?”

Denise opened her eyes, wanting to call Derrek a liar, but she knew they were beyond that. She knew for Mackenzie’s sake as
well as her and Derrek’s it was time she told her father the truth—that his daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter weren’t
as perfect as he’d demanded them to be.

“No, Daddy, it’s not. Everything Derrek told you is the truth, and I’m sorry you had to find out this way.” Denise grabbed
her mother’s hand. “And I’m sorry you had to find out this way, too, Mom.”

“I knew you shouldn’t have married this fool,” Charles shouted, standing up and shoving his chair away from the table. “He’s
the one who turned you on to this crap, isn’t he? I always knew he was bad news. I knew just as soon as I found out his parents
were crackheads, and I tried to tell you that.”

“Daddy, please don’t.” Denise had never told Derrek about her father’s objection to her marrying him, because she hadn’t wanted
to hurt his feelings. And then once she and her mother had convinced her father that Derrek was a good man with a good heart—a
man who was well educated and who only wanted the best things in life—her father had changed his mind and given his blessings
to Denise anyway.

“Wow, so now the truth comes out,” Derrek said. “Now, all the family secrets have spilled out in the open…well maybe not all
of them.”

Denise grabbed Derrek’s arm. “Oh God, Derrek please don’t.”

Derrek jerked away from her. “No, since your father thinks I’m such a loser and that I’ve never been good enough for you,
I think your mom has a right to know.”

Charles pursed his lips in disgust. “A right to know what?”

“That when Denise was seven she caught you gettin’ your freak on with Liz and Betty. She caught you with two women at the
same time…in the same bed you and your wife slept in every night. Now how pathetic is that? You’re a woman beater
and
you slept with not one but two of your wife’s cousins.”

“That’s a lie,” Charles spat.

Derrek locked eyes with him. “I don’t think so.”

“Tell your mother the truth, Denise! Tell her your idiot husband is lying.”

Denise felt restless and agitated again, and all she wanted to do was run out of there. She would do anything to get away
from Derrek, her father, and her mother—especially, since her mother sat there emotionless and obviously humiliated.

“Denise!” her father yelled. “Did you hear me?”

Denise glanced at Derrek, and for some reason she thought back to everything he’d said to her earlier. She hadn’t wanted to
admit it until now, but she knew he’d been right about all the secrets, the unrealistic expectations her father had forced
on all of them, and how her horrible childhood had played a major role in where they’d ended up today. So she inhaled and
exhaled deeply. “No, Mom, Derrek isn’t lying, and I’m sorry.”

Wilma swallowed and looked straight ahead, acting as though her daughter hadn’t told her a thing. Denise knew her mother would
never acknowledge the truth, but at least Denise had owned up to what she’d seen, and it was a relief to finally free her
own conscience. Until now, she’d never fully realized how much that dreadful incident with her father had scarred her emotionally.

Charles squinted his eyes at his daughter. “So now this fool has you lying for him I guess. Wilma, let’s go.”

Denise’s mother finally spoke up. “But, honey, what about Mackenzie? She’s not out of the woods yet, and I don’t want to leave
her. Honey, please, don’t make me leave our granddaughter.”

“Fine. You stay here, but I’m leaving.”

Denise gazed at her father with pleading eyes. “Daddy, I’m sorry, but it’s time we stop hiding things. It’s time we face the
truth.”

Charles scowled at his daughter, flung the chair he’d been sitting in across the room, and stormed out.

Denise sat in silence, but she knew her relationship with her father had changed forever.

H
ours had passed, and while Mackenzie had moved from the ER to the intensive care unit, there hadn’t been much change. The
toxicology report had confirmed what they already knew, that it had been Vicodin that Mackenzie had taken, but she was still
unconscious. Denise had prayed harder than ever before, and she just wished her baby would wake up. She wished there would
be some sign of improvement, some sign of hope.

Denise looked at her best friend, Michelle, who was sitting on the other side of Wilma, and smiled. Michelle was such a great
friend, and Denise felt awful about the way she’d treated her for so many months now. She hadn’t wanted to keep her distance,
but now she realized the reason she’d done so was because she hadn’t wanted to take the chance on having Michelle find out
her secret. She hadn’t wanted her to know that cocaine had become a permanent staple in her and Derrek’s lives. She hadn’t
thought about it much before today, but now she knew she was deeply ashamed of what they’d been doing and she hadn’t wanted
anyone outside of their household to know about it. Doing things that weren’t morally right and then hiding them and pretending
they’d never happened was the way she’d been taught to handle things. Her father had trained her well, and now she was paying
a very steep price for it. She would never try to deny the fact that she was a grown woman who’d made her own choices, but
she just wished she’d been raised with better examples. She wished her parents had been a lot more transparent and a lot less
secretive because pretending to be something you weren’t was never good for anyone. If anything, it was detrimental to the
soul. To put it plainly, whenever a person did this, all it meant was that they were living a lie.

Denise leaned her head against the wall and turned toward Derrek, who was sitting next to her, but she didn’t say anything.
She could tell he didn’t feel well, and she knew it was for the same reason she felt pretty badly herself. Earlier in the
day, she’d been restless, but now she felt exhausted and like she had flu symptoms. There was no doubt she was suffering from
malaise, which was one of many cocaine withdrawal symptoms. She and Derrek had both come way down from the highs they’d been
on the night before, and Denise wondered if Derrek was craving coke as badly as she was. She didn’t know about him, but for
her, the craving aspect was the worst symptom of all because with the exception of her wanting Mackenzie to get well physically
and emotionally, there was nothing else she wanted more right now than to snort a couple of lines of cocaine. But she knew
for the sake of her daughter and their family, she had to forego it. She had to stay clean and get the kind of help Mackenzie
had insisted they needed.

Denise did understand her daughter’s plea, and she knew she was right. But what she still couldn’t fully wrap her brain around
was the idea that Mackenzie had taken pills from her bathroom drawer and swallowed enough to overdose. She’d done it on purpose
and while she was at school. Had she truly believed this was the only way she could get her and Derrek’s attention? Had they
actually pushed her to such major extremes? Denise asked herself those questions, but she knew the answer was a resounding
yes across the board.

Then, there was her poor mother, who sat on the other side of her, acting as though the subject of her husband having an affair
with her two cousins hadn’t come up. It was as if she hadn’t heard Derrek. Or maybe she was trying to convince herself that
none of what he’d disclosed was true, but either way, she seemed unmoved. Denise knew she
had
heard every single word, though, and her mother also knew Denise would never lie about her father.

Michelle slightly leaned forward. “Denise, are you sure I can’t get you guys anything? Something to eat? Something to drink?”

“You know,” Denise said. “Actually, I think I’ll have some coffee.”

“Derrek?” Michelle said.

Surprisingly, he responded. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take a cup, too.”

“Cream and sugar?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Same for me,” Denise added.

Wilma grabbed both handles of her Louis Vuitton satchel. “I think I’ll walk down with you. Need to stretch my legs a little.”

Denise stood up and hugged Michelle. “Thank you so much for being here. Especially, since I really haven’t been much of a
friend lately.”

“Girl, please. Don’t say another word, and I’ll be here for as long as you need me.”

Denise watched as Michelle and Wilma strolled out of the waiting room and knew she’d eventually have to sit Michelle down
and tell her everything. As her best friend, she owed her at least that much.

After about two minutes, Denise got up and moped through the waiting room. But when she turned and looked back at Derrek,
his eyes were closed. So she stepped out into the hallway, spoke to a few folks passing by, and then walked back into the
waiting room. Gosh, if only she could get her hands on a little coke. All she needed was just a tiny bit to get her through
the rest of the afternoon and possibly through the evening. That’s all. After that, she would be through for good. She tried
to think of other options, but unfortunately, there weren’t any and she just couldn’t help herself. What she needed to do
was call Butch so he could bring her a small bag just as soon as possible. Plus, she needed to pay him the two hundred dollars
she owed him from Wednesday, anyway, which she could easily do now since it was Friday and her paycheck had been deposited.
Actually, both her and Derrek’s checks were in their account. She knew this because as soon as she’d awakened this morning,
she’d gone down to the study and checked on the computer. Just as she’d figured three days ago, they barely had enough to
cover all the bills that were due, but she needed to use some of the money to get her head right. She needed something to
lift her up, so she could be there for her daughter.

But as Denise walked closer to the elevator, preparing to head down to the first floor to phone Butch in private, the words
“code blue” roared across the PA system. She knew all too well what code blue meant, so she stopped in her tracks and prayed
it wasn’t for Mackenzie. She prayed her daughter hadn’t turned for the worse. But when the automatic doors flung open, and
a visitor exited the intensive care unit, Denise heard a woman yelling, “Hurry, it’s the thirteen-year-old. She’s gone into
cardiac arrest.”