Authors: Holli Spaulding
“What’s the patient’s name?”
“Her name is Hannah McCarthy.” She puts down her book and starts typing on her keyboard.
“She is still in the ICU. Make your way to the 7
th
floor, and take a right. You will see another desk at the end of the hallway and they will be able to help you further.” Once she gives us the information we are looking for, she immediately gets back to reading her book. I suddenly get really nervous. I can’t believe she is still in the ICU. I wonder how bad her injuries really are. Guilt starts creeping up, and I suddenly feel horrible for just now coming to see her. Adam must see the panic on my face because he reaches over and places a sweet, tender kiss on my forehead.
“Everything is going to be all right baby. I’ve got you.”
“I’m here, too. You aren’t in this alone,” Jessie softly says.
As I’m standing here outside my mother’s hospital room, looking at these two people, these two people who love me no matter what, a rush of emotions wash over me. I don’t think they realize just how much them being here means to me.
“Thank you both for coming here with me today. I’m going to head inside now and talk to her. I’ll meet you back out here in a little bit.”
I take a deep breath before entering and slowly open the door, not knowing what I will see on the other side.
Chapter 13
When I walk in, my mom is lying on the hospital bed with her face turned towards the window. She is silently looking out, lost in her thoughts. Her face is still swollen and bruised, and she is extremely thin and pale. Tubes and wires are hooked up to her arms, and she has a bandage around her head. She is wearing some pajamas from the house, so I’m assuming some of her friends have paid her a visit. I continue to stare at her for a few more moments. I am not even sure what I am going to say. I am at a loss for words. Looking at her beaten and abused body causes my heart to break all over again. I slowly take a step forward, and as I do she turns her face towards me and our eyes meet. The emptiness that was just in her eyes a moment ago turns to sadness. We stand there staring at each other for a while, neither one of us wanting to be the first one to speak.
“Mom, how are you?” I softly say. I make my way towards her and pull up a chair beside the bed. I lean my head down and stare at the floor. It hurts to look at her beaten face.
“I was wondering if you were going to come and see me, Abby McNabby.” I shoot my head up and look at my mother. She hasn’t called me my nickname since I was a little girl.
“I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see you.”
She takes a slow intake of breath like she’s about to speak but I hold up my hand to stop her. A dam has been breached and I can’t hold back telling her how I feel.
“I came here to tell you that I no longer can do this with you. I am scared every time I come home. Scared of who you have brought into the house, and scared of how I will find you. I never know if you will be dead or alive when I walk through that door. I’m tired of cleaning up your messes and taking care of you. It should be the other way around. You should have been taking care of me all those years. Christ, mom, you were beaten and left for dead in your own home. Who’s to say it couldn’t have been me in this hospital bed right now? I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I would have been home that night. When will you wake up and realize that you can’t keep living like this? That I can’t keep living like this,” I choke out.
She turns and looks out of the window, and she’s silent for a long time. I guess she has nothing to say. I don’t know what I was expecting her to say, but silence wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I get up to leave and grab my bag, as I’m heading for the door she calls out my name. I turn to look at her and her face is covered in her tears.
“There are no words to even begin to describe how sorry I am for the things I have put you though. You will never know how much I hate myself for the pain and suffering I have caused you. When you were growing up, you were such a sweet and perfect little girl. So full of life. Always laughing and smiling. You loved music just as much as your father did. My favorite thing to do was sit outside your bedroom door and listen to you and your dad sing together. You have your father’s eyes, skin tone, hair, pretty much everything. I was just the oven that made you. You looked and acted nothing like me.” She gives a small little laugh before continuing. “Your dad was the center of my little universe, and when he died and I lost him, I just didn’t know how to continue living. I was weak, and selfish, and when I looked at you all I saw was him. His eyes, his smile, his love of music; it was too painful. Drugs were the only thing that numbed my pain and made me forget. I was able to take myself to a place where my memories and thoughts left me.
Drugs made me forget the pain of losing your dad, made me forget the regret and guilt I feel over how I have neglected you for all those years. You have every right to hate me, and every right to want me out of your life. Obviously since I’ve been in this hospital I haven’t been able to do my drugs, but for the first time in eight years I’ve been able to sit and think about everything that’s happened. You turned out to be a beautiful person, inside and out, and you did that all on your own, and I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. It takes a strong person to come out on the other side. Most kids who grew up like you did end up like me. I know you don’t need a mother anymore, I missed out of the opportunity years ago, and I have to live with that for the rest of my life, but when I am allowed to leave here I want to go to get help. I want to be the person who I used to be, and maybe then we can start over. I so badly want to start over, Abigail.”
I soak in her words. I’ve waited a long time to hear her say these things to me. I learned a long time ago that you can’t trust an addict. She’s agreed to go to rehab before but didn’t last very long. I know she faces a long and painful road ahead of her, but if she pulls through she will have me cheering for her along the way and I’ll be waiting for her at the finish line.
“I could have been there for you if you would have let me. We could have grieved for dad together,” I whisper.
I want to lash out at her and tell her that I was suffering too, and that I had to grieve over not only losing my dad, but my mother as well. I lost both parents in the course of one week. But I don’t. I can tell by the look on her face that she is suffering from the cross she bears. Despite all we have been though, I don’t want to see her suffer in her addiction anymore. I am not naive, I know addiction is not an easy thing to overcome. She not only needs to overcome her addiction, but she needs help accepting the things that happened in her past. She needs to properly grieve my father’s death, so that she may accept that it happened and move on. So until she proves herself to me, and truly overcomes her demons, I am not willing to let my walls down. Not yet. So I say the only thing that I can think of to say before turning to leave.
“Prove it, mom.”
With that, I turn and leave her room. Adam and Jessie are waiting for me outside the door, and when I walk out they both rush towards me and engulf me in their arms. We stand in the hallway, all three of us, in an awkward embrace for a long time. I can’t hold in my emotions anymore, and the sob I’ve been holding in my throat burst out of me and I cry. I cry for the little girl I used to be, and for the childhood I lost. I cry for the mother I used to have and hope to have again. I cry at the relief I feel that she is willing to get help. I cry because I miss my dad and wish more than anything that he was still here. I cry because I’m so thankful that I have these two amazing people by my side, to hold me when I need it most, to keep me floating above water when I so many times wanted to sink below the surface.
Jessie is my anchor, she has kept me grounded, refusing to let me sink. Through life’s roughest and scariest storms proves the strength of our anchors, and mine is pretty damn strong. And Adam, my soul mate. He came into my life just when I needed it the most. He was accepting of my past and the secrets I thought would tear us apart. He held no judgment or resentment towards me and I will forever be grateful for his compassion and understanding. Through his love, he showed me that true love does exist, and in life there is that one person out there for everyone. He showed me that sometimes in order to survive one must open their heart up to someone other than themselves.
Once all my tears are dried up, I am left with the ugly hiccups that accompany a hard cry. Adam pulls me closer to him and I feel my body start to relax into his.
“I’ve got you, Abigail.”
Those four words have become my new favorite thing to hear, because I know he means it.
I look up into his face and a smile starts to form on my lips. “I know.” I simply say. Because I do know. I know that in life I can get through anything as long as I have these two people by my side.
Two Years Later
Adam and I graduated high school last year and went off to college together. Adam, Jessie and I all got accepted to UF, and we just finished our first year of college. Max and Bryan are here too. Those two are like the brothers I never had, and I’m so thankful they are a part of my life now. Jessie and Max worked out their issues last year, and are now officially dating. We never thought they would make it in the end, but they eventually did, and there is no one more excited about that than me. She finally got her happily ever after, and love has never looked so good on her. Max was patient and kind with her, and gave her the time and space she needed to work out her issues. I tell him often how grateful I am that she chose to love him. I don’t want to inflate his ego too much so I keep the compliments to a minimum.
My mom went to rehab two years ago, and she lasted the full three months this time, but once she got back home and went back to the bar, she didn’t stay sober. She wasn’t able to tackle her past, and she went running full speed ahead back to her addiction. It breaks my heart that she wasn’t able to fight it, but in the end you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. I realized at a young age that she was sick and I knew it wasn’t fixable, but I guess deep down I clung to that fact that she just might overcome it. I moved out of the bar the same day I went and saw my mom at the hospital. Adam’s mom accepted me into her home with open arms. Over the years she and I have grown close and she means more to me than she will ever know. I will always love my mom, and I stand by it when I said that if she chooses to get her life in order I’ll be waiting for her at the finish line.
We are all sitting outside in the court yard on campus, eating lunch and enjoying Florida’s sunshine. I look over at my friends and soak in the view. And what a mighty fine view it is. I look over and Jessie is sitting in Max’s lap, with her head rested against the front of his chest. A small content smile is resting on her lips, and Max is slowly running his fingers through her hair. Bryan is playing his guitar, and trying to write new lyrics for a song. I look up at Adam and he is staring at me with that smirk on his face that I love to hate.
“What? Why are you looking at me with that smirk of yours?”
I quirk my eyebrow up, waiting for his reply.
“Take a drive with me?”
“I don’t know if I want to go anywhere with you. You are never up to any good when you are smirking. I think I’ll stay here with our friends and enjoy the last two hours of the sunshine,” I jokingly say. He knows I’ll go anywhere with him, all he has to do is ask.
“Come on smart ass, let’s go.” He reaches over and smacks my ass, causing me to yelp. Before I can say anything about him slapping me, he leans over and kisses me, possessively claiming my mouth. Even after all these years, his kisses still make me melt. Everyone else fades away and all that remains are Adam and I. Our friends screaming at us to get a room and throwing pieces of their lunch cause me to reluctantly pull my mouth away from his.
He stands up and extends his hand towards mine. “Come take a drive with me, Peaches?”
“You know I’ll go anywhere with you.” He winks at me and we take off towards his car.
I already know where we are going before we arrive. We are going to our spot. Ever since that day, two in a half years ago, when Adam took me to his cabin by the pond, we have been coming here about three times a week. We drive up here and spend the afternoons underneath that old weeping willow, watching the sunset. Sometimes we do our school work, other times Adam writes music and I just sit and listen to him play. But my favorite moments are the times spent making love underneath the weeping willow. It has become our safe haven, our safe spot to get away from the world.
We pull up to the pond, and no matter how many times we come here the sight of this place still takes my breath away. The sun is already starting to set on the horizon, and it’s casting a beautiful reflection off the pond. I look towards our tree and I gasp out loud at the sight I see. The willow is covered in tiny white lights and mason jars hang from her branches with small candles inside. There is a blanket on the ground and more tea lights surround it, causing a soft glow. The song Adam wrote and sang for me the first time we came here is softly playing in the background. I turn towards Adam and he is leaning against his car with his hands in his pockets. He is staring at me and I can see the love he has for me shining in his eyes.