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“I know of a place.”
She leans in. “What kind of a place?”
“The kind your mother needs.”
“A rehab?”
“More or less. A private community. Surrounded by nature.”
“The kind of a place we can’t afford.”
“We can.”
“Oh no.” Michela shakes her head. “I can’t ask you to take care of my mom. I won’t.”
“Yet what you’ve been doing up until now isn’t working, because if it was, her life would’ve improved already. Instead, it’s deteriorating.”
She gapes at me. “Are you saying her problems are my fault?”
“I’m not, but you’re admitting as much when you take on her faults as your responsibility. When you give up your life for hers.”
“I haven’t given up anything.
“You would if I let you.”
I give her a minute and expect she’ll fidget with her hair as she often does when she’s nervous or trying to come up with solutions, but this time, almost absentmindedly, she reaches for the sleeve of my leather jacket and tugs. “You’re saying you won’t let me? That I’ll end up doing whatever you want?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
She runs a hand over the leather. “Nice riding jacket.” Michela looks up, biting her bottom lip. “What do you have in mind?”
“I’ll make a phone call, have the staff from that place come here, and take your mother to the private facility that will take care of both her injuries and addictions.”
“She won’t agree.”
“But you just did. She will if you approach her with the solution the way you came to me asking for a job instead of money.”
“She won’t. She doesn’t think she has a problem.”
“Then I’ll make her see she has one.”
“She’s tired and sleepy. Won’t even know what you’re saying.”
I’ve reasoned with people in much worse condition than tired and sleepy. The bullshit clears out of people’s heads when they hear things they want to hear, namely, when they hear a promise of a better future. “I have a way of getting what I want.”
Michela shakes her head. “Gordon tried. Got her into rehab. She lasted two weeks, and after she came home, she started right back up and ended up worse than before she went in. I’m afraid of that happening again.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“I don’t know, Corrado. She doesn’t even know you.”
“Ten minutes.”
I would’ve spoken with the mother anyway, but getting Michela’s approval makes it easier. It also helps that she’ll get back to packing while her mom and I chat.
An hour later, Denise is awake and as sober as she’ll get near midnight. With shaking hands, she walks out of the apartment and into the back of a luxury van, where three nurses tend to her as she lies on a stretcher. Her doctor shakes my hand and promises she’ll keep me in the loop and update me often via an app.
After the van departs, my wife and I stand on the sidewalk. She’s holding the kind of duffel bag they hand out in the military and suppressing tears.
