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The doctor leaves her room and offers me a smile that is equally sympathetic and far more defeated than the nurses.
I speak first. “Was there pain?”
He shakes his head. “We believe she slipped into a coma almost immediately. There’s no sign of a struggle and no sign of injury other than—”
He stops and I finish for him. “Other than the needle tracks.”
He nods and we both fall silent.
Finally, I ask if I can see her. He nods and opens the door to allow me in. As soon as I enter, the orderly finishes wrapping the last cable and pulls the iv stand out of the room with him. I hear the doctor draw the curtain behind me so I can have some privacy.
I stare down at her thin, wasted body, looking so much older than her thirty-one years. Her arms are skin and bones, pale except for a line of angry red welts where she injected herself with the peace and calm she could never find in real life. Her face is sunken and sallow and she looks so unlike the bright, vibrant young woman I remember that I don’t even cry.
It feels like I’m staring at a stranger. Surely this isn’t Rosemary. This can’t be the strong, confident leopard I watched grow from a cub to a powerful adult. It can’t be possible that some prick with a motorcycle and a Dimebag of brown powder could have reduced her to the wafer-thin shell I see before me.
I feel a surge of rage as I think about him. I should have killed him. I should have ripped his beating heart out of his chest and jabbed his fucking needles into his eyes. I should have eaten him and shit him out somewhere in the mountains like the fucking waste he was. I should have…
I sigh. It wouldn’t have mattered. I could have killed him thousand times over and my sister would still have gotten addicted and still would have died, leaving behind a grieving brother and parents who will spend the rest of their lives blaming themselves for her own poor choices and a daughter—
Oh my God. Angel.
I leave the room and flag down the doctor. “Where’s her daughter?” I ask.
His eyes grow wide and I know the thought in his head before he speaks it. “We didn’t know about a daughter. She was found in an alley, unresponsive. We came straight here—”
I don’t wait for him to finish. Once more, I am filled with panic but this time it’s for the little girl who for a brief period looked like she might be my sister’s salvation.
As I drive to Rosemary’s apartment, I recall how happy she was when she found out she was pregnant. She told me enthusiastically how excited she was to be a mom and swore up and down that she was off the needle for good.
And she kept her promise, at least at first. For a solid eighteen months, she never touched a needle. I recall how happy it made me to see her filling out again, to see life and brightness in her eyes once more. I think of how she visited me one day and as I played with Angel, I thought that our troubles were behind us, that finally, my sister could be the woman she was meant to be and not just another statistic.
Then, barely a month after she stopped breastfeeding Angel, she used it again. She wept and swore it was the last time but of course, it wasn’t. Finally, when a concerned neighbor called me because she saw Angel playing with a needle, I tried to have Angel removed and placed in my custody. Rosemary called me an asshole and a jerk and moved to a different city, cutting off all contact with me.
I haven’t seen Angel in over a year and wonder if she’ll recognize me.
I rush to my sister’s apartment and see the door open. She was either already high when she left the house or so desperate for her drugs she forgot about her three-year-old child.
Thankfully, Angel is still in the apartment. She sits on the couch with her fingers in her mouth, staring at me.
“Hi Angel,” I say softly. “I’m your uncle Raymond. Do you remember me?”
She nods and allows me to pick her up and carry her out of the apartment. The place is littered with needles and bottles and as soon as we’re outside, I check her for pricks and injuries. By some miracle, she’s perfectly unharmed and I am able to take her home instead of to an emergency room.
As soon as we walk into my house, she says, “Uncle Raymond, where’s Mommy?” What she calls me sounds more likeUnkawaymon.
“She’ll be here soon, sweetie,” I lie. “Let’s get you some lunch, what do you say?”
I make her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and set her up in the living room watching cartoons. I hold everything in until she’s in bed for a nap an hour later.
Then I go to my room and the tears I’ve suppressed since I got the phone call escape in a rush and I collapse onto the bed, my chest heaving with sobs.
CHAPTER THREE
Kelly
I settle into my couch with a glass of wine and a bowl of ice cream and sigh contentedly. Carly and Caleb are visiting my sister three towns over and I have the entire evening and all of tomorrow morning to myself. I’m just about to turn the TV on and begin my night of relaxation when I hear the doorbell ring. I ignore it the first time, hoping that whoever is trying to sell me something or talk to me about religion or ask if they can include me in a survey will assume I’m not home and leave.
I ignore the second ring as well but when the bell rings a third time, I sigh and accept my fate. I head downstairs, grumbling, and open the door. “What?” I say in a voice that isn’t exactly rude but couldn’t be described as pleasant either.
