This Is Not Over Part 25

"I'm allowed to get frustrated!"

That headshake again. "Maybe we should table this discussion until you're calmer."

"I want to resolve it now. I don't need this hanging over my head anymore." I have to start eating and sleeping again. I can't take this another night. I won't. No defense anymore; it's time for offense. "It's my house, and I won't sell it."

His eyebrows rise. "I'm your husband. What's mine is yours, and vice versa."

"It was left to me. It's actually my house."

"I never insisted that you put my name on the deed because I trusted you. Was I wrong in that?" He's working hard to maintain his own calm.

I want him to fail for once. "It's my home. And I'm not going to sell it."

"It's a marital a.s.set. We have to agree." I see by his face that he's not so sure of that. "This is a decision we need to make together."

"You mean you tell me what's going to happen, and I concede, no matter that I feel the opposite. That's what we call joint decision-making." My words are coming out clear and strong. For once, I'm saying just what I mean.

I've thrown him off-kilter, I can see it. I relish it.

"Let's talk again tomorrow," he says finally.

"We don't need to. I'm settling this tonight."

"You're being a child."

"No. I'm not." I look him straight in the eye. "I don't like Kimberly, I won't work with her, and I don't have to. I'm going to rent the house out, and we can revisit this next year."

He stands up, throwing his open paper napkin on the table. It flits down like a b.u.t.terfly. Part of me wants to laugh. He just looks so helpless, which is how I've felt for weeks. Years.

I'm not ready to end the conversation. "You can't steamroll me anymore. Not with the house, and not with Thad."

His eyes widen. With surprise and, finally, anger. "You want to bring Thad into this? You want to go down that road?"

"I want him back in my life. He's my son. I want to support him. Emotionally, and maybe financially, if I see fit." I don't know why it didn't come to me before. I don't have to admit to helping Thad previously; I can pretend that it's just from now forward. From here on out, I can take the money from our joint checking account. No more lying. No more hiding. It's my money, too, and it's the perfect solution. Regardless, I don't want to sell that house. I won't.

I'm not sure what's come over me-who I'm channeling, by what spirit I've been possessed. Who is this Miranda?

I don't know, but I like her. More than that, I respect her.

"We agreed not to support Thad ever again," Larry says. "We AGREED!" It turns into a roar.

"I never agreed. I just did it."

"Then that's on you, isn't it?" Larry is beginning to huff. I want to ask if he's taken his blood pressure medicine, but I won't. I can't lose my newfound thunder by becoming a mealy-mouthed nurturer.

"Thad's an addict, and we made him."

Larry's face is vicious. "You made him."

"You think it's my fault that he's an addict?"

He refuses to answer.

"Addiction runs in families, Larry." I don't need to say any more. "You're a doctor. You know better than anyone that genes can be destiny."

"If you talk about the residency . . ." It's the most ominous I've ever heard him. Before I can respond, he's stalked out of the room.

For so long, I've been his puppet. I haven't talked about Thad, or the residency. I've tried not to even think of the residency, but it comes back up on me like reflux whenever Larry behaves coldly or cruelly. Then I think about what he's done, but more than that, what he's capable of forgetting. Joshua Stanwyck's death doesn't seem to affect him at all. For Larry, it's like it never happened.

But I suffer my own guilt. If I'd confronted Larry about what I'd observed sooner, Joshua might still be alive.

I learned from my mother that happiness comes from knowing what's best left unacknowledged, even to oneself, and it was during Larry's residency that I began to hone my overlooking skills. I got in the habit of denying my intuition. I told myself that young doctors had to blow off steam from time to time. Besides, Larry had always prided himself on self-control. On a night out, he never had more than two gla.s.ses of wine, or one mixed drink. I'd never seen him drunk.

But I'd sensed it. He never slurred, and vodka has no scent, yet more than once before he went to work, I recognized a certain blurriness around his edges, like a photo out of focus. I told myself that having a drink or two was essentially the same as sleep deprivation, and that's an ordinary part of medical training. Besides, Larry drunk would be better than a lot of other doctors sober. He was that far out of their league.

Then Joshua Stanwyck died, at Larry's hand.

Even then, I told myself that he couldn't have been that bad in the operating room or there would have been suspicion on the part of one of his colleagues. An OR nurse, or one of the senior doctors. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Larry had imbibed and the patient died in surgery. After all, the man who died was almost seventy, with two previous heart attacks, so the family must have known it was inevitable. According to Larry, they never suspected anything. There was no autopsy, no lawsuit. Larry got away clean.

No one would have been served by Larry turning himself in. He wasn't planning to be a surgeon, and he had the makings of a good doctor. Everyone said so, and it's proven to be true. Besides, he was deeply remorseful. I watched him cry. No, not just cry. He wept.

I promised to never mention the incident again. It would go into the marital vault. But he had to stop. He couldn't drink before (or G.o.d forbid, during) work ever again. Whatever demons were plaguing him, he had to find another way to beat them back.

I didn't insist that he stop drinking wine with dinner. I never said anything about the occasional nightcap. There was no need to be punitive. He felt bad enough about what had happened, and resolved to change his behavior. I believed in his resolve. I colluded with him in pretending it had only been the one time. I was loyal. We never spoke of it again.

In our marital mythology, it goes like this: He kicked his habit, cold turkey, without a single relapse. He didn't need AA or any other treatment. All he needed was my faith.

He says that if he could do it, Thad could, too. Thad just doesn't want it enough, isn't willing to make the necessary sacrifices. He's weak.

But Thad isn't the one who killed someone; Larry is. Who is Larry to cast the first stone, to cast his own son out? He's quick to forget the sins of the past, when they're his.

Sometimes, when I hear Larry talking about his colleagues, especially The Ignoramus, I get a twinge. It can't be good to believe your own press and to ignore your own fallibility. But who among us is good, really?

41.

Dawn

I'm not really an addict, you know. Not anymore.

I thought it's once an addict, always an addict.

That's what they want you to think.

Right now, I'm at my kitchen table with my textbook open before me. But instead of reading, instead of brainstorming for my final Ethics project, I'm going back and forth with Thad, the nonaddict. I guess I can't stay mad at him. I need him, I'm just not sure for what.

Who wants me to think that?

The addict-industrial complex.

What do you mean?

There are plenty of people who make a lot of money by spreading the word that once an addict, always an addict. They tell you that you're going to have this monkey on your back forever, and you need them to scare it off. But it's never gone for good so you need their rehabs, aftercare, IOP.

What's IOP?

Intensive outpatient program.

You've done all that stuff?

I had to. I was under 18. My parents controlled my life.

Do you talk to them now?

This is the hold he's got on me, part of it, anyway. I'm still p.i.s.sed at his mother. "p.i.s.sed" is too mild a word, actually. I have a slow simmering hate toward that woman. She's made me feel small, and poor, and pathetic, which takes me back years. She's regressed me.

But all that's about to change. The VP has already set up my interview. I wouldn't have thought he'd be so quick to call, since I don't exactly have the most impressive resume, but I do have a high GPA and Professor Myerson's recommendation.

I'm on my way. I just have to keep telling myself that, as often as it takes.

I talk to my mother as little as possible. My dad, not at all.

How little?

Right now, it's none.

Even knowing that Miranda's life is far from perfect-that she has a son who avoids her-doesn't put out the fire. I'm not sure what will, but I hope it'll be getting that job. When I'm doing my share of good in the world and getting paid handsomely for it, I'll leave all the darkness behind, once and for all.

Can I tell you a secret?

Has anyone ever answered no to that question? But Thad doesn't even wait for the answer.

I haven't used in more than a year. Not meth, or pills. I barely even drink alcohol.

That's a pretty disappointing secret, Thad.

But he's not finished.

I just let my mother think that I'm in constant danger of relapsing. I text and tweet to keep her afraid. I keep her on the roller coaster.

I'd almost feel bad for her, getting manipulated that way by her own son. But then I think of how she tried to manipulate me with $400 and a feigned epiphany, and I know that he must have learned it somewhere. Thad's giving her a taste of her own medicine. How bad of a mother must she have been for him to be able to do this to her? It just confirms what I've been thinking about her all along.

You probably think I'm an a.s.shole now, for real.

I think relationships are complicated. Especially with parents.

See, I knew you'd get it.

I don't get it. I'm just giving you the benefit of the doubt.

As in, tell me your story. The story of you and your mother.

I'm not saying I never had a problem with drugs. I did, when I was a teenager. Young, like 12, 13. But then I realized I could control it whenever I wanted.

Sounds like bulls.h.i.t. Addicts lose all control, right? They throw their lives away, and they don't stop just because they want to; they can't.

But then, that really could just be what the media spoon-feeds us. Some communications majors out there are definitely working for the rehab-industrial complex, or whatever Thad called it. Spin's powerful.

I played this cat-and-mouse game through high school. I used to let them catch me so I'd get sent away. Then I'd get myself kicked out of the programs. I just couldn't sit still, was the problem. I got bored a lot. I needed to get away from her.

What was so bad about her?

She's distant. She's relentless. She was always spying and when she'd find something, she'd try to make me feel guilty about it. She'd talk about how I was killing her. Crocodile tears.

So she was a phony.

To the bone. Recently, I tried to give her another chance, to open up to her, and it didn't get me anywhere. You can't believe anything that woman says.

She must really love you, though, right, to put up with all your s.h.i.t?

She says so, but like it's something she's cashing in on. A way to get me to do things. She never hugged me.

You've mentioned that.

She never wanted me close. When I was little, she tucked me in like I was a cyanide capsule. I was her job. She wanted to quit but couldn't. She was trying to get fired.

So you don't think she liked being a mom?

She didn't like me, that's all I know.

I've had that thought, too. That my parents would have liked another kid better. That maybe it was something about me that was bad or wrong. Something that my father could eventually use for his own ends.

That must have hurt. I know it does.

You hit me, I hit you back twice as hard. Ten times.

Is that from a rap song?