Before I Let You Go(9)
“Well, Annie can’t really handle any stress at the moment . . . maybe we can convince them to wait a little bit.”
“And then?”
“I don’t know, Lexie. We are really going to have to take this as it comes,” Sam says, and he sighs and says reluctantly, “You shouldn’t have promised her that there would be a way around prosecution.”
“I know.” Here comes the guilt again. I bite at my lip, then I whisper, “I just wanted to make her come in for treatment. She’ll forgive me, won’t she?”
“You probably saved her baby’s life—maybe hers, too. So, if she doesn’t forgive you, that’s on her—not you.” The conversation stalls again, and I stare at my coffee and try not to cry. After a while, Sam reaches across the table and squeezes my forearm. “You haven’t told me much about her, only that you’ve been estranged and that she has an addiction. How long has it been since you spoke to her?”
“About two years. The last time I saw her was a few months before you and I met.”
There is an echoing sadness in Sam’s eyes. “What happened?”
“She moved in with me the year after she finished college. We had some rough years—stints in rehab, ups and downs . . . you can imagine. But then I started my job at the clinic and I really thought she was doing better. She was in a methadone program, and although she absolutely hated it, things seemed stable. But then one night, she broke into the clinic. They caught her in the meds room.” Tears threaten again, and this time there is no stopping them. I groan and reach for a napkin to wipe my eyes. “It was my fault—I’d let her get into the habit of coming in to visit me at work occasionally. I thought she was just lonely. I should have known she was trying to figure out how to break in. I’d left my security pass on the hall table—and I’d forgotten my PIN code a few times so I’d been stupid enough to set it to the same one we used at home. It just didn’t even occur to me that she’d ever do anything to risk my career.”
“I can’t imagine Oliver took that very well,” Sam says, referring to my boss at the clinic.
“That is the understatement of the century.” I sigh. “He would have been pissed if she’d just broken in—but she didn’t smash a window. She walked in through the front door and right into the meds room because of my carelessness. I got a formal warning, but the worst thing was that Oliver—and the other directors at the clinic—well, they looked at me differently. I should have known better, but I trusted her because she’s my sister. It’s taken a long time to earn back their faith in me.”
“So, after that . . . you threw her out?” Sam says. His tone is mild, but when I look at him I’m sure I see something dark in his eyes. Judgment? Disapproval? I frown at him.
“I didn’t just ‘throw her out,’” I say defensively. “I’d only ever made things worse in all of my attempts to help her, and it was only when she nearly ruined my life, too, that I finally realized she had to take responsibility. I enrolled her in rehab for the umpteenth time, and when I dropped her off I told her that she wasn’t welcome back at my place until she actually finished the program.”
I tried to keep tabs on her while she was in the rehab clinic, but per her usual pattern, she didn’t last long. Annie was never uglier than when she was detoxing—and never more dangerous than when she was asked to hand control of her life over to someone else.
“I wasn’t criticizing you. I’m just trying to understand so I can help. We’re going to need a plan. Maybe if we can brainstorm what’s gone wrong in the past, we can think of a way to get her some help that actually helps in the future.”
I hear a clear accusation in Sam’s words, but I’m far too tired to tell if it’s really there or I’m just being paranoid. I narrow my eyes and I say sharply, “You’re going to find an answer that I’ve somehow missed all of these years, are you? Well, I’ve tried long-and short-term inpatient programs, at least three outpatient programs, and I even took her off to a luxury program overseas—she lasted a week. We’ve tried Narcotics Anonymous, several secular NA alternatives, a rapid-detox clinic, and she’s been on and off methadone and Suboxone for years. No one can make Annie do anything she doesn’t want to do—in fact, the fastest way to infuriate her is to try to impose rules on her. What rehabilitation program on earth can deal with someone who is so counterdependent that simply setting boundaries with them is enough to see them—”
I’m aware that my voice is rising and the words are starting to run into one other, but it’s only when Sam draws in a sharp breath and pushes his chair back from the table that I realize how hysterical I sound. I break off midword, and Sam raises his hands helplessly. There’s sadness and hurt in his eyes. I’ve been embarrassed about Annie all night, but finally, I’m embarrassed about something that’s entirely within my control.
Sam has been amazing tonight. He doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of my frustrations.
“Lex, I’m just trying to help. I’m not insinuating that you’ve missed the obvious. We’re both exhausted. We can talk about this tomorrow when we have clear heads. Let’s go back and check in on her, and if her BP is still stable, we can go home for some sleep.”