by E. McNew
To make myself feel better, I began to have second thoughts about it. I did like that it was so much stronger. It only took one line to keep me high for six hours, compared to twenty minutes! I thought that it would probably save money too. Feeling mixed up, I let myself cry some more after getting off the phone with Megan. I found Derrick and yelled at him. “Well, Derrick, if you’re going to play games like this, you better come up with some more shit because now I’m coming down and I am miserable and I have to pack to get ready to move into my apartment. Figure it out.” He was a little dumbfounded. I was too. After crying again, I realized that I had better start packing. I didn’t have time to sit around crying if I was going to get into my new townhouse on schedule. I didn’t know what to think or feel, but I did know that I had to get things done, and I couldn’t let this drama get in the way. I started packing so I could move on Tuesday.
Derrick got more meth, and I snorted and snorted and packed and packed. Luckily Josh had picked up the girls before it all started. I felt bad for them. I knew that I was not being a good mom. Although I loved them with all my heart and provided them with what they needed, I wasn’t being fair to them. For being the only person they had to rely on to keep them safe, being spun out on drugs was just totally.
I had just a few hours of sleep when Sunday morning arrived. Hours earlier, my body couldn’t handle staying awake any longer, and I had started to hallucinate. Derrick had been talking about some little girl in the house that was really a ghost. I had to go to bed. He was losing it even more than I was.
My eyes opened to sunshine glaring through the curtains and the sound of Derrick in the shower. I stared up at the ceiling wondering if Chloe and Zoe were having fun with their dad. I had a sudden flash before my eyes. It was Chloe and Zoe. They were drifting away from me and slowly flying towards the sky. They were holding hands, laughing, and wearing angel wings. They were waving “bye-bye.” I snapped my head up. I didn’t know what this sudden vision meant, and I didn’t want to know. I had the chills and couldn’t shake it off. I got out of bed and started cleaning the house. I had to block this from my thoughts.
From that Sunday morning to the morning of moving day, I did not sleep one second. I packed, got high, and packed some more. At that point I was mainly snorting meth just to stay awake and keep the downer effects from defeating me. Tuesday morning Derrick had to get the girls ready for daycare. I was so tired I couldn’t function. Before leaving the house, he had McDonalds breakfast at the table. “I don’t want to eat - thanks though,” I said. “You need to eat right now. You are all sucked up, and I don’t go for that kind of girl!” he demanded. Whatever, I thought. The girls were happily eating at the table. I sat down and took my first bite of a breakfast sandwich. It hurt my mouth to eat. My mouth had been so dry for so long, and it wasn’t used to having food in it. It felt like the skin on the roof of my mouth was peeling off with each bite.
Derrick started yelling at me. “Dammit Elizabeth! Quit doing that; you’re scaring me!” “Quit doing what?” I asked, totally confused. “You keep falling asleep while you’re sitting there! Wake up so we can get this move done!” I didn’t even know that I was falling asleep. I began to cry. I was scared and upset that I was getting yelled at for being overly tired. “You need to drive the car,” I said. “Obviously if I am falling asleep it isn’t safe for the girls.” He refused. He didn’t want to get pulled over because he would go to jail for driving on a suspended license. “I’ll keep you awake, don’t worry.” he replied. We put the girls in the car, and I tried to mentally prepare myself for the five-minute drive to their daycare. We made it safely, dropped them off in their classrooms, and got back into the car. We headed to the college to pick up my paycheck then back to finish packing what was left.
Later at the townhouse complex and in the manager’s office, I was praying to God that I could make it through signing the lease. I looked horrible, with dark circles under my eyes, and probably a look of disorientation on my face. As I sat down, I was secretly pinching my forearm the entire time. I knew that if I fell asleep during the lease signing, it would raise a red flag. I told the manager that I was really sick. She seemed to believe me. After the lease was signed, she handed me the keys and I was free to check out my new home. Derrick was waiting for me in the car. He couldn’t be on the lease because of the domestic dispute from his previous relationship. I walked up to the car and flagged for him to get out. We found my apartment and unlocked the door. I was so exhausted but really pleased with how nice it was. Everything was new and clean and that was all that I wanted for my girls.
Driving back to my mother’s home to get the last of my belongings, I started to panic when I saw someone lying in the middle of the road. “What the hell!” I screamed. “What?” Derrick asked in a panic. “Is that a…dead…body?” I panicked even more. The closer I drove to this figure in the road, the more real it looked. “What the hell are you talking about?” Derrick asked. As I passed the figure, I realized that it was only a black trash bag. “Oh…just a…trash bag,” I panted. This was the first vivid, drug-induced hallucination that I had. I was sure that it was a dead body. Of course I was relieved that it was not. When I arrived at my mother’s house for the last trip, I called Josh and got him to agree to take Chloe and Zoe for the night. I didn’t tell him why, but I knew that it would be dangerous for me to be responsible for the girls during the move. By 11:00 that night everything was moved. We fell asleep on a futon and slept hard for fifteen hours.
Chapter 29
This is by far the most difficult chapter of my life. This is the first time I have ever sat down to recall every painful moment and memory. I am not doing this to simply tell a story. I am not doing this for self-therapy. I am doing this to send a message to as many people as possible. A message that says “Yes, it CAN happen to you.” You are never completely safe. The world, and life in general, is very unpredictable. Love yourself first. If you don’t care for yourself as you would a small child and protect your health and well being first and foremost, you will be of no use to anyone else.
It’s 6:21 a.m., January 31, 2014. I’m sitting outside on my back patio in the dark and sipping coffee. After a couple weeks of procrastination, I decided to be brave and write this as thoroughly and accurately as possible. This was the life changing tragedy that determined the direction of the rest of my life, the lives of my family, and the lives of my precious little girls. They were only 19 months and 2-1/2 years old. It’s still incomprehensible to me today that there exists such evil in our world. It is something so terrible, yet society rarely hears about it when it happens. It’s even painful for complete strangers to hear about.
Nature amazes me. Although I was just a young girl when I gave birth to my daughters, I instantly grew a bond stronger than any other force a woman can possibly feel. I knew that I would do anything to keep them safe even if it meant losing my own life. I would imagine scenarios of possible dangers, and I would come up with a plan of how I would keep them out of harm’s way. They showed me the beauty of true innocence, and ironically, kept my childhood alive. I remember tucking them in at bedtime and letting them fall asleep to Charlotte’s Web. Then I would sneak in a couple hours later to make sure that they had their blankets wrapped tightly around their little bodies to stay warm. I would give them one more kiss and whisper “I love you, forever.” Chloe’s hair was so soft, and her little cheeks were so kissable. Zoe’s sweet face was angelic as she slept in a deep, peaceful sleep. Something deep in my heart held onto these memories more intensely than others. Something was telling me that these moments should be remembered and cherished. They are the most vivid and beautiful memories that I have. If I take myself back to those nights, I can still feel the warmth of Chloe’s cheeks as I nuzzled her, saying goodnight. I can still feel the soft touch of Zoe’s cheeks and recall how I could have just stayed in that moment forever.
Have you ever hurt so bad that your entire body and every inch of your soul
ached with rushes of pain, tingling through your extremities, chest, and head? Or have you ever cried to the point of wanting to throw up, fall to the floor, or jump through a window just to make the pain stop - then suddenly everything goes numb? Your natural instincts know to protect you from further pain because your life depends on it. Then the tears come streaming down your face because you lost something you can’t replace. When you love someone so dearly and then you lose that person(s)…could it get any worse than that? “Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you.” God played this on the radio many times for me.
The only time I recall being sober for any number of consecutive days during my time on drugs was over Christmas in 2005. The girls and I went with Derrick to his Aunt and Uncle’s home in Quincy, Ca. His parents made the trip from Texas, and I was going to meet them for the first time. Derrick was eighteen when his father’s place of employment relocated to Texas, so they had no choice but to move if he was going to keep his job. Derrick went with them but missed California too much. He went back to the Bay Area where he was raised but really had no place to live. His brother was living in Tahoe so Derrick moved in with him. From what I could tell, he seemed like a pretty good kid before moving to Tahoe. I met his friends earlier that year when he took me on a weekend trip to the Bay Area. They were all honest and nice people, and they all seemed like they had good jobs and were drug free. It was a fun trip and it brought us closer. Over Christmas, the girls behaved like angels and were adored by everyone in Derrick’s family. We stayed for four days, and it was nice being clean and just doing normal family stuff. His cousin had given us her room for the trip since I had the babies, and at night I would put them down and let them watch Finding Nemo. When the movie was halfway through and the girls had fallen asleep, Derrick put his arms around me. “You’re gonna marry me one day, right?” My heart melted. He was sober, normal and sincere. That is when I knew that he truly loved me. “Of course I’ll marry you, what kind of question is that?” I playfully replied. Everything about that Christmas trip was promising and romantic. It gave me a glimpse of the person that he had the potential to be. The problem was, he didn’t know how to get clean. Neither did I.
After moving into our townhouse, everything took a downward spiral. Everyone had a way of justifying their actions and making excuses for it being okay. It was all a delusion. Quickly, we were all high more often than not. Ally, one of my friends that I had met from my biology class when I was seventeen, had been coming over periodically with her husband and their new baby. I didn’t tell her that we used drugs, because she wasn’t into that sort of thing. Derrick didn’t like Ally and Brennen, and I assumed that was why. I recall having them over for dinner. I barbecued burgers and we all sat around joking about random stuff. I had to run out to my car to grab my cigarettes, and Ally walked with me to the parking lot. “Dude, is everything okay?” she asked looking worried. I was not doing drugs that day, so I didn’t understand what she was thinking. “Yeah! Everything is good! I am actually really happy,” I responded. I thought that I was happy. Deep down I was lost and trying to find my identity. My heart knew that my identity was not meant to be a drug addict, but my mind fought it. “I just have a weird feeling. I can’t explain it, but I have a feeling that something bad is going to happen.” she said. “Don’t worry! I promise I’m fine. If anything goes wrong, I will totally call you.” I lied. Everything was already wrong; I just didn’t recognize it yet.
On the day that Derrick got his tax return, we wanted to go to Reno to buy some new electronics and some toys for the girls. It was on a Friday and I was still working. I asked Megan if she could pick up the girls from daycare for me so Derrick and I could quickly go to Reno and get back before it was too late. She agreed to pick them up, and I was going to get them from her at Donnie’s house as soon as we were done. Derrick and I had our fun little shopping spree and hurried back up the hill with a car full of stuff we wanted but really didn’t need. When I walked into the house, the girls were all playing and Megan and Donnie were on the couch watching TV. I noticed that it looked like gum was stuck in Zoe’s hair. I walked up to her and tried to pick it out. It was really, really stuck. It was stuck to her head and looked like gum that you see run over by a tire on the road. “All right, which one of you idiots gave Zoe gum?” I asked, sarcastically. Megan looked at me like I was dumb. “We didn’t give her gum. For Christ’s sake, you think I want to deal with three little devils playing with gum?” she laughed. “It’s weird. There is something seriously stuck in her hair.” Megan called Zoe over so she could inspect. She picked some of it out. “Dude, I don’t know if this is gum,” she said. “Well what is it?” She inspected further. “It looks like a really bad scab.”
The guys were in the kitchen talking about work. I pulled a key chain flashlight out of my purse. It was looking more like a scab. I was totally confused because I didn’t understand how a monstrous scab would suddenly appear out of nowhere. Zoe was in daycare every day, and they hadn’t mentioned seeing any scrapes or marks on her head. “How would a humongous scab like that just appear? She didn’t have any scrapes or fall or anything, I don’t get it,” I thought out loud. “You know, burns will do that. They are just red at first and then crust over after the blister pops. You could have not seen it because her hair was in the way.” I started to feel nauseous. “How the hell would she get a burn on her head?” I asked. “The stove in my kitchen has a glass window, but any time anything is in the oven I keep the kids out of the kitchen,” I said. “Derrick!” I yelled across the room. “What?” he said - annoyed that I had interrupted him. “Did Zoe accidentally fall back on the stove when you were cooking last week?” I asked, trying not to jump to conclusions. “I don’t know! When she’s in there I usually tell her to leave. When I’m cooking, I’m not gonna babysit too!” he said.
The next day I asked the lady at the daycare if anything had happened to her that I didn’t know about. I asked if she fell back and hit her head on anything. “No, not that we are aware of. But yesterday I saw that in her hair, and like you, I thought it was just gum, so I was just going to leave it up to you to pick it out,” she said, laughing. I told her I didn’t blame her for that one.
This scab was a mystery. It healed up pretty fast, but the more I thought about it, the more it bugged me. It was about the size of a fifty-cent piece, if not a little bigger. Even if she fell back on the oven, I couldn’t see how it would be such a big burn because she would have jumped and moved away from it once she felt the pain. It was big to the point that it seemed that someone would have had to literally hold her head on the oven glass for a long enough time. I was always in the house when Derrick made dinner. I don’t remember Zoe screaming out in pain and surely she would have. Once her scab healed, I didn’t think about it as much because I wasn’t going to figure it out anyway. I started to look for signs that would put up a red flag for abuse, but Derrick didn’t display any. Eventually I let it go and resumed life. I thought that if I was taking care of the girls and keeping them happy, that what I was doing was okay because it was a phase that would pass. I didn’t get the chance for the phase to pass. It was already too late.
It was a cold, snowy night in early March of 2006. I had gotten off work and was happy that it was finally Friday. I was hung-over from using cocaine the night before, and knew that the only way to recover was to use more - or sleep. I went home and took the girls inside. As I dusted the powdery snow off, Megan was calling my phone. “What ’cha doing?” she asked. “Nothing. I just got off work and I’m freakin’ tired,” I replied. “Does Chloe want to come for a sleep-over? Kylee needs her friend!” “Heck yeah!” I said. I needed a break - even if it was only a half break. Megan was already out so she came by for Chloe five minutes later. Chloe was excited and I knew she would have fun. “Don’t you want to take Zoe too?” I asked, only half-kidding. “Who do you think I am? Mary Poppins?” Megan joked. I kissed Chloe goodbye and Megan drove off.
I walked back into the townhouse and told Derrick that I was going to run to the store to stock up on some food. My hunger was seriously catching up to me. Using cocaine and methamphetamine always caused me to go days without eating. It took my appetite away, and the dry mouth it caused made it very difficult to swallow. My body was weak and tired, and it felt as if my chest were caving in. “All right, go get some groceries and I’ll watch Zoe.” I walked back out to my car and drove ten minutes down the highway. The grocery store was packed. I grabbed a basket and tried to be quick, but it was impossible with the ridiculous number of people blocking every isle. Was the whole town there?
After grabbing some of the basics, I took a stroll down the frozen isle to get some junk food. I had already been gone about thirty minutes so I called Derrick to see if he wanted anything in particular and to make sure Zoe was okay. “Just get whatever you want. She’s fine. I gave her pizza and put her to bed.” he said. I finished my shopping and drove back home through the whiteout blizzard. I was excited to just get home and binge on food and then go to bed! I put the groceries away and, as Derrick was playing video games on the couch, I walked upstairs to check on Zoe. I always had to be the last to check on the girls. No matter how good their dad or Derrick was with them, I didn’t care. I knew what they wanted and needed the best. Zoe was in her bed, swaddled in a blanket. An extra blanket was piled on her. I thought it was a little extreme so I pulled one of the blankets off, trying not to wake her, gave her a kiss and went back down to make a frozen dinner for myself. After scarfing down my food I announced to Derrick that I was going to bed. “Don’t I get some loven’ first?” he demanded. I was not about to humor him. “No, you don’t want to go there anyway, I’m on my period.” I walked up the stairs as he whined. “Gross!” I was happy to gross him out. I got under the covers and that is the last thing I remember of that day.
