“Does your friend Kimberley know that you took the Oxycodone? Open your eyes.” When I don’t answer, he grasps my chin through the open shower door.
“No.” Like a child in trouble, I squeeze my eyes tighter and tremble even more. I blindly reach for the nozzle, but he slaps my hand away.
“You have to stay awake, Mrs. Hamilton.” The frigid water temperature causes me to shake violently now and he keeps a firm grip on me by forcefully holding my head under the water.
“I hate you.”
“I didn’t get that impression.” I open my eyes to look at him.
“I…hate…you,” I enunciate slowly, as if teaching him English. This inexplicable wounded look crosses his face and then it’s gone.
“You’re sure you’re the real deal?” His implication cuts across my soul.
“I’m not…what you think I am. I…loved Evan. He loved me.”
I finally start to cry. Jake eventually lets go of me. I stare at him through my tears and glimpse the same haunted look from earlier. Two incongruent thoughts assault me at the same time: Evan is dead. I’ve just kissed and almost had sex with someone else, another man. The grief returns in full force at my own admission. I slide down the marble wall of the shower and let the water all but drown me. My cries of sorrow and this endless pain come from deep inside. The bathroom door opens and then closes. I’m thankful for the privacy in which to bear this horrible resounding heartbreak alone. The pain is worse than ever.
*
Indeterminable time goes by. I struggle to come to a stand and finally reach the faucet and turn the temperature from cold to hot. I wash the residue of vomit from my hair and face with a mixture of water, soap, and shampoo. Eventually, I regain enough sense of self to turn the water off. The black silk dress clings to me now, in ruins. Like me.
I emerge from the shower, dripping water everywhere, just as he returns to the bathroom suite. He holds on to me and strips off my dress. Naked, I stand before him and tremble uncontrollably as tears stream down my face. I can’t stop crying now.
Dispassionate, he wraps me up in a bath-size spa towel and pulls me along into the bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed and dazedly watch him search through my suitcase and the dresser for clothing.
Tears still stream down my face. He returns to me a few minutes later, takes the towel away and pulls a black Van Halen t-shirt of Evan’s over my head and helps me shimmy into underwear and black jeans and coaxes shoes on my feet. Then, he towel-dries my hair and combs it through with his fingers. This ritual is done in complete silence and I close my eyes to avoid looking at him. I feel his hands on my face, wiping away my tears. With reluctance and this rising shame, I open my eyes, but avoid looking directly at him. Instead, I try to concentrate on the Monet replica on the wall behind him, while the room still shimmers.
“I called an ambulance,” he says. “The vomiting probably helped, but you need to get checked out at a hospital.” With a resigned sigh, he sits down next to me on the bed. From the faraway recesses of my mind, I experience surprise at his conciliatory tone.
“No.” My body sways against him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Yes..…you are. How do you feel?” His attempt at a clinical bedside manner saves my dignity.
“Tired. I haven’t cried. Afraid I wouldn’t be able to stop. I was right about that.” He just nods.
There’s an out of control resurgence in the sharp edges of grief that’s plagued me for the past week and a half. An endless supply of pain killers or kissing a stranger can’t take it away for long. He puts his arm around me and I lean into him and just sob. He strokes my hair, over and over, and I take solace in this simple gesture.
“I used your cell phone to call Kimberley,” he says after a time. “She’s on her way.
“Okay.” I look over his shoulder and vaguely note he’s hung up my ruined silk dress over the shower door and draped my bra and panties over the desk chair. His unexpected optimism and act of kindness almost make me smile.
“Julia,” he drawls. “I’m sorry. I…I wasn’t thinking clearly before. I’m so sorry. I loved Evan like a brother. I…there’s no excuse for…I’m so sorry.”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly either.” I close my eyes, but experience this spinning sensation so I open them again. “I just wanted him back.” I swallow. “Holding you…felt like him…I just want him back.”
“I know.”
“Too much sadness. Too much grief. Just like Bobby,” I whisper.
The blackness begins to surface again. I can’t follow what he’s saying. I lean against his chest confused by the rhythm of his heart beat and strain to hear what he’s asking me.
“Who’s Bobby?” Jake asks in this guarded voice.
“My fiancé, Bobby Turner. Killed in Afghanistan. Almost four years ago.”
“Bobby was killed? Oh God.” Remorse and this profound sorrow emanate from him now. “Who are you? Tell me.”
“I’m Julia Hamilton.” Blackness drifts closer. “Mrs. Evan Hamilton.”
“Before that,” Jake says. “Who were you, before Bobby? Do I know you?”
“I don’t talk about before.”
I can feel myself slipping away. He seems distant now. I can’t hear him anymore. I attempt to smile, but the narcotic takes all control.
*
“Hold on, Julia. Stay with us,” a voice interrupts the dark tranquility invading me. I try to open my eyes, but I’m too tired. I’m lifted up. My arms sting from the urgent movements. I cannot feel my hands and my feet feel unbelievably heavy. I’m beyond cold.
“Julia, can you hear me? Oh, God, Julia, don’t do this to me.” I feel the fall and rise of the elevator. I hear slamming doors and feel the rush of speed. “It’s going to be okay.”
I don’t believe you. I try to say out loud, but no words come out. I don’t believe you. It’s not going to be okay, ever again. I try to open my eyes, but there are too many lights, too bright, too much.
All these voices calling my name, over and over. “Julia! Wake up! Stay with us!” I wish they would stop saying my name. I don’t want to wake up. I don’t want to stay here, wherever here is. Something is shoved down my throat and I feel myself gagging from this faraway place. “Mrs. Hamilton, can you hear me?” whispers a voice near my face.
I am Mrs. Hamilton. I was Mrs. Hamilton. Now, Evan is dead. I am no one, now. I am no more. The pain is too much, the loss too great. There is no more before and the after is too devastating. There isn’t enough of me left to go on. Grief has stolen too much of me, now.
Chapter 3—Confessions
I’m not dead. I only know this because I see the redness behind my eyelids as if I’m looking directly into the sun and can only watch the hidden world of blood veins and cell movement, experiencing a complete understanding of mitochondria. Extreme warmth invades all of me and there’s this fiery heat at my hands and feet. The tingling pain affects all of my outer limbs, but I cannot move. My throat burns and I long to speak, but heaviness weighs me down as if I’m being held under water, even moving my lips proves to be too much work.
Kimberley’s voice assails me as she argues with someone and uses her best don’t-fuck-with-me tone. “She’s my sister. I have to be here. She’ll want to see me when she wakes up.”
“Visiting hours begin later this morning, not the middle of the night. We need to get her stable.”
“She is stable. You already told us that. I’m her sister. Her only family, now.”
“Fine. Just please try not to upset her. We’ll engage psyche to further evaluate her.”
“Psyche! Julia would never intentionally try to kill herself. She’s…she’s been through a lot, but she has all of us, Reid—”
“I think what Kimberley is trying to say is Julia has a lot of support around her and this was just an accident. Too much alcohol mixed with some narcotic intended to help her get through the funeral.” I feel this jolting sensation at the unmistakable southern draw
l of Jake Winston but don’t actually move. “That’s all, doctor. I was with her most of the evening and she was extremely grief-stricken, but getting more lethargic and that’s when we put it together she had over-indulged in the pain killer. We were all unaware of how much she had taken or been drinking. Just a mistake in judgment. Nothing more.”
“Well, thank you, Mr. Winston, is it? For all of that,” says the voice I don’t recognize. “We’ll see what psyche has to say. We take these kinds of situations very seriously.”
“I’m sure you do. I’m the executor of the estate and her lawyer in charge of all her domestic affairs. The family would like to keep this quiet. Evan Hamilton was quite well known. His death has been publicized all over Manhattan and throughout the states of New York and Connecticut. We just want to ensure Mrs. Hamilton’s privacy and allow her to grieve in peace.
“Of course.”
“I’m staying,” Kimberley announces as her final answer. The sweet scent of her expensive French perfume drifts over me as she grips my hand. Desperate to see my best friend, I struggle to open my eyes, but they don’t move. The door clicks shut.
I feel the weird high from drugs surf through my system and try to fight the inevitability of unconsciousness.
“You just making it up as you go, Winston?” Kimberley hisses. “What the fuck happened?”
“She took an overdose of pain killers. Did you even know that?” Jake asks. “You want her to lose custody of her baby?”
“Jesus, you think they’ll try to take away Reid?”
“If they don’t think she is capable of taking care of him. Yes. And, they will, if we’re not three steps ahead of them. As her family, we can show them how much support she has around her, while we try and get this situation under control. Get the checkbook out. Get a press release ready because we’re going to bury this whole thing so far under; it will be a faint reference in the footnotes of all that’s happened to Mr. and Mrs. Evan Hamilton.”
“Where did she get the pills?” I hear Kimberley take a jagged breath. “Oh God. Julia, what have you done, baby?” Her hand brushes at my face. “How did you find her?”
“I followed her up to her hotel suite. I…I upset her with some things I said and wanted to apologize. We let things get…She started to pass out and it was pretty clear she was in trouble.”
“You need to just stay away from her, Jake.” I try to smile through the edges of my drugged state, as Kimberley takes her familiar protective stance over me. I attempt to follow her heated lecture about not getting involved with me. She’s been put through enough, I hear Kimberley warn. The man has no idea what he’s in for; being on Kimberley’s bad side was not a good thing. I want to hear more, but I lose the fight for consciousness with the remnants of the narcotic still running through me.
*
I open my eyes and take in the unfamiliar room and its pungent smell of antiseptic and rubber. I lie in a single bed that is slightly raised. The bedside stand holds a phone with a Lenox Hill Hospital label on the receiver. I look over at the window and note the vertical blinds are half open, providing a glimpse at a daylight world on the other side just as Stephanie comes in.
Our blonde version of a living Barbie sails into the room as if she’s on ice skates. One minute she’s across the room and the next she’s right at my bedside, pulling up a chair next to my bed and taking my hand and giving me a forced smile. Worry lines mar her beautiful face.
Kimberley and I share Stephanie as our best friend. For five years, the three of us lived together, during our UCLA days with Bobby and again, in Manhattan after Bobby’s death, until I married Evan early last January. Then, Stephanie married Christian last summer.
Evan. I’m brought back to my reality in an instant. I am here and my husband is dead. I glance at Stephanie as tears stream down my face.
“Julia,” she says now. The soothing way she says my name serves as some kind of benediction that things are going to be okay without the perfunctory announcement. It causes me to cry even more. I try to smile through the tears, but fail. Things are so far from being okay.
“Where am I? How did I get here?”
“You’re at Lenox Hill. Do you remember what happened?”
The distant memory of being picked up and put on a stretcher rushes forward. The memories of the potent aroma of rubbing alcohol mixed with the sterile scent of medications, the sensation of high speed, the inquisition of bright lights and all these frantic voices flood my mind. Bits and pieces of the puzzle come back to me. I remember taking the pills. I remember being in the hotel room. I remember the cold shower. I remember Jacob Winston. Oh. I remember. The guilt of kissing Evan’s best friend Jacob Winston and the grief of being Evan’s widow take turns with me, penetrating my soul. An intense need for Stephanie’s continual approval and self-dignity has me answering “no”. Stephanie looks at me in earnest. I think she wants to believe the lie I’ve told, but cannot quite reconcile my answer with what she actually knows to be true. “No, I don’t remember.”
She nods, as if she’s made the decision for herself and plunges forward. “You’re suffering from…an overdose, Julia. Jake Winston found you and brought you here. You almost died. You would have died, if he hadn’t been there.” Fury erupts from her. Her anger is unusual. Stephanie is the serene one, the peacemaker among us, but today, on this day, she is livid, so irate that she doesn’t seem to know what to do. I watch her slide from my bedside and begin pacing the room.
I cringe, inwardly preparing for the onslaught of judgment before I say, “I was sad. I didn’t know how many pills I took.” I don’t quite believe what I’m saying and note it’s having little impact on Stephanie’s belief systems either. She continues her back and forth ritual.
“You took six times the dosage. Any more pills and you would have—” Her voice falters. “If he hadn’t been there…” I’ve never seen her get this upset before, especially with me.
“Oh. I just wanted—” I cannot come up with a lie to explain the pills.
“What, Julia? Were you trying to kill yourself? We’ve been so scared.” Stephanie sits down again and takes my hands in hers. The anger has worn her out. The diplomat is not used to the draining edge of such strong emotion. “We know it’s hard, almost unbearable, but Julia.” She stops for a moment and then, starts again, “We love you so much and if something had happened.” She starts to cry. “What about Reid? He needs you, Julia.”
I have not really considered my seven-month-old son, not since the day Evan died. The grief just took me. I have not been able to really look at Reid for fear I would glimpse too much of Evan’s face in his features and literally break down. My son serves as a constant reminder of all that I’ve lost. Grief has had its way with me, breaking me apart. “I’m not…good for him.”
“Don’t say that. It’s not true. You’re the best mother, the best. We love you.”
Her voice holds such conviction. I want to believe her.
For a single moment, I’m thankful I’m still here among the living and Reid’s mother. Then, the moment is gone. How will I live without Evan? And, I’m not good for Reid, not now. The grief travels through all of me. I think of Jacob Winston and feel the edges of shame. I keep making mistakes. I can’t reconcile all these competing thoughts. “I’m not good.”
Stephanie holds my face between her hands. “Yes, you are.”
Her arms come around me and I attempt to hug her back. The IV line gets in the way. I struggle with hugging her. Stephanie and Kimberley have never experienced the grief of this world as I have. I love and resent them at the same time for this reason alone. But I am bound. I am bound to these people who love me; and now, to a life without Evan. I am bound. I am here, saved by Jacob Winston. I am here and Evan is gone. I cry these endless tears of profound sorrow. I am here and Evan is gone. Gone.
*
Hours later, Stephanie disappears in search of better coffee and some decent food for all of us, while Kimberley sits at the
end of my hospital bed in an unfamiliar jogging suit I’ve never seen. Kimberley Powers does not jog. The sportiness of the navy blue outfit bewilders me. She’s barely wearing make-up and her long mane of dark mahogany hair is in disarray. All anomalies.
“You didn’t have to stay the night,” I say in a mollified tone.
This comment, alone, seems to fuel her aggravation. She slides off the bed and comes to stand right in front of me with her arms crossed, leaning over me. I physically shrink away from her scrutiny.
“I’ve been here for two nights, Snow White. You’ve been out of it for two days with the stuff you took.” Her eyes fill with tears and she moves away from me, suddenly intent on looking out the window at the dreary landscape of Manhattan in December. She sighs and comes back to me. “Spill it,” she commands. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on. You can start with the continual delivery of flowers from one Mr. Jacob Winston all the way from London. Why is he doing that? If I didn’t know better, I’d say—” Kimberley stops and takes an uneven breath. Then, she leans over me and tucks a stray strand of my hair behind one ear and starts again. “I’ve let you down. I’m sorry. I know you’ve dealt with grief before with Bobby, with your parents, but I should have seen it. What it was doing to you.”
“I messed up,” I say dully. “I took too many pain killers. I drank too much and I…I just wanted the pain to go away. Lecherous Uncle Joe propositioned me and Jake… .” My voice falters over saying his name. “I said and did…some things I shouldn’t have.” I struggle with my confession. Kimberley is watching me intently now. Her radar is up and engaged.
“Like what?”
“Like I know his idea of a serious relationship involved two consecutive fucks with the same girl,” I say this with such profound distress that Kimberley starts to laugh.
I feel this release deep inside of me. She understands me. I return a wry smile. “I left the bar; upset and took some more pills. Truly, I just wanted the pain inside of me to go away. He caught up with me on the elevator. Then, everything fell out of my purse. He found the vial of pills and put them in his jacket. I don’t know why, but I remember asking him about why he never did anything with Evan and me. It was always just the two of them. Skiing, hiking whatever. Never all of three of us.”
Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories Page 21
