Free Bird

by Amelia Oliver

  “Thank fuck. I can’t handle seeing her like this,” Boo-Boo says.

  We all remain silent, because we all comply with that statement.

  **

  It’s an hour later when Dr. Hastings arrives. Missy’s upstairs in bed, practically catatonic as Gwen babysits her. I took her some tomato soup, which she smacked out of my hands and all over the floor.

  “She’s up here,” I tell him, motioning to the staircase.

  He nods and follows me up. As we approach the room, I hear her groaning, and my stomach twists because I know she’s in pain. Dr. Hastings sets his bag on the floor by the bed and steps toward Missy. Gwen rises from the chair by the window to stand beside me. Missy’s drenched in sweat, her face is white as a ghost, and her fingers claw at her forearms like an animal as she’s curled up and rocking slightly back and forth.

  “Missy, I’m Dr. Hastings, remember me? We talked on the phone about Sven?” he says in a calm tone as he sits on the bed beside her.

  Her eyes shift toward him and she looks him up and down, maybe surveying if he has drugs for her.

  “How ya feeling?” he asks, reaching down to grab his stethoscope from the leather bag.

  “Fuck you,” she moans, clutching her stomach as she presses her head into her bent knees.

  “Let me just listen to your heart,” he begins, leaning over with outstretched hands.

  “Don’t touch me!” she cries and moves away.

  I hurry over to the other side and grab her. Now is not the time to treat her with kid’s gloves, so I push her back onto the bed.

  “Stop it!” I order her.

  She groans and shakes her head almost violently and even though it hurts me to see her like this, it’s my love for her that compels me. Gwen takes Missy’s ankles at the end of the bed and she begins to whimper and moan, still fighting us slightly. Hastings listens to her heart and takes her blood pressure while Gwen and I watch him with bated breath.

  “Everything’s elevated of course, but-”

  “Pleeease, doc, help me…I can’t take it. It hurts too bad. Please, I’ll do anything, anything,” Missy begins to beg and plead.

  I feel my eyes sting with tears. Her tone of voice, her desperation- they gut me. I’ve seen shit in war that was fucking awful, but nothing like this. Nothing made me feel like this.

  “Do you have anything for the pain?” I ask him.

  His eyes meet mine over his black rimmed glasses. “I can give her a little something, but not much or else she’ll have to detox from that too. But it’ll be enough to take the edge off. If she can get through this first twenty-four or so hours, she’ll be through the worst of it.”

  I nod and urge him to give it to her. He prepares a syringe and injects whatever it is into her forearm while Missy thanks him over and over. Her breathing slows as she looks over at me, then her eyes grow heavy and I feel her go limp beneath my hands. Leaning down I kiss her forehead, running my hand along her cheek.

  “Sven, can I talk to you? She’ll be out for a while,” he assures me.

  Gwen heads downstairs as Hastings and I stand in the hallway. I smell food cooking downstairs and hear my friends talking. I need to thank them for staying and helping me with her.

  “How long do you think she’s been using?” he asks.

  “About a year, Boo told me found her using-but I don’t know if that’s when it started or not,” I sigh. “I’d say her behavior changed around a year ago. That’s when she became secretive about everything, started lying, missing appointments and work I guess.”

  He nods, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. “There are facilities that can help her. I think she’s beyond just needing a detox. Now, I will tell you, these places are usually meant for alcoholics. As you know, her condition isn’t one looked upon sympathetically. Being a woman, my peers and literature would advise me to send her to a woman’s home, but she’s not crazy. A friend I went to school with started this place. Mainly for Vietnam vets dealing with the issues of addiction and trauma to the mind. Since she’s not a criminal and just needs help, he’s willing to take her in. I can’t guarantee she’ll be fixed, but we can at least get her habit under control until she isn’t depended on heroin anymore. This place will help her stay sober and provide therapy to deal with the root cause as to her addiction. I know you have a child and I think this type of place might be beneficial to all of you if Missy’s not in the home while she receives treatment. This being said, I need someone to grant consent for her to go there.”

  “Of course, I’ll do anything for her to get better.”

  He nods and sighs again, replacing his glasses. “Don’t forget you’re also taking care of yourself with therapy that can’t fall to the wayside, and you have a daughter to care for.”

  “Thank you, doctor. I won’t and I know.”

  Clapping a hand on his back, we begin down the steps. I invite him to stay for dinner and he accepts, wanting to stay for a few hours to make sure Missy was okay when she wakes from sedation.

  As we sit down to eat, there’s a knock on the door and I get up to see who it is. Milton’s standing there, and he pulls open the screen.

  “Milton,” I nod.

  “Been getting some complaints, yelling and possibly fighting,” he says, looking at me like I might be guilty of something, like I came home in an outrage and started a fight about her not going to work or something.

  “Can you come in?” I ask.

  “Sure.”

  I walk him upstairs, not caring that he might lose respect for Missy over this. I know he means a lot to her and she does to him, so I think it’s only fair he knows what’s going on with her. We stop in the doorway and he looks at her, then swallows thickly as he removes his hat and bows his head like he understands her condition and doesn’t need for me to explain.

  “Damn, I didn’t know it was this bad…damn.”

  I look at him with raised brows.

  “The missing work and stuff, acting paranoid or playing things off…I also recently pulled her and Jasper over coming back into town. He looked strung out, and I thought it was weird for the two of them to be together. Missy looked terrified when she saw me and I just knew something more was going on with it. I searched the bike and found drugs. Missy swore she didn’t know they were there and she’d called Jasper for a ride since you were out of town or something. I wanted to believe her, to ignore her bloodshot eyes. Seeing the drugs, it checked all the boxes of her weird behavior up until then, I still didn’t want to believe it.”

  “Because you love her,” I state.

  “I’m sorry, Sven. I’ve been feelin’ guilty ever since, wanting to tell you, but I didn’t want to put her in a situation where you might get mad and it be over nothing.”

  “Her life isn’t nothing,” I comment. “I get it…but this is what’s been going on.”

  What Milton told me didn’t surprise me, but I know so much more had to have happened that I wasn’t aware of. It would take a hell of a lot for Missy to ever get that close to Jasper, let alone be on his bike. Did she not think I’d find out? But if he was pumping her with drugs, no questions asked, maybe it was worth it to risk it all. After walking Milton out, I linger on the front porch for a few minutes, inhaling the fresh air and just taking a moment to get my shit together. I should go back in for dinner, but my stomach doesn’t want food. My heart wants Missy, so I head upstairs.

  I lay beside her, still unconscious. Eyes sunken in, skin pale, hair a mess. But I can see her in there, the old her. I can’t help but blame myself. I brought this life to her, practically forced the club life onto her. Never did I think she wouldn’t be strong enough to resist. If the story she told me was true, that Jasper shot her up and created this, I can’t fault her that much. She still just had to tell me, anytime, and I would’ve gotten her help. Maybe she didn’t want to. And I know she has so much pride. I imagine her the way she was when we met. Hair done up, clothes pressed and perfect. She was perfect. She
wanted so much for her life, hers and Sweetie’s. Now she’s this, a liar, an addict, and I can’t not blame myself more than her. A knock on the doorframe to the bedroom has me clearing my eyes and sitting up.

  “You need a break?” Boo-Boo asks, standing at the threshold.

  “Nah, I’m good,” I reply as I shake my head.

  “I’m sorry,” he begins. “Sorry for all this. I came back when you sent me to check on her and she was fucked up. Sven, I couldn’t fucking see her like that, craving and hurting so I called Shine to help. I should’ve maybe let her suffer and clean up and told you when you got home. Except I didn’t, and here we are. She made me promise not to tell you, told me that you’d leave her and Sweetie. I’m sorry, brother.”

  I stand, moving to him and putting my hand on his shoulder. I grip him and push him against the wall, my anger boiling. Not at Boo, just at fucking everything. His jaw tightens, preparing for what he knows I’m about to do. When I hit the side of his face with my fist, it doesn’t feel good, but it’s something. Something other than Missy and what’s happening. He lets me hit him a few times before I’m collapsing into him, and he pats my back. I can’t fight this shit anymore. I cry. I cry against a man I’ve almost died alongside, and I know he understands this break down.

  “She needs us all now and we can’t go back,” I eventually say as I raise my head.

  I see him deflate with my words and yet he doesn’t leave. Rather, he sits in the room with me. Hours pass, the night comes and goes.

  Each time Missy awoke, she immediately began pleading and crying, writhing in pain and agony. It kills me. Kills me. It’s wearing us all down; it’s not easy for any of us to see her like this. As I know my love for her is keeping me strong, I think it is for all our friends also. Our makeshift family.

  At some point that day, Owen and Shine show up. I don’t feel the need to apologize to Shine for how I treated her when I went to her house, but I do feel like Missy would be mad at me for treating her friend like that, so I mumble an “I’m sorry” to her and she nods. Then Owen slaps my back, squeezing my shoulder and I know he too forgives me for my behavior earlier and in understanding my anger. The guys ask if I want them to find Jasper, but hearing more about how Owen kicked his ass and him running away with his tail tucked between his legs, I figure he isn’t coming back anytime soon. Jasper never does anything spur of the moment, so I know in time he’ll return, and with a plan.

  I hate him to the core because I know what he did to Missy was intentional. Getting her hooked-on drugs, I translate it as a big fuck you to me and for “allowing” Missy to interfere in his shit with Shine. He warned me. He’s vindictive, over the top, and cut-throat. It took planning for this to happen and I know Jasper enjoyed every minute of it. But getting revenge on him is the least of my worries right now. Getting Missy better and healthy- that’s what I need to focus on.

  26

  MISSY

  I’ve been in rehab in Arizona for six months. Six months away from my family, my home and my friends. I’ve missed everyone, but know I needed to get myself together. They all understood, thankfully. However, I’m not sure how Sweetie has been handling it. I didn’t want her to see me. I was such a mess and when Sven and his doctor told me there was a place I could go to handle all this, I wanted to go immediately. I’d done so much lying and sneaking around, I just needed it to all end and worried it wouldn’t while I was still in Plantain. I called Sweetie at Ida’s the night I left, and hearing her little voice broke my heart. My behavior had been the worst with her, neglecting her just to get a fix. Missing things with her, lying about attending school so I could go get high somewhere and pass out for hours, instead of tucking her in at night and reading to her.

  I blamed Jasper, but blamed myself more. I couldn’t shake the addiction no matter how hard I tried…but had I really tried? It was much easier to mask the crap I’d done by just drifting away, putting it away for another time. But I realize now I wasn’t strong enough to quit.

  Once I’d been in rehab for eight weeks, Sven came to visit me, alone. I told him I didn’t want Sweetie to ever know what one of these places was like, let alone see me there. Still, he did bring her on his second visit. She sat with us, arms crossed, and wouldn’t even look at me.

  “I’m here to get better. Things will be like they used to be. I know it’s hard to understand and hard with me being gone, but I promise this is for us,” I told her as she ignored me.

  I go to group sessions where I sit in a circle with other addicts, which were all men, and we’d talk about things we did to use. Some stole from their families, some prostituted, however varied the story, we had all experienced the same thing.

  Sven would come to therapy with just the two of us. I wasn’t surprised he’d agreed since he was still going to his own therapy from before. My doctor helped me realize a lot of my fear was that Sven didn’t love me, or wouldn’t love me if he knew I was using. And I also recognized that I didn’t want Sven to feel he’d had something to do with this since I knew Jasper through him. During these therapy sessions, we’d hold hands and face each other, the therapist creating the conversation about something I maybe mentioned in a solo session and we’d talk.

  I’d confessed that Jasper was black mailing me, forcing me deeper into drugs with the threat that if I didn’t, he’d tell Sven. Filling my head with the thoughts that Sven would leave, Sweetie would leave, I’d be alone. He forced me to go on drug runs with him to get drugs and sell them. That Gwen and Joseph didn’t know. That I began to spend as little alone time with Sweetie as I could because I just didn’t know if I ever put her in danger. That I was ashamed for things I thought I’d done, but couldn’t actually remember. Another awareness broke through during therapy. After spending years under Gaye, trying to be ‘perfect’ when I knew I wasn’t, escaping into drugs was just another way I sabotaged myself, proving I was flawed and clearly, fucked up.

  Fears and anxiety, the same ones that propelled my continued use, plagued me now in aftercare. Through all my broken memories and tear-filled apologies, Sven was there, holding my hand and telling me it’d be okay. I knew nothing I’d gone through could ever compare to his experience in Vietnam and I felt like a jerk for making him come to this when I never went to therapy with him. He held my hand, and was just…there.

  I also wrote to Milton and apologized for my behavior, told him how embarrassed and ashamed I was. That I valued him as an employer and friend, that I was so sorry I even put him in that situation. I took drugs there, to work, to a police station with no cares of the consequences. I’d shot up at my desk, in the bathroom, in his office. I didn’t tell him all that, but I told him I’d be stepping down from my job and that he should find a new secretary. He wrote me back, ignoring pretty much everything I said and wanted to know what rehab was like. I got at least two letters a week from him along with vases of daisies, and I enjoyed writing back, hearing about stuff that wasn’t so heavy. He wrote me that he and Nadine were finally getting married, that he wanted to invite me but didn’t know if I’d be back to Plantain then. I didn’t reply that I was sure it was more Nadine not wanting me there, but I thanked him for considering the invite anyway, I told him I appreciated the gesture, and that I hoped to see photos of the event one day.

  Then the day arrives, the day I’ve been anticipating and dreading all the same. I’m going home, back to Plantain. To my make-shift family I wasn’t sure still wanted me around. That was the dreadful part. I had a lot of apologizing to do, even to the people I’d already spoken with when they came to visit me in therapy. Gwen was top of the list because I felt like I’d hid it all from her and maybe she’d feel she couldn’t trust me.

  It would just be a lot of repair work and I hoped for forgiveness. Shine wasn’t allowed to come to visit me until she’d been clean for a bit too. When she was finally able to come, she looked better and happier than ever, but there was a weird vibe between us. I knew she helped me that first time I experience
d withdraw and I remember Boo-Boo calling her to help me. So, without having to hear her apologize, I just told her I love her and she didn’t need to be sorry. She looked at me like I’d read her mind and we shared an embrace. I knew even now going back, healing was necessary.

  Leaving my room at rehab for the last time, with one garbage bag of clothes in my hand, I clutched a box of letters and little things from the last six months I wanted to hang onto. The feeling of leaving isn’t bittersweet, rather, I have hope knowing now I can handle anything that comes at me. I’m ready to be home. When I exit the hallway into the front part of the facility to check out, Sven’s there. His hair is cut short, like he’d shaved it and let it grow in since. Dressed in jeans, white tee, jean jacket and boots, he looks so beautiful, and my heart leaps as our eyes lock. The smile hurts my cheeks as I sign my papers and so does my doctor. He wishes me luck as I turn and go to Sven.

  I was worried there would be some awkward or unsure feeling between us. Yes, we’d seen each other during sessions and held hands, but our contact was limited. But he cups my cheeks, running his nose along mine and inhales me, kissing my forehead, causing my breath to catch as I close my eyes.

  “Hi,” he greets me quietly.

  Opening my eyes, I see him looking all over my face, before kissing my lips and settling any fears I had. He takes my things and offers an elbow, inviting me to slide my arm through, so I do.

  “Ready, Mama?” he asks, and I nod as I inhale a steadying breath.

  He drives us back toward Plantain, stopping at motels along the way so we could make love and reconnect before getting home. I missed him so much. His smell, his eyes, his touch. I find myself lying in bed beside him, running my fingertips along his skin, through his hair, smelling and kissing him and refreshing those animalistic familiarities.

  On our last few hours of the trip, I’m anxious so I start repeating in my head the steps we’d gone over in a session on what to do when the nerves take control. Sven must notice my agitation so he takes my hand after turning the radio up, and then sings loudly to The Eagles “Heartache Tonight.” He’s making me laugh and effectively taking my thoughts somewhere happy. His hand remains in mine as we pull into the driveway, coaxing me out the driver’s side door after him. I look up at the house, the gardens are established and it reminds me of when I first saw this place, more manicured, but still holding that magic. A weird nostalgic moment passes over me and it’s almost like I’m back in that memory again, getting out of my dad’s car as Sweetie runs off to the backyard. I was so young then, so naïve, so different. But then I look up at Sven, who’s looking right back at me and I’m snapped into reality. A reality I much prefer.