CHAPTER NINE
I
A DEAL WITH A POLICE OFFICER
The law enforcement officer escorted Tuesday to his car and opened the passenger seat door for her. She climbed into the car and he closed the door, reminding her to wear her seatbelt. He came around and got into the driver’s seat, starting the car and switching on his emergency lights to follow the ambulance through the wet streets of Cadence Falls and down to The Devil’s City at Mercy Hospital. He began to explain his position to Tuesday who was listening intently, and taking mental notes of everything he had to say.
“Listen to me carefully, Tuesday.” The police officer began. “I know your Mom; I know her very well.” The first thing that came to Tuesday’s mind was whether this cop was a client of hers or not, but she felt it better not to ask to protect her mother’s privacy. She knew she would have to tiptoe carefully with her answers.
“A lot of people know my Mom.” Tuesday said, trying her best to be evasive. “What does that have to do with anything?” She wanted to come off as innocent as possible, and denied anything to do with her mother being a criminal of any kind.
The cop went on the defensive. “Look, I’m not out to get your Mom, I’m trying to help her.” He said in a way that sounded very honest to Tuesday. “I just need to know what is going on with her, what happened?”
“I…” Tuesday stuttered, “I honestly don’t know.” I was outside talking to a friend and came back inside to find her on the floor.”
“The EMTs were at a loss as to what substance your mother had OD’d on.” The Police Officer said. “There were no signs of drug paraphernalia around, and you called it in, so it stands to reason that you moved them. I need to know what they are and where you put them.”
Tuesday had tried to keep herself as expressionless as possible, feigning ignorance as to what he might have been talking about. “I didn’t see anything.” She replied, in an attempt to not give away any details that might incriminate her mother.
The Police Officer wasn’t buying it though. He was experienced enough to know when somebody wasn’t telling the truth, so he asked again and elaborated upon his motives. “Look, your Mom is in a lot of trouble, and I can’t help her if I don’t know all of the details.” He said to Tuesday as he rounded a corner at a high rate of speed, splashing through a puddle of water.
Tuesday seemed curious and asked, “What is she in trouble for? What has she done?”
The Police Officer shook his head and told her, “I can’t tell you what she’s in trouble for, but the department is onto her and her activities, and it won’t be long before they take some action. She will be arrested and you’ll be sent to foster care, and I don’t want that to happen. Your Mom is a good person in a bad situation, and I want to help her get out of this mess. I need to know where the evidence is so I can get rid of it before they get the search warrant.”
Tuesday shook her head as if she understood, tears at the edges of her eyes, threatening to careen down the sides of her face, but still clinging for dear life. Tuesday knew that she kept her stash in a waterproof container in the toilet tank, and then there was the needle and paraphernalia that she had hidden. Lord knows what else was in the house. She relayed this information to the Police Officer, and got up the courage to ask a question. “If I can get her into rehab, would that help solve anything?” Tuesday asked, hoping that she could turn the tide that was rising against her mother.
“It couldn’t hurt.” The Police Officer said. “If you can get me regular reports on her outpatient rehabilitation, and show that it’s working, that would be enough to keep the department from going after her. Do you think you can get her to do it?
“I know that I can.” Tuesday said, making what might very well be a hollow promise to the cop. “If you can drop me off and get back to the house and take care of the evidence, I’ll work on my Mom when she comes to.” Tuesday paused for a second and then handed him a house key to gain entry into the house. “Please put it on the ledge above the window next to the door when you leave.”
“Thank you for trusting me, Tuesday.” Douglas Downe said, a hint of gratitude in his voice. “I’ll do my best to see that your Mom is taken care of.”
The police car pulled up to the hospital emergency room area, and Tuesday thanked the Officer for the ride. “Thanks for bringing me here.” She said. “I’ll do my best with my mother.”
She opened the door to the car, and got out, closing it gently. She turned and walked toward the emergency department with Winston in hand, not sure of what she was going to see from her mother, but she now had a mission, and failure meant the end of life as she knew it.
II
WAITING ROOM WORRIES
Tuesday entered through the main entrance of the emergency hospital at Mercy Hospital in The Devil’s City, clutching Winston tightly, fearful of the sight she may soon be witnessing. She walked right up to the desk and explained who she was, and that she needed to see her mother as soon as she could. Unfortunately, they hadn’t yet stabilized her, and Tuesday would need to wait in the waiting room to see her mother.
Tuesday had wondered why there had always been televisions in hospital waiting areas, because they never really seemed take anybody’s mind off the reason they were really there. It did pass the time, but it definitely hadn’t taken her mind off of the reason why she was there.
The reason Tuesday was there. How was she going to approach her mother about this? How would she convince her to clean up her life? This was something which she had hoped for a long time, but dared not ask about it. There were consequences to meddling in her mother’s business, and so she learned a long time ago not to involve herself in anything that wasn’t her business. There was once time where she had taken her mother’s stash and buried it deep in the back yard where it would never be found. When Megan had discovered it was missing, she was furious and Tuesday got the first-hand opportunity to feel her mother’s wrath. The beating she received from her mother was one she wouldn’t likely forget. Her injuries were so severe that Megan kept her home from school for a week until she appeared to be some semblance of normal looking. The physical wounds healed, but the marks that were left on her emotionally were still fresh and painful. Each time Tuesday had thought of that day, she remembered never to involve herself in her mother’s business.
And now she had to involve herself in her mother’s business in order to save her from herself, and Tuesday wasn’t quite sure how her mother was going to take it. Even the reruns of The Dukes of Hazzard on the waiting room television weren’t enough of a distraction to take her mind of what she was going to have to face when her mother woke up. Jason had made it sound so easy, and she felt like it was going to be easy when her confidence was boosted to a whole new level. But then she came back inside the house and found her mother in bad shape, and it brought her back down to reality. In a way, it was good that she was knocked down a few pegs, but she would have preferred that to happen in a way that didn’t involve her mother being transported to the emergency department by ambulance. Better probably that she didn’t get the chance to find out; after all, she could have faced the wrath of her mother for getting into her business again. But now, she had ammunition, information and leverage that she didn’t have before. When her mother woke up, Tuesday would be ready for anything that her she threw at her.
After many hours, the day wore on into the evening time and the storm outside howled furiously, bringing thunder and lightning. Around seven-thirty in the evening, ambulances arrived with two victims who appeared to have been electrocuted in an accident. Tuesday looked away as they were brought in, weeping gently to herself and cursing herself under her breath for thinking that she would escape witnessing that event in any capacity whatsoever. “At least I didn’t have to see the accident.” Tuesday thought to herself, disgusted with the outcome of her dream nonetheless. She returned reached for Winston and did her best to focus on t
he television again.
Tuesday sat there for a while longer, watching the television and hugging Winston tightly. For several more minutes, which felt like hours to her, nervously biting her nails as the time to see her mother drew ever nearer. When the sound of her name was being called from the counter, Tuesday hadn’t expected it and was surprised that she could finally see her mother.
“Tuesday Moxley.” The nurse called out in a loud and clinically detached voice. “Your mother is awake if you want to see her now.”
Tuesday stood up from her seat and grabbed Winston, following the nurse through a door to the back of the emergency department and to an elevator. “She is in a room on the fourth floor for observation, just check in at the desk through the doors to the left of the elevator.”
Tuesday nodded as the elevator doors parted. She stepped inside, and hoped that what she was going to see wasn’t too awful. She apprehensively moved her finger forward and pressed the button for the fourth floor. Even feeling the pressure of the button was enough to cause her some anxiety, but not as much as the elevator doors closing did. The elevator began its ascent to the fourth floor, where Megan Moxley would be waiting in a hospital bed. Tuesday tried her best to mentally prepare herself for what she might see.
III
BOTH POWERLESS
Tuesday had always thought of time as a funny thing. There were moments for her where time felt like it lasted forever but when the moment passed it virtually took no time at all. There were moments for her that never lasted long enough, and there were moments that dragged on for an eternity. This was one of the latter.
The ascent in the elevator was a swirl of emotion, of anxiety and nervousness for Tuesday. Neither Tuesday, nor Winston, were overly fond of elevators, because confined spaces always caused Tuesday some paranoia of what might happen. She knew that failure would not be an option here, and no matter how many excuses, threats, objections or denials her mother would make, Tuesday needed to push her mother to see the reality of her situation, it was rehabilitation or incarceration. Simple as that.
When the doors parted, she found herself on the fourth floor, and turned left from the elevator, and came to the double doors. There was a button there for her to push to ring herself in, and so she reached out and pushed it. A pleasant voice crackled over the intercom. “Good afternoon, how can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Megan Moxley.” Tuesday said, gathering up her wits and trying to remember some of the confidence that Jason had given her earlier that morning. “I’m her daughter.”
A few seconds later the door clicked and she was able to pull it open. As Tuesday entered the doors, the girl at the desk said “She’s in Room 418.” She nodded her head and thanked the nurse, and walked down the corridor, looking for her mother’s room. When she found Room 418, she had mixed feelings about entering, but gathered up her courage and gently knocked upon the door, waited for a second and then walked inside.
She walked in past the curtain that was there, and caught her first glimpse of her mother, hooked up on an IV and had various monitors taped to her body. Her hands were strapped down to the sides of her bed to keep her from fighting with anybody. Tuesday had to admit that this was somewhat of a comfort to her, there would be no violence out of her mother on this day.
Megan was awake, but not fully alert. She seemed to brighten up when she saw Tuesday, as if she were thankful to see her. Tuesday walked around the edge of the bed and sat on it, putting her arms around her mother. The two of them shared a long embrace, and it wasn’t long before Tuesday broke into tears, soaking her mother’s shoulder. After Tuesday’s sobbing had subsided, she pulled back away from the bed and looked at her mother for a good long while before mustering up the courage to speak. Megan could sense there was something on her daughter’s mind with that instinct that a parent has when they know something is bothering their child. Not only was Megan aware of it for the first time in a long time, she embraced the feeling of nurturing she was experiencing at that moment.
“Honey, what’s bothering you?” Megan said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“Do you want the truth, or do you want me to lie to you?” Was the only thing Tuesday could manage to think to say.
“Baby girl, it doesn’t have to be like that…” Megan began, but was instantly cut off by her daughter.
Tuesday was allowing her anger to do the talking for her, “It does have to be like that. Do you know what you did to yourself? Do you know what could have happened to you?”
Megan began to get the “don’t get into my business” look on her face, but by this point, Tuesday wasn’t having it. “You could have been killed. You could have been arrested. Or you could have been in a coma or brain dead.” Tuesday continued, refusing to let up on the gigantic truth bomb she was laying on her mother. “You just don’t think about anybody but yourself and your stupid habits. I love you Mom, and you’re the only Mom I’ve got.”
The fountains in Megan’s eyes began to well up, and she tried to speak, but Tuesday wasn’t giving her a word edgewise. “You have a friend who cares about you, and he brought me here, we followed the ambulance. No kid should have to follow their Mom to the hospital in a police car.”
Megan knew exactly who she was talking about, “It was Douglas Downe, wasn’t it?” She said as the tears began to fall down her cheeks.
“You bet it was.” Tuesday snapped, not even knowing that she had a friend who was a cop. “And he told me in confidence that the department is building a case against you. They want to lock you up for a long time.”
“He told you that?” Megan asked incredulously, doubting the words coming from her daughter’s mouth. “Why would he tell you that?”
“He said he didn’t want you to go to prison.” Tuesday replied. “So I gave him the house key and told him where your stash is. He’s going to collect it and destroy it.”
“You did what??!!” Megan shouted, raising her voice to a level that Tuesday was concerned the staff might come in and end her intervention. “You had no right…”
“I had every right!” Tuesday screamed back, defending her point of view. “Your lack of self-control brought this mess upon us!! If I had been in school, chances are very good I would have come home and found you dead!”
Megan sat on her bed, glaring at Tuesday. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“You put me in a dramatic situation, how can I not be dramatic?” Tuesday countered, visibly angry. “The ironic thing is, I never even had a dream about this! This came completely out of the blue for me! Do you know how hard it is for me to not dream about a future event, especially one that I would undoubtedly witness?”
“Oh, here we go!” Megan said in a loud, sarcastic tone, attempting to dismiss the gravity of her situation. “It’s got to be all about you now, doesn’t it?”
“As a matter of fact, it does!” Tuesday argued back, pressing her point. “I’m supposed to be the teenager, and you’re supposed to be the adult, you’re supposed to take care of me. So, you need to grow up and be the parent for a change!”
Megan was speechless.
“I’ve come to a decision.” Tuesday said, lowering the volume of her voice, but still aggressively stating her position. “I will go and see the whacked out shrink on one condition.”
“I wasn’t aware I gave you a choice.” Megan replied, trying to regain dominance over the situation. “You’re going to the shrink.”
“I will go and see the shrink.” Tuesday spoke quietly, her confidence beginning to waver slightly. “If you go to rehab.”
Megan begin to laugh. “You think you’re so smart, don’t you? What makes you think I’d agree to that?
“Officer Downe told me that if their search warrant didn’t turn up any drugs in the house, and you went to rehab, the department wouldn’t have a case against you.” Tuesday offered, hoping that would be enough to convince her mother to agree to the t
erms.
Megan’s sat quietly on her bed for a while, thinking about what Tuesday was asking of her. Eventually, her lower lip began to quiver as fully formed tears fell from her face. She ran every scenario she could think of through her mind, but the only word that kept resonating in her mind was “checkmate”. She knew her daughter was right, she knew she had a problem, and she knew she needed to clean up her life. It was much easier to live when you didn’t have to deal with the day to day pain, when you didn’t have to think about the past. She spent years building up her shell, and then built her walls around that shell, and put a force field around that. She designed herself so that nobody could get in, and had become increasingly proficient at keeping everybody out, including her own daughter.
“Tuesday, honey.” Megan pleaded, making a last-ditch effort at placing herself into a position where she would have to battle her inner demons. “You don’t know how it is. My problem isn’t the same as your problem. I have a disease and it can’t be cured.”
Tuesday refused to budge on the situation, and continued to push the issue even further, despite Megan’s visible sense of discomfort. “If you don’t go, I don’t go. End of discussion.”
For the first time, the mother and daughter found themselves at an impasse. Tuesday knew she needed to offer an emotional response to push her mother over the boundary. If there’s one thing Tuesday had become good at, it was creating an emotional response. And because she had so much experience with emotions, both hers, and the emotions of others that she often felt during her nightmares, she understood the power of it more than most people did. She slowly sniffled and began to turn on the waterworks.
“I know I can’t live like this anymore.” Tuesday began, gently sobbing, forcing mock tears from her eyes. “I know that you can’t either. As mean and as terrible as you can be as a mother, you are equally as good and kind when you’re not messed up. Having you as my mother would be better than having no mother at all.” She opened up the valve and let the tears flow fully free. She walked slowly toward the bed, careful to gauge her mother’s response with each step closer. Knowing that it could go either way, she knew she was taking a risk by approaching her mother, she was strapped down, but she could still be dangerous. She slowly approached, and increased the sobbing with each step until she finally reached the bed, embracing her fully.
Suddenly, Megan broke. She began quietly sobbing, which quickly escalated into full blown wailing. The two held each other for quite a while, crying, their emotions expressing their love for each other and it was refreshing as the first rain at the end of summer. When Megan was finally able to speak, she said, “Thank you, thank you so much! I love you.”
A few moments had passed and the two sat in silence holding one another, the lightning flashes outside subsiding into the distance. When the two of them broke their embrace, Megan looked her daughter in the eyes, and made a promise. “Okay sweetheart, I promise I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you, but not for anyone else, and neither of us will feel powerless anymore.
“You need to do it for yourself, Mom.” Tuesday told her. “Do it for yourself and everything else will fall into place.”
The two were then interrupted by a nurse who came in to check on Megan’s vitals. “Is everything alright in here?”
“Yeah.” Megan sniffled, grinning at the nurse in an effort to convince her that everything was going to be alright. “Everything is great! Will I be going home today?”
“No, I’m sorry, I’m afraid not.” The nurse began, looking back and forth between her patient and the charts in her hand. “We are keeping you for observation tonight, and then you’ll have to stay in the detox ward for three days.” The nurse finished checking Megan, and logged the information, and left the room.
“Looks like you’re on your own for a few days, Tuesday.” Megan said.
The two of them spent the rest of the afternoon together, catching up on years of each other’s lives. It was the most earnest and honest time they had ever spent together, and at the end of the day, both felt better than they had in a long time.