Chapter 5

“Mom. Mom!” Someone was pushing me. I opened my eyes. Stace hung over me. She must have covered me with a throw. I was warm under it. My naked body had been so cold all weekend! “Is he gone?” She looked even more frightened than yesterday. “I-I locked the door. Was that okay?”

“Oh, Sweetheart, it’s over.” I told her. At least, for now it was. Getting up, I wrapped the throw around me and went to my bedroom. Donald lay still on the bed.

“Honey.” I called softly.

“Hnngg?” He grunted and opened one eye.

“We have to get you to a hospital.”

“C-can’t afford it.” He croaked.

“I don’t care. There’s a reason he did this to you.”

“He hates white people.”

I didn’t think that was it. Honestly, I was surprised he hadn’t done something worse to Stace than tie her up and gag her.

“What’s this?” I noticed a corner of paper sticking out from under the pillow by Donald’s head.

“Nothing.” He groaned and tried to cover it with a hand.

I plucked it easily away from his slow attempt. It was a handwritten note. The penmanship was excellent. A knife cut my heart, reading it.

“Three days of shit in your veins means one thing, Fag Wad. You’re gonna need more, and I’m gonna give it to you. I don’t want your fucking money. I’ll dose you for free, any time you want, unless if I think it’ll kill you. You ain’t getting away that easy. Those joneses you’ll have to sweat out. You’re mine, Dick Nub. If you call the cops again, you’ll suffer so much, a pansy like you would probably slit their throat rather than survive withdrawal.”

“I’m calling the Heroin Hotline.” Terry had left my phone on the kitchen table.

Donald shook his head and cried.

“Hello, we’re poor and my husband is addicted. What can I do to help him?”

The young man on the other end of the line was eager to show his commitment. “There’s a public treatment center in Bellevue. I can forward your call.”

BELLEVUE! I’m in gods damned Ranier! I wanted to yell. It takes three buses and as many hours to get there. Donald would be puking his guts by the time he got there. “I said so in lesser terms.”

“I’m sorry, but the Ranier clinic was closed by a neighborhood association ballot proposal.”

“How can I help my husband overcome this?”

“Self treatment is dangerous, Ma-am. If he has any medical issues, they could be exacerbated by the chemical changes that take place, or the violent tremors. He could die.”

“FUCK!” I did say and hung up.

Donald tried to sound like a man instead of an addicted, drugged mouse. “I’ll get over it. I saw a movie once. Chain me to the bed-”

I ran out of the room, sobbing!

“Why doesn’t Daddy want to go to the hospital?”

“The police will find out.” I told Stace.

“We should call the cops!”

“It won’t do any good.” I had lost all confidence in the greater Seattle area’s police.

“I’ll call them.” She reached for my phone. I tucked it away.

“NO. I’m going to use your father’s painkillers to get the poison out of his system.”

I nearly killed my husband with an overdose of legal opiates, that Wednesday.

Nothing of our situation stopped me from going to work, Monday, if an hour late. I made up for it by working late. Melissa growled at me when I arrived and thanked me when I left.

I used the LINK stop closest my house. Terry couldn’t do anything worse to me, as long as I didn’t go to the BBQ. I walked past an empty corner of the street, where he previously begged for change.

Wednesday evening, I came home to Donald puking in the toilet. He had eaten every sweet in the house. Stace was locked in her room, which had been her normal, until our home had been invaded.

“Those painkillers hardly take the edge off of my back. They’re doing nothing for my aching head!” He almost yelled. He was pale and sweating.

“Then we’ll go to the hospital.”

“NO!” He shouted. “I’ll get through this.”

I had to sleep on the broken couch, while he writhed, agonized on our marriage bed. He woke me up at 3am. “Honey, I think I could make it, if I just got one shot. Just a little one, enough to take the edge off.”

He didn’t stop pestering me, until I left for work an hour early. I came home and found Stace crying on the stairwell. “He hit me, Mommy!” She threw herself on me. I left her outside, while I stormed into our home.

“I didn’t mean, Honey. I’m sorry. It was just a slap-”

I slammed the door on my way outside where Stace trembled. “Go to one of your friends, until dinner. Call me then.”

I jogged down to the BBQ. I checked from a distance. It was open, and there was no sign of Terry. There was a good chance he was inside. I risked that Angus was a decent sort and entered.

Four older men and women were eating at a table. I went to the counter. “I’m looking for Terry.”

“Huh.” Angus scratched his head. “He’s not here, but he told me you might stop by.” The cook pulled an envelope from under the cash register. “It’s for you.” It was marked with a C. “I thought your name was Ruby.”