Page 27 of Taming Georgia

“Tired, sad, embarrassed, antsy…you name it. All the usual suspects are up in there.” She circles her finger around her head.

“How long?”

She sighs, “A couple of weeks.”

“Why didn’t you call me earlier?”

She smiles sadly. “It’s not your job to save me, Wyatt. I can’t keep pulling you down with me.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I can take care of myself. You’re not pulling me anywhere. If I can help you, I want to.” I tap her knee.

“Why are you here? What about your work?”

“It’s fine. Ethel opened up for me. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Tell her that I’m sorry.”

I wave my hand in front of me. “Are you kidding? She loves going in early on a Saturday.”

“Wyatt, I’m serious. I can’t keep doing this to you. It’s not fair.” She pulls at the edges of the shirt she’s wearing.

“Carrie, I’m here for you. I mean that. Okay?”

She nods.

“Someday, you won’t need me anymore, and I’ll be cool with that, too. You’re going to beat this.”

“Yeah,” she says very unconvincingly.

“Can I take you to rehab? I already called. They’re expecting you.”

She falls against the back of the couch. “I hate it,” she says with a sigh. “I don’t want to go back.” Her voice shakes, her eyes shining with tears waiting to spill.

“I know, but you need help. You want to live? You want to fight? Right?”

A tear rolls down her cheek. “Yeah,” she whispers.

“Then, you know what you have to do. Let’s swing by your place for your things, and then we’ll get you checked in.”

She bobs her head in agreement. “Okay,” she says with more resolve. “I can do this.”

“Hell yeah, you can.”

I feel like shit, leaving Carrie at the rehabilitation facility, but I know it’s the right thing for her. She needs more help than I can give her. That place always gives me the creeps. It’s the faces more than anything. I’ve seen them all before. The hopeful, believing that this time they’ll beat their demons. Then, there’s the haunted ones who are dying for their next hit. The broken, vacant eyes of the ones who have been there enough to know they’ll never beat it. Those are the ones that get to me the most.

I barely remember a time when my mom didn’t have a vacant quality to her expression. She gave up long before I understood the gravity of it all.

I didn’t always live in the projects as a child. Once upon a time, I lived in a nice suburb. I had the American dream—happy parents, a loving home, and endless possibilities for my future. My dad was a doctor, and my mom was a nurse. I didn’t have grandparents, as they had all passed before I was born. Both of my parents were only children, so I also didn’t have aunts or uncles. Yet I had the best parents in the world, and that was all I needed.

I don’t recall a lot from before my dad’s death, but I do remember happiness. I was six when he was shot and killed at a gas station by a junkie who wanted his watch. I was too young to notice the downward spiral of my mom at the time. But Ethel told me how it’d all happened. She and my mom worked together as nurses.

According to Ethel, it started when my mom fell at work and broke her wrist shortly after my dad’s passing. She liked the way the pain pills made her feel numb, as she was still hurting and grieving for my dad. When she wasn’t prescribed pain meds anymore, she’d steal them from the medicine cart at work. For a while, she was a functioning pill addict. Until her body became tolerant of the pills, and she needed to up her dosage.

She was eventually caught stealing and was fired. From there, she slowly used all of the money we had to feed her addiction.

I don’t have many memories of my mom off of drugs. I really wish I did. Ethel said she was kind, smart, and funny. She was obsessed with game shows, and she and my dad would host big game parties at our house. She loved Halloween and Christmas and went all out for both. Ethel said that my mom would deck our house out with Christmas decorations on the first weekend of November because she wanted as much time as possible to enjoy the twinkling lights of the tree.

I have vague recollections of decorating Christmas sugar cookies and building a gingerbread house with my mom. I have a handful of hazy recollections with my parents. Yet I have hundreds of crystal-clear memories of my mom that I wish I didn’t. Why can’t my brain hold on to the good ones? Why are the ones that plague me always the most vibrant?

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