Spence didn’t hear her come into the room. His head full of greasy hair bent over the kitchen table snorting lines of something white with a tiny glass tube.
“What…” She couldn’t speak. The words wouldn’t come. And the fear she’d managed to hold back while at work hit her like a hurricane. Spence’s addiction was loads worse than she’d thought.
Spence’s eyes darted up. He pinched his nose and inhaled deeply. His gaze rocketed from the table to her and back again. “Oh hon,” he said, “it’s not what you think.” He got up and poured her a coffee and grabbed a beer from the fridge for himself.
She didn’t bother telling him she couldn’t have caffeine. Clearly he would not hear her. She glanced at the clock. 9 a.m. Probably even a little earlier. He popped the top on his bottle and drank from it, nothing amiss at all.
He sat, so she did too. Too sad to cry, and she didn’t think of herself as a weak woman. As a school principal, she had stood up to male teachers and parents, and a few female bullies as well. But when it came to Spence, her precious love, she had been weak. She felt it now, all energy draining from her. Her heart skidding and skipping. Would it just stop? No. Because she wouldn’t let it.
“Just the new meds.” Spence slurred the words. “Taking it out of the capsule and snorting it makes it work faster. But this is a pill, so I had to crush it between two spoons to stop the panic attack.”
Okay, clearly he was in denial. As had been she.
She couldn’t look at him. Instead she inventoried the things on their table. The tube. A few bottles of pills. Two spoons. The cup of untouched coffee Spence had set in front of her.
He didn’t put his beer on the table. He held it and took steady sips until he finished it off. His eyes were closed, and he had a stupid grin on his face. She wanted to slap it off.
Chloe moving the boys to Seattle. Spence had not taken that well. Things had gotten worse, not better, when he saw a doctor to deal with his depression over the boys moving.
Bettina’s sadness went deep under the skin. Soon they’d have their own child. They had planned it: he the stay-at-home dad, taking care of the baby and working on polishing his Realtor skills as the economy slowly began to rebound.
The baby kicked. As if telling Bettina to get in gear. Handle this problem. Spence tried to reach the fridge without getting out of his chair and fell to the floor. He laughed. Tempting to blame Spence’s relapse on Chloe, but the only person to blame was the guy doing the drugging. He did not have to say yes to Chloe. Bettina still wasn’t sure why he had. He hadn’t consulted her or talked it over with her. One day, it just happened. Spence’s soft snores lifted to her ears. At least he wasn’t dead.
She got out of her chair, which in her condition took a minute or two. Then she went into Spence’s “office” where he “worked.” He hadn’t bothered to hide his stash. She found it in the first drawer she opened.
He claimed to have a prescription for medical marijuana, but the pint jar came from her summer strawberry jam making. Somehow, she didn’t think she’d be making any jam this summer. She kept to her inventory. Two bags of loose pills, many pills, maybe fifty in each bag, with no prescription label attached. Six bottles, some for sleep, some for anxiety, one for ADHD. Also two more prescriptions, from two different doctors, filled at two different drugstores, for pain. What pain? She continued to search and came up with a roach clip topped with a dice for ease of handling, a pipe he liked to smoke his weed in, and rolling papers.
She knew about some of these drugs. She knew about one doctor. There were drugs he said had made him sick so he had to switch to another. However, the pill bottles told a different story. He still filled both prescriptions. For the first time, she knew why Chloe had left Spence. He’d been to rehab, gotten clean, and Chloe had left him anyway. It hadn’t made sense to Bettina until now. Now she understood that Spence might have had more than one rehab and relapse experience. She went back down to check on him. Still out cold. Now what?
The prescriptions had been from four different doctors and five different drug stores. They were all legal, as far as she knew. Wasn’t it illegal to go to lots of doctors to obtain lots of drugs? Why hadn’t she educated herself beyond the usual school in-service programs for faculty and staff held once every few years? She’d gone to these in-services. About her job, she listened. Just had not connected any of it to her personal life.
No one had mentioned crushing pills with spoons. Spoons were for cooking heroin. Glass pipes were for smoking crack. She checked the back of the spoons. No dark smudging. Okay. Right. He’d probably told her the truth about crushing the tablets with two spoons. Capsules made it that much easier. Should she call these doctors? And if she did, would Spence go to jail? Would her baby be born with daddy in prison?
Her anger slipped out from where she usually kept it tucked inside. She went back downstairs to the kitchen and kicked Spence’s bare foot. She told herself she was trying to rouse him. He snored louder, didn’t move. She filled her largest soup pot with cold water, and almost threw it on him, but then reconsidered. She’d be the one cleaning it up. She reached for her phone and pressed speed dial.
“Oh hon, I’m so sorry,” Chloe said after Bettina had told her the entire story.
“Thank you, but what should I do?”
Chloe didn’t say anything, but Bettina could hear her breathing on the line. “Is that an unfair question? Maybe, can I ask, what did you do?”
“I never turned him in. He went willingly.”
“How many times?”
“Just twice. Once before Josh was born. And then right before I left him. I said if he went to rehab I’d stay, but I lied.”
“So what set him off this time? Our baby? Your move?”
“Don’t.” Chloe kept her voice low. “It’s not us; it’s him. Nothing you can do or say or be will stop him if he chooses to get high, go off program. Is he attending meetings?”
“I’m not sure.” Bettina doubted he’d gone to the moderation group any time lately. Who goes on a modification plan and has a beer first thing in the morning? “He’s doing this moderation plan he found online. Where they have this elaborate set up: no drinking two days in a row, never more than two drinks per day, never drink alone.”
“Was he abiding by the plan?” Disbelief clear in Chloe’s tone.
“I’m not sure. I don’t think so. I just started maternity leave today!”
“Oh, Bettina. I’m really sorry. I put faith in rehab to take this time. I thought maybe you were the one who could turn him around.”
“But you just said. It’s not me. It’s not you. It’s not anything we do or don’t do. He decides to drink. And drug.”
They were silent a beat.
“He still out?”
Bettina kicked his foot, a little harder this time. He rolled over. Her foot so close to his face. She had to work hard to hold herself back from bashing his nose in with it. “Yeah.”
“Do you have his sponsor’s phone number?”
“No. They no longer have a relationship. Because Spence drinks.”
“Right.”
“Do you know if it’s illegal to drug shop? Because he has all those doctors?”
“No. I really don’t. Google it.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
Bettina thought about calling 9-1-1. What would she say? Something like “My husband is unconscious.”
And they’d ask “Is he breathing?”
Then she’d have to admit he was snoring. Can someone who has overdosed snore?
When Bettina searched online for “medication from different doctors” she found an article about “pill shopping” and it fit close enough to Spence’s case. The person buying the pills got charged with a misdemeanor. Surely, if she turned him in, a judge would have mercy on a man with a wife about to give birth to their first child? But maybe not. She was so scared, she didn’t know what to do. She had nobody to ask without jeopardizing her husband’s freedom.
The next question Bettina asked herself, sitting with her fingers over the keyboard, is would six weeks be long enough? The answer was no. Spence had a bad relapse problem. So he’d likely miss the baby’s first weeks at home, too. Then she thought about leaving a six-week-old baby with an addict. Even an addict in recovery.
Her slippery slope thinking stopped. She’d tell him to get clean or they were over. She’d find a nanny for the baby. She loved Spence, but she loved her baby more.
****
After Sunday’s baseball game, Luke kept busy in the backyard. They’d gone back a step. But it wasn’t. Not really. They’d shared a day, not a date. And Luke had work to do. The boys were busy with school. Her mother made frequent trips to Blue Lake, slowly emptying her home in Sterling Pines of a lifetime’s worth of treasures. Everyone around her being all active and engaged while Chloe dangled, her time loose. When had she last been so free of responsibility? Maybe when Josh was born.
Chloe jogged. She practiced yoga. She went online to search for houses in Seattle. Nothing appealed to her. Kristy had set Chloe and the boys up in a corporate condo for as long as she needed it. She had no pressing engagements and nothing to do with her time but paint her toenails bright red.
As she sat on a kitchen chair, hunched around her toes with a tiny brush full of red polish ready to go, Luke came into the house, startling her into painting her entire baby toe. She let out a little yelp of frustration.
“You okay?” he asked.
She tightened the brush into the bottle of polish and got her feet under the table where he couldn’t see them.
“Yeah, you just startled me.”
“Sorry.” He stood on the landing, so she wasn’t sure if he meant to head downstairs or up, but his eyes were trained under the table, assessing her botched pedicure. “Red, huh?”
Yep. He’d noticed.
“I need a little color in my life.”
He came into the kitchen, poured a tall glass of water, and sat down across the table from her.
“Are you a, what do they call it, stay-at-home mom?”
She smiled. Yes, for the moment. And she really enjoyed it. Most of the time.
“I start my new job after Mom moves to Blue Lake.” Should she say it was in Seattle? No. Why would it matter to him? “The boys and I are taking our usual vacation up there after school lets out.”
“Will you stay with your mom?”
“Usually we do. But it’s crowded, and I want to try that new place with the cottages.”
“Blue Heaven. I went to high school with the owner. You should book it soon. Those cottages fill up quick.”
“I’ve been meaning to do that,” she said.
“I can check for you.” He hit the keys on his cell.
He seemed more interested in her vacation than asking where or what her job involved. Fine with her. But why? Was she afraid if she told him about Seattle, he’d lose all interest in her? It wasn’t like he’d really shown all that much anyway. Until now. Now he wanted to make sure she had a place to stay when she came to his town.
“All full,” he said, showing her the picture on his phone of the cottage schedule for Blue Heaven.
“Darn. I guess we’ll be cooped up with Mom again. I really wanted to be on the water.”
“I can call my buddy. His wife used to live in the main house until they got married. Now she rents it out to select guests.”
“Maybe I’m not so select.”
“Yeah, you are. I know Daniel and Eva, and my mom works there. Want me to give them a call? They don’t advertise the house, so the only way to get in is to call and ask.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.” She checked her phone calendar and gave him the dates.
He called right then and got it all set up. Didn’t even ask for a credit card.
“Are you hungry?” she asked when he replaced the phone into his pocket. She could make him a thank-you lunch.
“I could eat,” he said. Their eyes locked, and the air charged with energy that felt like something else. Something that didn’t appear in any of the food groups.
She got up and opened the fridge. She found turkey and cheese and then bent over to check the veggie bin. She turned to ask if he liked lettuce and tomato on his sandwich and caught him staring at her butt. She forgot what she meant to ask him and shut the fridge without pulling anything out.
“What do you like?” she asked, leaning against the fridge.
He got up to refill his glass of water. He didn’t answer for a minute, just stood at the sink, his back to her, drinking his water. Then he turned around and let her see the hunger in his eyes. He walked the four paces it took to reach her and pulled her into his arms for a long, delicious kiss.
She’d been kissed a lot in her life, but never ever like this. His mouth on hers took her to another place, fully in her body but unaware of the kitchen and the fact that her mother could walk in, back from the grocery store, at any moment. Nothing else but Luke existed for the length of his kiss. Every time he started to move away, she pulled him back, and they kissed some more. She kissed him for every day before that when she hadn’t been able to. She kissed him and asked him with her kiss to care about her the way she cared about him.
The slam of her mother’s car door in the driveway stopped the kiss. They pulled slowly away from each other, but he kept his eyes glued to hers. “I want you,” he said.
“I want you, too.” And then she went out and helped her mother bring the groceries into the house.
She counted down the days until Luke would finish his projects and leave. Three. Two. One. And in those three days, there had been no vibe of desire. Zero kissing.
****
The day before Luke left, Josh and Tommy went for a weekend with their dad. Bettina, one hand on her small of her back, watered flowers in the front yard. Chloe didn’t see Spence, so she got out and walked over to Bettina, the boys already racing into the house.
They were excited, as usual, to spend time with Spence, who they adored despite his shortcomings as a father. They’d said distracted good-byes to Luke, who kept his own good-bye equally short, although he stopped rolling sod long enough to watch them pull out of the driveway.
“You know he’s going home after tomorrow,” Chloe said to the boys as she turned the corner to Spence’s house.