Page 29 of Someone to Remember
Brad
The kids are excited to see their new friends. If there’s one blessing to come from the sudden, shocking loss of their mother, it’s been the outpouring of love and support we’ve received from everyone in our lives. As hard as they try, however, none of them can understand the hell we’re in better than Angela and her kids, who are right there with us on this journey none of us asked to be on.
We meet at Stead Park near Dupont Circle. Parking can be a problem, but we luck out with a spot on the street about three blocks away. Not too bad, given that it’s a sunny autumn Saturday.
I have to jog to keep up with the kids as they race toward the playground. It’s nice to see them excited about something and to know that not only will they be occupied for the next hour or two, but they’ll also be tired later from the activity. That’ll make for an easier-than-usual bedtime.
As I watch them play and keep an eye out for Angela and her kids, it occurs to me once again that I often took my wife for granted. She handled most of the bedtimes—and everythingelse with the kids, for that matter—while I picked up extra shifts at the firehouse whenever I could get them, to pay the bills. I was so focused on providing for my family that I sacrificed precious time with my wife and kids that I can never get back.
The guilt eats at me. I knew her bad knee was still giving her trouble almost a year after surgery, but it never occurred to me that she’d become addicted to the pain meds—or that she’d seek them out on the street after her doctor refused to prescribe any more. To be honest, I’d gotten sick of hearing about her freaking knee. I thought she was using it as an excuse to do less around the house. The guilt has been heavy since I realized how bad it had to have been to drive my rule-following wife to seek out illegal drugs to combat the pain.
I let her down by not taking her pain seriously enough. If only I had listened to her when she told me it was so bad, it made her almost delirious. I thought she was being dramatic, as she was known to be from time to time. I dismissed her claims and went on with my life, oblivious to the private war she was forced to wage when even the person closest to her didn’t acknowledge the gravity of her situation.
Thinking about that keeps me awake at night, long after my grief-stricken children are asleep. The thing I can’t get past is that, as a highly trained paramedic, I should’ve seen the signs that she was fighting addiction, but I never noticed a thing. Truth be told, I wasn’t looking close enough because I had enough to deal with at work without taking the time to figure out what the hell was going on with her.
I chalked up her changes in behavior to the stress of caring for two young children and all their needs while managing a tight household budget and a bad knee. That would’ve been enough to make anyone a little crazy, or so I thought. Now I know it was much more than that, and I never put two and two together until disaster struck.
I have nightmares about how she looked that morningwhen I went to check on her and found her dead in our bed. I knew right away that she was dead, but I still tried to bring her back. That’s what I’m trained to do, after all. But nothing I did could change the reality. She was dead, and she had been for a few hours by the time I found her.
So, in addition to the grief over losing the woman I loved and the mother of my children, I feel incredibly guilty for not realizing much sooner that she was dealing with a monster that’d overtaken our lives without me even knowing it. And I feel guilty for being furious with her for allowing that to happen.
And yes, I know she didn’t “allow” anything, but I can’t help how I feel about it. Why didn’t she sound the alarm from the rooftops that she had a huge problem and had resorted to breaking the fucking law to feed it? Why didn’t she tell me she was in trouble? I’ll never understand why she didn’t do that—and it’s why I’m still so fucking angry with her, even as I miss her, sometimes so much I think I’ll die from it.
Angela is the only person in my life who understands what it’s like to walk around gripped by love, grief and anger for the person we’ve lost. Some days, the anger is so big, I forget what it was like to love her. Then I’ll remember something from the past, and the love comes rushing back to remind me that before the grief and anger arrived, the love was there, it was real and it changed my life in so many ways.
Before Mary Alice, I was a selfish asshole, focused on work, playing basketball and softball, partying with my boys, sleeping with random women and staying far away from anything that smacked of commitment. She was the first woman I’d ever met who made me want to be a better man. I wanted to be better forher. I was in love with her by our second date and was willing to change my whole life to accommodate her and our relationship by our fourth date. We were engaged within six months of meeting and got married a year later.
I never had a single regret about changing everything tobring her into my life, and things were great between us until she injured her knee running a 5K, and our lives spiraled out of control after surgery to correct a torn ACL went badly eighteen months before she died. She was in unbearable pain all the time, and every doctor we consulted said the same thing—she needed a knee replacement. But she was so afraid of another surgery that she held off on scheduling that procedure.
Then I noticed she seemed to be doing a little better, and I started to feel optimistic that maybe she’d turned a corner. Now I know it was because she was procuring drugs on the street to deal with the pain after her doctor refused to give her any more. In my wildest dreams, I can’t imagine her going through the motions of figuring out how to find illicit drugs. I’ve been through her phone from top to bottom and found no sign of her outreach there, so there must’ve been a friend or acquaintance or someone who steered her in the right direction.
In the months since her death, no one has come forward to confess to being involved, nor do I expect them to. Whoever they are, I hope they’re plagued with guilt over leading an innocent woman to her death.
Yeah, so… The anger extends far beyond Mary Alice to that nameless, faceless person who told her where to get the drugs that killed her. They couldn’t have known they’d be laced with fentanyl but come on. The whole world knows that’s the risk that comes with taking any medication that doesn’t come from a pharmacy.
Drake comes running over to the bench where I’m sitting. “Daddy, here they come! Here comes Ella!”
He’s crazy about Angela’s daughter, who’s only a few months younger than him. Her son, Jack, is more reserved and not as friendly to my kids as Ella is. Angela has told me that he’s taken his father’s death very hard, as they were super close. My heart goes out to him. He’s a sweet kid from what I can tell, but he’s obviously hurting. I wish there was something I could do for him, but for now, I let him take the lead, hoping we mighteventually be friends like I am with his mom and Ella. Baby Joshua is adorable and always happy.
I get up to take the baby from Angela and settle Josh in a shady spot on the bench while Ella runs off to play with Daphne and Drake.
“No Jack today?” I ask when Angela sits next to me.
“He’s in the car.” She points to the red minivan that she can see from where we’re sitting. “He said he might come out to play, but he’s not sure he feels like it.”
“Poor guy. I feel for him.”
“I do, too,” she says with a sigh. “I wish I knew what to say or do to make him feel better.”
“I hate to rely on a tired old cliché, but in time, perhaps he’ll start to gain some acceptance and be able to move on.”
“Maybe, but I worry that he’ll never again be the lighthearted, funny, sweet boy he was before he lost his dad.”
“He might not be, but hopefully, he can find some peace with his loss and start to enjoy life again. I didn’t know his dad, but I’m sure that’s what he’d want for him.”
“He definitely would. Spence and Jack were best friends. He’d want Jack to smile and laugh and enjoy the things he used to before disaster struck. I hope we’ll get there eventually, but it’s not going to happen today. He’s in a real mood.”
“Do you think it would help or hurt if I tried to talk to him? I could ask if he wants to play catch or something? I brought the football in case Drake wanted to play.”
