Breaking Faith Read online

  “I missed you, too,” she says. “You look great.”

  Gran gets up at her own pace and greets me clumsily with a quick hug. “Well, Faith, how are you feeling?” Gran asks, her chin up and her eyes looking straight into mine.

  “Okay, I guess.” For a recovering addict, I want to say it, but I don’t.

  She nods as she continues to survey me. “It looks like that place is treating you good.”

  “We’re told that we are treated holistically; they look at the whole person and help us learn a new way of life so that we can succeed in our lifelong journey of sobriety.”

  My words have a purposely superficial tone because I don’t want Gran to think for one minute that my recovery will make things easier on her. As much as every fiber of my being longs to be loved and cared for, I can’t let go of the anger. Not done punishing them just yet.

  I draw in a deep breath and I raise my brows provocatively at my grandmother, then I walk to the futon and flop down in a slouch. Des comes and sits beside me.

  “So what are we doing today, family?” I say as I smile, though I don’t let it reach my eyes.

  Gran steps into the living room with Connie in tow. “We thought we’d just chat and then maybe have a late lunch,” says Gran, straining to keep her tone cheerful.

  I nod. “So what do we talk about?”

  “Whatever you want,” says Connie.

  “Tell us about what they do at the rehab center,” blurts Destiny.

  “Des,” chides Connie.

  “No, that’s okay,” I say with a shrug. “We talk a lot. Explain how we feel, how our emotions play on our addictions, our family backgrounds, how that plays on our addictions.” I glance at Gran and Connie. “And how that affects our recovery.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No, they do lots of other stuff—you know, teach us to eat healthy, how to relax, we even learned how to meditate.”

  “Cool!” chirps Des. “What are the other people there like?”

  I think about my roomie and the guys in session. How fucked up we all are, battling our cravings and the catalysts that brought us there. “Good. Everyday people, like me.”

  “Any celebrities?”

  “Nope. Just your ordinary addicts.”

  Des nods, disappointed.

  “What about the other thing?” asks Gran. “How is that going? Is it any better?”

  “The Blood Porch and all that?” I ask.

  Connie shivers and squirms uncomfortably in her seat. Gran nods yes.

  “It’s actually helping. I talk about it a lot with Dr. October. He says it’s the best way to deal with it. It’s helping my sadness, too, but he says I have a long road ahead—I need to keep up the psychotherapy and keep using my coping skills. He thinks I can beat it without drugs.” In point of fact, I am rather proud of myself.

  “That’s awesome, Faith,” says Destiny.

  “So great. Uh, I think I’ll get lunch on the table,” Connie says as she rises, looking a bit uncomfortable.

  “It’s in the oven, Connie—I’ll help.” Gran follows after her, equally uneasy. I look at Des with a glint in my eye.

  “So talk to me about school,” I tell her. Her face brightens when she hears I’m interested. She chatters on and gossips about her friends, how they can sometimes be great and then they can be immature, and how much she’s looking forward to grade ten. All the while, I’m thinking how well she turned out, how peaceful she looks, grounded, smart, and confident. I wonder if any of her positive traits were due to my sticking by her when we were little, when she was growing and needed some small measure of stability. And then later, when I knew how screwed up our family was, but never let her know it.

  “Okay, lunch is on the table—I ordered from a new place I found—healthy and fast, so we have more time to talk.” Connie points to a chair. “Why don’t you sit there, Faith. Gran, you there, and Des, here.”

  It smells good, making me realize I am hungry. We all dig in. Plates and forks clatter, water is poured into glasses, and bread is passed around.

  “So the treatment really is helping you, Faith?” asks Connie between mouthfuls. “They told us you’re on medication for the cravings and that you’re sleeping better now.”

  “It was tough for a while.” I nod as I chew on salad. My response sounds colder than I intend, which makes us fall silent again. We look at one another, uncomfortable except for Destiny, of course, with guilt weighing heavily on our ability to open up.

  “I’m supposed to come in tomorrow, talk to your doctor,” offers Gran. “It’s a kind of assessment, but he wants to set up some appointments where we can talk together about all this.”

  “What do you mean ‘all this’?” I ask.

  “You know, why you ran away and why you took the drugs. He says that we need to talk about it together if there’s any chance you’re gonna get better—and stay better.” Her words bounce around in my head like an echo. Did I just hear her right? I’m sitting across from her and she doesn’t for once think to ask me why? She needs to wait for a family therapy session to find out? Never once has she asked me how I feel, how anything affected me, how she could have made it better.

  “And that’s tomorrow,” I say stiffly.

  “Yeah. Dr. Common said it’s a joint session. That’s where the therapist guides parents or guardians—”

  “I know what it’s about! I’m living it right now, remember?” I snap. I’m mad as hell. Now she wants to go for counseling? Where was she when counselors were calling her in elementary school, begging her to come and talk about stuff? Where was she when I wanted Momma so badly, when she was too messed up to look after us ’cause she had “raised her family”? Where was she when she should have moved us out of that shithole of a neighborhood because she knew it was nothing but trouble—case and point: her own daughter. Now, when everything has gone to shit for me and only me—she’s all chapter and verse about family counseling.

  “Family counseling,” I repeat as I stab a chicken thigh with my fork. “You wanna talk to Doctor October about ‘all this.’ I’ve been around a long time, Gran—why haven’t you ever asked me about it?” Des puts her fork down and looks at Gran.

  “Maybe I never thought to.” My grandmother pushes the food around her plate.

  “You never thought to?”

  “Maybe I never wanted to.”

  “Yeah, I think that’s more like it.”

  “We can find out tomorrow, when we talk to—”

  “Well, I want to know now, Gran! I want to know!”

  “Know what, Faith?” Gran’s voice is even.

  “Why is it only me? Why? Why am I so screwed up? Why is it—”

  “Can’t we ever have a conversation without you turning it into an argument?” interrupts Connie. “Can’t you see she’s trying?”

  “Yeah, she’s trying ’cause she’s got an actual doctor up her ass, pressing her for answers as to why her granddaughter is so fucked! That’s why she’s trying, Connie, you self-righteous c—” I look at Des. “Jesus, I can’t even say the word!”

  “Leave her alone, Connie. She’s right,” says Gran. “I dunno why. Maybe you fell through the cracks. Maybe I wasn’t listening. That’s what the doctor wants to talk about tomorrow.”

  “Maybe Connie needs to come along. She had her part in ‘all this,’ as you call it.”

  Connie wipes her mouth and takes away my plate and hers. “Why are you still so damn mad at me all the time?” she says, as she stomps back and forth from the kitchen to the table, clattering the dishes together like they had something to do with her being pissed off. “Yes, I’m sorry for the hundred and tenth time—I’m so fucking sorry again!” She pauses and breathes in deep. “But I was the one who scraped you up off the street. I was the one who sunk to street level for you, hailed cabs, and brou
ght you to get your fixes or whatever you call them, until you got your shit together and decided to get sober.”

  “Oh my God in heaven,” says Gran, clutching her chest.

  “I was the one who took you to the hospital and then the clinic to get you clean, and you take every opportunity to throw it back in my face. Why do you insist on punishing me? Why! If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead by now. You would have let yourself freeze to death behind a dumpster in that alley.” I sit calmly and wait until she is done. She is reaching a crescendo, and I’m not about to interrupt her with my version of my life.

  “Maybe you would have preferred that I left you there, Faith!” She points to Des. “Destiny is two and a half years younger than you. She lived in the same house, saw and heard the same things, and she’s not walking around with a huge chip on her shoulder. But you!” she bellows, then points her finger at me. “You have to make everyone else’s life miserable, you have to make the same mistakes that Mom made and screw everyone else up with your anger and shit—you’re just like Gran—full of hatred and resentment, thinking that everyone owes you something ’cause you’ve had a hard life. Well, get over it!”

  Connie’s chest is heaving as she paces across the small living room of her apartment and she has to gasp for breath. “There are plenty of others who’ve been screwed and were able to pick themselves up and go on. It’s time you did that, too—sissy!”

  I pause, waiting for more. When there isn’t any, I smile, then chuckle. I let out a huge snort followed by peals of laughter as I double over on the chair, the giggles ringing out in the little condo. Their faces bear a stunned look, and I’m certain they think I’ve finally snapped and lost it.

  I laugh for a long time, Connie’s words are that absurd to me. How smug of her to think she can preach to me. How perfectly self-righteous and utterly blind to think she has a single iota of an inkling as to what I—and Destiny—have gone through. My mind races as I think of my response, but I have to remember that she’s a victim, too; a victim of our own family dynamic. I need a hit so badly, I can almost taste it.

  “Okay, first of all, how dare you judge me. You have no idea what being screwed over feels like, much less having to pick yourself up, so do not preach to me. Second, you’re damn right I have a chip on my shoulder because, contrary to yourself, I didn’t have a childhood or adolescence to speak of. I had to be mother and father to our little sister, which is probably why she turned out relatively normal, as you call it. Once again, no thanks to you, because you were off in Pleasantville, playing princess. You stayed away, because it was too hard to face us when you’d come back—too hard to admit where you came from—too hard to acknowledge me as your sister. Too easy for you to just ignore us.” I lower my voice, thinking about my words and the depth of the truth in them. Constance’s eyes are welling up. “Instead, you let Josephine sway you into hating Mom, and then you saved yourself.”

  “She never needed to sway me. Mom did fine making me hate her all on her own. And I’ve come to terms with that. I don’t hate her anymore. I see her as she was. But you—you’re different, and I think that’s what fucked you up. How could you not hate Mom. Look at what she did! She practically killed herself and left us alone.”

  “She was sick, just like I’m sick. But no one helped her. No one reached out to her.”

  “I helped your mom, but she kept falling back into the trap, into the same spider’s web.”

  I look at Gran with little more than contempt. “You did the bare minimum,” I say. “You never reached out to her.”

  “Oh, you mean, like I reached out to you?” Connie says, her angry words hanging in the air like a wisp of smoke.

  “Let me finish!” I say firmly. “And third, I was the one who decided to get clean, I was the one who crawled back from the edge, I was the one who let you reach down and pick me up—because if I hadn’t been ready, your pity would have been wasted on me.” I swore that I would speak in even tones, to not sink to her level and shout at the top of my lungs. Remember the strategies, I think. I want a fold so badly right now, I smell the delicious smoke in my nose just thinking about it.

  “You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.” Bob Marley said that.

  “No one is responsible for me, Connie. I know that now. I’ve learned that. I just wanted a little of what you had. The drugs made me not feel that need—for a while, at least.” Destiny nods in quiet acknowledgment, her lips quivering. She reaches out and takes my hand. “The drugs numbed the hurt and chased the Darkness away. Now I know I was weak, but again, that is my truth. Please don’t make my truth less valid than yours.”

  I get up and pace. My sisters and grandmother watch me as I stride back and forth, like a caged animal. Have I punished them enough? Was I only punishing myself or was I saving myself from something else—was my counselor right?

  “I think I’m afraid, Connie—I’m still afraid.”

  “Of slipping back into using?” she offers quietly.

  I turn to face the wall as I close my eyes and rack my brain. What is keeping me from taking back my life? What is wrong with me? Just open your eyes and say it! “I’m sad because of the person I could have been, and now that I see myself as I am, I don’t know if I can live up to my own expectations. I’m afraid that if I let myself hope, I’ll be vulnerable again. Like with Mom—God, I miss her so much—and with you, and then again with Mrs. Lieberman. This is what scares me. If I let myself feel, something always happens to take it away. If I don’t give a shit, I won’t get hurt and maybe the Darkness will stay away.”

  “You can’t live that way, Faith,” Connie says. “It’s not healthy. That’s why you hurt yourself.”

  “I know.”

  “Help me. Help Destiny,” Connie says. “Stay clean, stay in counseling, and take one step a day. Just put one foot in front of the other and keep your eyes straight ahead. Every day is a page, Faith, you just keep turning the pages.” I wipe my tears away and wonder how many pages my book will have.

  “I’ll be here for you, Faith.” Destiny’s tears have subsided. “I’ll never forget sneaking into your bed at night when we were little and snuggling, feeling safe.”

  “Every day is a battle for me. You’ll never know what it’s like.”

  “Just think about later on—a few weeks from now,” offers Destiny. “Maybe you can come back home and I can look after you for a change.”

  My eyes stray to Gran, and in my mind’s eye, I picture Danziger Crescent, Wheelchair Louie, and the usual parade of druggies at his doorstep 24–7. “I don’t—”

  “I don’t think so,” interrupts Connie. “She’s staying here with me.”

  My head snaps to look at her in surprise. “I am?”

  “Yeah.” She glances at Gran, who is swayed—no big surprise there—but Destiny looks crushed. “School ends soon. I’ll be available all the time. We can go for walks, all that stuff we never got a chance to do.”

  “Why can’t she stay with us? It’s so far!” says Des.

  “It’s just better for her. Closer to the clinic, to Dr. Common.”

  “And away from Danziger,” says Gran.

  “You come too, Des,” says Connie. “In the summer, stay here with us.”

  Des gasps with delight. “Yes!”

  I run my hands through my hair and wonder if Connie may be right.

  “I guess so…look, I’m really tired right now, my head’s spinning. I have to go back to the center. Gran, you’re coming tomorrow, you said, for an assessment meeting?”

  “Yeah. First thing tomorrow.” She sighs and looks at me. “I’d say today was a good start in family counseling, wouldn’t you?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, it was great. Great that we didn’t rip each other’s heads off.”

  On the ride back to the clinic, I find myself agreeing with my grandmother pro
bably for the first time. We were finally doing what most people call communicating.

  Chapter 30

  Gran Dot and I sit across from Dr. October Common. He’s cluing Gran in on some of the realities of us users’ success rates. “One important aspect to remember, especially in the early days of recovery, is that relapse is a part of the disease. Not every recovering addict will relapse, but many will.”

  Oh shit, I friggin’ hope not—do not wanna do this again.

  “Now, Faith, this would not mean that the treatment program was unsuccessful. If it does happen, it means that you and your family will need to pick up and move on from the relapse.”

  “Oh no, doctor, it’s not happening,” Gran says firmly. “I lost my daughter to this, I’m not losing my granddaughter.” I look at Gran, stunned. What has gotten into her?

  “Faith, do you remember a conversation we had about a week ago—about one of your earliest memories? The shooting across the street on Danziger Crescent?”

  The feeling in the back of my neck creeps back whenever I think about it. I wipe my hands on my pants and swallow dryly. Think of the strategies. I shudder and look at the floor. “Yes, I remember. I’ll never forget that.”

  “How are you feeling right now, Faith? Give me words, only words.”

  I have to really focus to put my finger on it, but all I can think of is “Anxious. Sad. Darkness.”

  “All right, Faith. Look up at me. That image still haunts you when you think of it, am I right?” Gran’s eyes are flitting from Dr. October to me and back again.

  “Yeah. I guess it’s always there. I mean, sometimes more than others, but…yeah. I still see it.”

  “I remember it, too,” Gran whispers. “It was horrible. The kids were little. Cops came to talk to the guy living across the survey, and he just up and shot one of them through the door. The other cop got a round off himself; ended up shooting that crazy guy right in the chest.” I feel my ears buzz. Listening to Gran recount the story is like watching it on a movie screen. “He had a strange name, too. What was it now?”