Dirty South Drug Wars (32 page)

My sister. The girl was my sister.

“Sissy.” I sobbed, choking on my own words, my voice sounding strange, foreign to my ears. “Please wake up. Please, Sissy.”

The girl said nothing. She continued to rest in an uncaring slumber, undisturbed as she jerked and quivered under Chance’s hands.

I clasped her cold hand, rubbing it briskly to warm her flesh back to life. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I was supposed to protect you. Oh my God, this is my fault. This is all my fault.”

Tears pricked my eyes before spilling over. Chance pressed his lips over my sister’s mouth, his shaggy hair brushing against her face. In that moment, another memory struck me, this one as vivid as the one of my father.

I was nine and already a cynic, believing nothing of fairy tales and folklore. My sister was in her Disney Princess phase. She’d spin around the living room in her blue, red, and yellow faux-silk dress, singing along to the music flowing from the television. The garment was a dress meant to replicate that of Snow White, who my sister openly believed was her own true identity.

Lucy’s favorite scene was the kissing scene, when the gallant prince would arrive on his trusty steed to awaken Snow White from her eternal rest with one rousing kiss.

“That’s me, Sissy.” Lucy beamed, showing off a partially toothless grin.

She pointed at the screen of the television where Snow White lay in her coffin. The handsome prince arrived, pressing his lips against hers, inevitably waking her from her slumber.

I huffed, rolling my eyes as I struggled to find the correct piece of the puzzle I was working on. “You’re not Snow White.”

“Yes I am,” she whispered. Her face transformed, void of emotion as she shuffled to the screen, pressing her fingers against the glowing glass. “I’m Snow White … and someday my prince will come, breathing life into me.”

The memory brought more tears spilling over my cheeks. She was so innocent, believing herself a princess, dancing around our living room with her dainty giggles filling the air.

The warm glow of the room was replaced with the rhythmic flashing of red lights from the window, pulling me from the memory.

“They’re here,” Tanner spoke into the phone. “Thank you.”

He ended the call with the 911 operator and shoved the cell back in his pocket. He begged Chance to let him assist with the CPR, but Chance continued to refuse. He was weary, but he covered it well, never letting up working frantically on saving my sister.

I pressed myself into the corner of the bedroom, hitting the wall and slumping to the floor. I drew my knees to my chest, feeling weak and helpless in that moment, more so than I’d felt in my entire life.

The paramedics arrived, dragging a stretcher behind them. One of them gently tugged Chance away from Lucy. The paramedic assumed Chance’s position while Chance stood pale and helpless nearby. The paramedics spouted off questions, removing objects I couldn’t identify from their smart black bags. Tanner and Chance struggled to answer. Tanner’s pleading face drew me from my solemn shell.

“She’s seventeen,” I whispered. “She’s allergic to iodine. She’s not on any medication, but she does take Adderall and painkillers that aren’t hers sometimes and she smokes weed … a lot. A doctor once told my mother Lucy was manic depressive, but my mother refused to believe him. Those needles, they’re not hers. She’s not on the needle. She’d never do anything like that. She has no other medical conditions. She had surgery once. When she was five she broke her right arm after watching
Mary Poppins
. She climbed on top of the tool shed, opened an umbrella, and jumped. Lucy is always doing silly things like that. All she’s ever wanted to do is fly.”

Pity shone in the paramedic’s eyes. I turned my head, wanting none of his pity and none of the scene before me.

Tanner abandoned Chance, who stood nearby running his fingers through his hair, his face ashen. Tanner approached me. He stooped down and murmured comforting words in my ear. He lifted me to my feet, pulling me into his arms. He stroked my hair and I buried my face in the crook of his neck and silently sobbed.

They placed my sister’s limp body on a stretcher. I looked at her one last time before they took her away. Her small face was still peaceful. Some sort of device protruded from her mouth. The paramedics continued CPR all the way down the bumpy staircase. Their mumbled words of “suicide attempt” and “meth overdose” filtered through the stiff, hot air. They carried her outside, two of them climbing in the back with her forlorn frame while the other slammed the doors behind them. I could still see her face glowing beneath the lights in the back of the ambulance as it pulled away, disappearing into the night.

That was the night my sister’s heart stopped not once, but twice. She died twice that night.

My secrets, my carefully guarded secrets, no longer existed.

Tanner and I arrived at the emergency room within minutes of the ambulance. He held my hand as we waited for word, any word, of Lucy’s condition. My body trembled in his arms, my face crumbled with tears, and all the while he sat diligently by my side, smoothing my hair, whispering comforting words in my ear.

Chance was a mess, pacing around the ER, cussing below his breath, blaming himself for leaving for college and not listening to Lucy. It didn’t take long for me to understand he knew—Chance freaking
knew
Lucy would die. She’d told him one of her weird predictions of her impending death.

I wanted to hate Chance for not warning me, for not telling me about the things she saw, but my bitter words never came. Instead, the two halves of my brain argued with one another. One half argued that Lucy was insane, and she’d done this to herself. She’d made Chance believe the things she saw as she’d done to us countless times. The other half of my brain argued that Lucy was rarely wrong concerning the things she saw, and if her overdose was something she’d planned all along, it was a well-delivered, precise plan that I doubted my sister had the patience for.

Word got around fast in small towns, and it was only a matter of minutes before the Monroe clan arrived at Birchwood Medical Center’s emergency room. Amos came in first, his forehead drooped with concern, until he saw me tucked into Tanner’s side sitting in the waiting room.

Amos towered over us, nostrils flaring. “Ruby Red Monroe, what in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Tanner stood proud and tall, much taller than my uncle who eased back a step or two. The sight of him skulking away would have been comical, if not for the situation at hand.

“Don’t you dare raise your voice to her,” Tanner said. “Don’t you ever talk to her like that again.”

Amos peered around him, ignoring my infuriated boyfriend’s words. “What’s the meaning of this? Why are you here with this boy? With this
Montgomery
?”

I drew my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around my legs, hugging them against my body. “Like you don’t know. Just who exactly are you putting on an act for, Amos? Your brothers? The staff and patients listening in? Because you and I both know you’ve known about my relationship with Tanner for a while now.”

I gestured around the room as I spoke, pointing at our various family members who’d filed into the emergency room, their faces lined with worry. Amos took deep breaths, his hands clenched in hard knots at his sides.

I spotted Josie in my periphery, still wearing her cheerleading uniform. The sparkling makeup she’d worn earlier in the night shone dimly under the fluorescent lights. Her hair bow hung limply from her ponytail. She nodded and held her head high, glaring down her nose at our uncle.

Heart trembling in my chest, I stood, holding my head just as high. “I’ve been seeing Tanner for months now. What are you going to do about it? Shoot me?” With one finger pointed in my uncle’s reddening face, I grabbed the attention of nurses, doctors, friends, and family. “Hey, everyone, I’m dating Tanner Montgomery. If you find me dead, you’ll know who to blame.”

Tanner found my free hand, grasping it in his. I’d reached my boiling point, my temper flaring, spitting, and bursting through the carefully sewn seams of my not-so-secret life, exposing Tanner and myself for what we were: the children of enemies who were very much in love with one another, and had been even longer than either one of us truly realized.

Aunt Maggie grabbed my wrist, forcing my finger out of Amos’ face. “Rue, you’re making a fool of yourself. We understand, sweetie. This boy drew you into this, didn’t he? We’re not mad. We know how deceptive those Montgomerys are.”

Josie shoved through the crowd of relatives. “Oh, put a sock in it, Mother.”

Dumbfounded, Aunt Maggie’s jaw went slack, opening and closing without breathing a word.

Josie smirked, her eyes shining. “I’m in love with Bryce Montgomery. Put that in your blunt papers and smoke it.”

Aunt Maggie grew faint, eyelids fluttering. Saul caught her before she hit the floor and helped her into a chair. He gestured for a flabbergasted nurse, rendering her from her stupefied state.

Nana arrived in the midst of our confessions, shuffling across the floor and giving Josie and me a proud, solemn nod.

*

“Rue, I need to speak to your mother about Lucy’s condition,” Doctor Bines said. “Lucy is a minor. Your mother is her responsible party—”

“My mother hasn’t been home for months. She’s been living in Birmingham spending our Social Security benefits. I’ve taken care of Lucy longer than my mother ever has. Tell me what I need to know about my sister, please.”

The doctor, who probably knew my mother from the years she worked at the hospital, looked shocked and slightly disgruntled by my blunt admission. Nevertheless, he trudged forward, giving me the information I so desperately needed.

“The next few days will be touch and go,” Doctor Bines explained. “Lucy’s body suffered a great deal of stress from the methamphetamine injected into her system. The drug overworked her heart, causing her to have a mild heart attack. She also suffered from hypothermia. Raising her body temperature exhausted her kidneys to the point of shutting down. When she does wake up, and I fully expect her to do so, she’ll have a long road ahead. We’ll try to wean and extubate her within the next couple days as long as she continues to show functional brain activity. Things are looking promising. She has a few broken ribs, but luckily none of them punctured her lungs. Whoever initially provided CPR undoubtedly saved her life.”

Somehow I found my way into Chance’s arms. His embrace was warm and comforting. He smelled of hickory and cedar, a soothing, familiar combination. I cried into his shirt, but he didn’t complain. Instead he stroked my hair, whispering soothing words the same way his pseudo-brother had during my moments of distress. And I thanked him. God, how I thanked him for saving my sister.

*

Things changed during the next two days—life altering things. The first life-altering event was the presence of Graham and Melissa, who’d taken it upon themselves to pay my sister’s medical expenses.

It was by chance I found out about their generosity. I overheard two nurses gossiping near the vending machines on the outskirts of the intensive care waiting room. I wasn’t shocked people were talking about our families. It was the greatest scandal to hit our small hometowns in quite some time, but to find out the Montgomerys were taking the burden of medical expenses from my shoulders was overwhelming.

I made my presence known to the nurses when I stole a sip of water from the water fountain. They scuttled away like two beady-eyed rats. When I returned to the waiting area I practically scooped Melissa up from where she sat reading a two-year-old
Ladies’ Home Journal
magazine.

Melissa giggled as I released her from our tight embrace. “What was that for?”

I dragged my fingers through my rumpled hair, embarrassed over my sudden display of affection. “That was for paying Lucy’s medical bills.”

Melissa chuckled, patting my cheek like a child. “Oh, sweetie. You’ll have to thank Graham for that. I don’t have the means to pay for anything. Graham brings home the bread and butter. I’m merely the one who burns it.”

“Literally and figuratively,” Tanner muttered.

Melissa and I glanced at each other stoically before releasing a soft, much needed giggle that sounded odd in the stuffy, dismal waiting room.

When Graham and Chance returned from the cafeteria, I gave Graham a rib-cracking hug that caught him off guard. He chuckled, patting my back awkwardly the entire time.

The second thing that changed was Bryce and Josie’s relationship status. Bryce sat in the waiting room for two days, mooning over Josie like a lost little puppy. Josie was the picture of boredom as she thumbed through page after page of old
Cosmo
magazines, humming in approval when she’d find an article concerning how to appropriately pleasure your man.

He got a bait of it after the second day. Bryce stalked over to where Josie sat and towered over her with nothing but wrath on his face. He demanded she “get up and come on,” which she shockingly did.

I didn’t see Josie much between visiting hours after that. She continued to pop in from time to time when it was her turn to visit Lucy, but other than that, she belonged to Bryce once more.

The non-existent relationship I had with my mother? It remained non-existent, although at epic proportions.

Christine arrived on day two of Lucy’s admission to the hospital. I still wasn’t sure who had called her. She stormed in, sniffing and sobbing, pressing a tissue to her nose, wailing about her “poor baby.”

I sat in the hard, plastic chair as she spoke to the doctor. I dissected her every move, each change of the expression on her face, gauging just how honest she was in her reaction to her daughter’s overdose. I wanted to believe she was nothing but sincere, but the concern, the heartache, was all fake. It was a poorly executed plan to play the role she was forced to play: heartbroken mother.

Melissa patted my leg. “Are you hungry, dear? I’ll run down to the cafeteria and pick us up some coffee and doughnuts. Does that sound good?”

I nodded, her words barely registering. Melissa, unaware of my mother’s presence, stood and planted a gentle kiss on my forehead. She left the waiting room in a whirl, leaving a trail of expensive perfume in her wake.

Graham and Tanner were not as unobservant as Melissa.

“The nerve … how did she find out about Lucy anyway?” Tanner grumbled.

“I’m not sure, but I don’t like her being here. Not one bit,” I said.

Christine tilted her head as a nurse approached her, and they quietly spoke. She dabbed her dry cheeks with the wadded tissues and followed the nurse into the intensive care unit.

Graham cleared his throat. “Rue, Melissa and I have been talking. We’d feel more comfortable knowing you were somewhere safe, somewhere closer to the hospital. We’d like nothing more than for you and Lucy, once she’s on the mend, to stay with us for a while.”

Stunned by his offer, I stared at him forever, that devil in an expensive suit. Graham was a man I’d been trained to hate, but in that moment there were only two other men I’d ever loved more. One was dead. The other sat dutifully by my side, clasping my hand in his.

“Thank you, Graham,” I whispered, noticing Amos in my periphery.

Elevator doors swished shut behind Amos as he entered the waiting room. I’d never know if Amos heard Graham’s offer. With a dip of his head, he disappeared into the ICU. The clock on the wall told me visiting hours had begun.

Melissa returned with the coffee and doughnuts just as I stood. She handed me the coffee, and I thanked her, taking it in my hands, cherishing the warmth the cup provided in the cold, clinical room.

I kicked up a fuss with a nurse who insisted only two visitors were allowed in Lucy’s room at a time. When she noticed I wasn’t about to back down, she hesitantly turned a blind eye.

Entering the room, I ignored my mother who played pity party for my uncle. She was sobbing, but her face was still dry. He was eating it up too, coddling her like a small child.

Instead, I went to my sister, my sleeping angel, who lay peacefully in the bed. Tubing ran from every orifice on her body, and I swallowed the knot of sadness that formed in my throat. I refused to cry any longer. I had to be strong for my sister. I had to be brave. Lucy would come out of this alive, possibly not unscathed, but definitely alive.

Then she moved just a twitch.

A smile, the first real smile, broke across my face. “She moved. She moved her finger. Someone call the doctor.”

My blubbering brought the attention of the doctors and nurses who filed inside the tiny room, shooing us away.

A flicker of anger flashed across Amos’ face. My heart thumped erratically in my chest. At that moment, I knew he had something to do with my sister’s overdose. And my mother … she did little to hide the sense of disappointment displayed on her features.

As soon as the doctors noticed me in the overcrowded room, they banished me to the waiting room. Sickened by thoughts of Amos and Christine left alone with my sister, I rushed away, seeking out the people who I knew could help me. Graham, Melissa, and Tanner sat where I’d left them, exhaustion disappearing from their faces at my anxious pace.

“We’ve got to get Lucy out of here,” I said. “Amos had something to do with Lucy’s overdose. I don’t have proof; I just feel it. Deep in my veins, I can feel it. You should have seen the look on his face when Lucy moved. What if he tries to finish the job? What if he tries to kill her?”

“Lucy moved?” Melissa’s face lit up, worries momentarily cast aside. “That’s wonderful news.”

“We’ll think of something,” Tanner whispered. “We’ll find some way to get her out of here.”

Graham smiled around the hot swell of coffee in his hands, his lips a breath away from the top of the Styrofoam cup.

“How about an agreement?”

“What sort of agreement?”

“We’ll take care of Lucy,” he said, nodding at someone behind me, “and you’ll take care of the suit.”