An Underestimated Christmas (Underestimated 3) Read online

  If I could just get Morgan to see that this wasn’t me being selfish. This was me trying not to be selfish. There was nothing sneaky about it, not Center Station anyway. The store in the city, yeah, but not this. I never meant for it to be this way.

  Although I was one that believed in creating your own destiny, I was learning that sometimes you couldn’t do that. The people I loved didn’t understand it. Nicholas couldn’t change who he was, and Morgan couldn’t understand why I was the way I was, why I felt the need to control her and everything in my life. I couldn’t and I was learning that. I just needed her to trust me on this. Just one more time. Reading about the town pressed me to believe it was destiny. That I didn’t get lost in this one horse town by accident. If I could just get her there I knew we’d be okay.

  By midnight, I was extremely worried. What if something happened? Where could she be? It wasn’t like she had girlfriends here. I mean she did, like mommies from the rec center and all, but no one I’d ever known her to do anything with. Maybe she was at her moms. Maybe she just needed her mom and someone to talk to.

  I knew I should have gone home after the third drink, after some random guy bought me another one. I chose this bar because I knew I could walk to it and Alicia and I had gone there once when Drew and Celeste were out of town. I never told him.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to get going,” I told the bartender. The tattooed guy sat beside me and slid it back, taking it from the bartender’s hands.

  “One more.” He smiled. He smelled like he just smoked an ashtray and I wasn’t born yesterday. I knew his intentions. I didn’t care about them. I’d been sitting there for two hours, nursing Vodka and cranberry juice. I wasn’t drunk at all, only because I wanted the pill Drew had and I couldn’t think about anything else.

  “Thanks, but I really need to be going. My husband’s waiting outside for me.”

  “Liar. You’ve been sitting here crying in your drink for two hours,” he teased with a smile. I smiled a half smile back with a deep sigh. Couldn’t argue with that, but I did hold up my left hand and let him see my ring. I waited for him to say something in amazement about the very expensive wedding set I wore, but he didn’t.

  “You jonesing?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your hands. That’s what I do when I need a fix.”

  That caught my interest. “What kind of fix?”

  “Mine is snow and pills, what’s yours?”

  “What kind of pills?” I said, asking the important questions only.

  He shrugged his shoulders and moved my drink in front of me again. I sipped it and waited for a response.

  “My name’s Blain. Yours?” he asked, offering a hand.

  I shook his hand and told him my name, comparing his strong working-man hands to Drew’s soft, gentle hands. Blain’s fingernails were caked in grease and he had healing bloody knuckles.

  “That’s not from a fight. It’s from a wrench letting loose inside a motor. This one’s from a fight,” he teased, showing me his other hand.

  I sort of smiled, but didn’t really care. “You said pills. What kind of pills?”

  “I knew it. I could tell by how fidgety you are. What’s your flavor?”

  “I don’t know. I only have Lortab and my husband is controlling those right now.” Voices in my head screamed to get up and walk away. Nothing good could come from this.

  “Got some Oxy’s.”

  I knew he was probably talking about OxyContin and I knew what kind of high you could get from them. I’d had them after my accident and surgery once, but I didn’t remember how they made me feel.

  “Come on, let’s go in the bathroom.”

  I should have stopped right there. I should have said goodbye and gone home to my husband. But…I didn’t. I followed my new best friend, Blain, to the men’s room. He small-talked about the song that filled the bar, sending a crowd full of people, singing drunk to “Friends in Low Places.” I pretended to give a shit about the stupid song, noticing the chain hooked to a belt loop, extending to a wallet in his back pocket.

  Adrenaline rushed my veins when Blain ushered me in and locked the door. What the fuck was I doing here? I have no idea what he was mumbling about, the endorphins being released in my brain was too loud to comprehend.

  Blain talked like we were old friends, taking a razorblade from his chained wallet and then a plastic baggy full of little brown pills. “These are 40s. I’ll let you try a line for free. Have you ever snorted before? I’d only do half if it’s your first time.”

  I heard that. Every last word. Snort? The words, telling him I wasn’t snorting pain pills up my nose in the bathroom of some bar while my husband worried about me at home with my children never found my lips. I nodded, feeling overwhelmed by my exciting, intense situation.

  I watched while he talked, chopping up one pill with the razorblade. He rolled the dollar bill and handed it to me and I had no idea what to do. I was doing drugs in a bar with a guy who could very well be gone at any second. Gone because I would be passed out while he dragged me to his car and to my death. All the logic was there. Everything in me screamed to get the hell out of there and my hand did the opposite. I was flipping a coin on my life. Heads I win, tails he wins.

  “You do it first,” I coaxed. The way I figured it, if he was willing to do it first, I was probably safe. He hunched over the counter and snorted the entire right line.

  I took the bill and pressed one nostril closed. Holding the dollar bill to the clear one, I snorted, breathing the entire line up one nostril just like they did on television, and stood. Blain smiled and started talking. That’s when I knew for sure this was nothing more than a drug deal. Blain wanted money, not me.

  “Huh? Yeah?” he questioned with a smile while I felt the instant relief. The shakes were promptly gone, the nervous feeling disappeared, and a calm that I had been waiting all evening for came over me. I smiled and nodded. Hell yeah. Sign me up.

  “Okay, I get twenty bucks a pill, but if you buy all of them, I’ll give them to you for fifteen.”

  “How many do you have?” I asked. I couldn’t be going in to bars and meeting up with guys in a dark bathroom. I wanted them all and hoped like hell he had enough to keep me going for a while.

  “Wait a second!” Blain called to the pounding door. “I brought ten.”

  Damn, that wasn’t many. “I’ll take all of them and I’ll give you ten bucks a pill.” I don’t know why I negotiated with the guy. It wasn’t the money. I would have pulled a thousand out of the ATM at that moment. Life was majestic and I no longer had a care in the world. I guess it was a Drew kind of thing. Drew negotiated everything he could.

  After securing my little stash in my front pocket, I pulled the cash out from the ATM right outside the door and got my new friend’s number. Dr. Blain was what he was stored as. I knew Drew went through my phone regularly. He wasn’t supposed to. It was a trust thing Deidra said he had to learn to deal with, without being a controlling idiot. He never just said, “give me your phone” and searched it like he once did, but I knew when I left it alone with him, he did. I didn’t care because I had nothing to hide, and if it made him happy it didn’t really bother me.

  I walked the beach back to the house, feeling way better than I had when I left. I knew Drew was going to be pissed, but I didn’t really care. So was I.

  “You okay?” he asked. He didn’t sound pissed at all.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m going to bed.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Over at Whales Bar and Grill.”

  Drew closed his laptop when I walked around the table toward the kitchen. I didn’t even care what he was hiding. It didn’t concern me because it would be a cold day in hell before I followed him anywhere. I wasn’t going to New York. City or not.

  My bed felt amazing, or did the Oxy feel amazing? Regardless, I wasn’t feeling any pain. I felt relaxed, calm, and ready for sleep.

  “Here,” Drew said
, forcing my eyes to open.

  I peered out of one opened eye, noticing the pill and the water. Shit. I didn’t need that. That might be pushing it a little.

  “Here, do you want this?”

  “No, I’m fine, and that pisses me off.”

  “What? What pisses you off? I’m so lost here I don’t know whether I’m coming or going with you.”

  “You’re the lost one? That’s funny Drew. You’re the only one who knows where we’re going. The rest of us are just supposed to tag along. And that pisses me off because any other time, you make me ask for them. Are you just being nice tonight, Drew, or is this something new we’re doing? Now you’re just going to give them to me? We’re done with the asking game now?” This was getting out of control. I couldn’t take much more of this, and I really didn’t want to. When was enough, enough?

  I jerked the covers up to my chin and turned away from him, letting him know I was done.

  “Morgan will you listen to me? Please?”

  I ignored him and closed my eyes.

  The next day was much of the same. Drew and I ignored each other or made smart remarks back and forth. And sometimes, when the boys were out of earshot, we’d let it get a little carried away. I didn’t know what he expected. Alicia agreed with me. I bet I could have asked everyone on the street if they would be pissed and they would say yes.

  Maybe I wouldn’t even care so much if he included me, too. Why was that too much to ask? Never mind the fact that I was the wife, the mother, the one who should have a say in anything major. It wasn’t like I was mad over nothing.

  “Hey, what’s this?” Drew asked me pulling me by my arm to look at his computer screen. “Why did you need that much money at the bar? Why do you have two withdrawals? One from Whales and one from an ATM. Did you lie to me, Morgan?” Drew asked, questioning my spending. Of course, that pissed me off, but not as much as the transaction six rows up.

  “Hey, Drew,” I whispered, bending close to his ears. Nicky and Tad were right in front of us, playing with Legos on the living room floor. “What’s that right there,” I pointed to a six hundred and fifty thousand dollars deposit, and then the line where it was taken right back out of our joint checking. Had Drew not called me over to point out my spending habits I would have never known it.

  That caught him off guard and he stumbled on his words. I patted him on the back and helped him out a little. “Are you losing it, Drew? You don’t normally slip up like that,” I pondered in a low tone and walked away. Un-fucking-believable. And I was just supposed to be okay with that? Especially when Drew thought he was going to stand there and hand me his shit about my pocket change.

  Not sure what to do about the pills Drew kept from me, I retrieved my previous purchase. I didn’t need his pills and I didn’t want them. I had my own, but I knew I couldn’t just stop asking for them. Deciding not to take one of my new ones until I asked Drew for one of my prescription pills, I swallowed my pride and asked.

  “I need a pill.”

  “Morgan, will you please just listen to me? I can explain every bit of this if you just give me a chance.”

  “You mean like when you explained you bought a three million dollar house in LA, or did you mean the eleven million dollar business? When would you like to explain it, now or two days before we move?”

  “Morgan.”

  “I’m. Not. Going,” I assured Drew.

  “So what are you saying then, Morgan? Are you saying you want a divorce?”

  “Just give me a pill.”

  “Answer my question. Is that what you want? If you think for one second that you’re keeping me from these boys, you’re sadly mistaken. You’ll be the every other weekend parent. Not me.”

  “So that is your plan. You are planning to move us to New York.”

  “I—Its—I mean,” Drew muttered.

  “I know, Drew. I get it. You’re a piece of shit. You don’t own me like property,” I retaliated in his face. That pushed a button. Drew turned on me, slammed me against the cupboard, and wrapped his fingers around my throat.

  “You need to stop. You need to stop with all this, Morgan. I’m warning you. Stop!”

  I felt Drew’s hand release the grip, but held the position. My hand went to his wrist and one tear slid down my face.

  “It’s always going to be like this, Drew,” I quietly said, moving around him just in time for Tadpole to run around the corner and wipeout.

  I was happy for the distraction. Babying Tad for the next twenty minutes, rocking him while he acted like he was dying in agony was a needed diversion. Drew would have followed me had Tad not fallen and this would have continued in our room. Instead, I tended to Tadpole and he handed me the pill. I took it, pretended to put it in my mouth, and swallowed the water he held for me.

  As soon as he was gone I slid it in my pocket and began my stash. I’d come back to that one when I needed it. Once Tad was finished with his tantrum, I went to the bathroom and took one whole pill from my friend Blain. It wasn’t the same as it was before, and for a second, I thought I’d been hustled. It took longer to take effect and it wasn’t the same buzz. This was what I waited all day for?

  Within twenty minutes, I did feel better, but it still wasn’t the same. The math in my head told me the nine pills would last about three days like this. If I was going to make them last I was going to have to do what Blain taught me to do. That would get me through Thanksgiving Day with my family. Then I would meet Blain again for a few more. Problem solved.

  Only I didn’t have enough to wait until then. I learned pretty quickly that snorting the pills rather than taking them got to me a lot sooner with a more intense high. I used Drew being a controlling ass to justify the need.

  I was just going over my menu for the next day when Drew walked into his office and closed the door to take a call. I shook my head and turned back to my next day’s plan.

  “Nicky, don’t do that,” I lectured, watching him swing a yo-yo around the air. My eyes landed on Drew’s when he exited his office and looked at me with a look I’d seen before. Something was coming. I just didn’t know what.

  “Morgan, I swear this wasn’t planned.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. What did you do now?”

  “I listed it two days ago. I thought for sure it would take months to sell.” That’s how he told me our house was on the market. “We need to go pack and get the movers going. I told them we could be out in thirty days.”

  “Oh, okay. Great. I’m going to go bathe the boys,” I said, stepping around him. I had to. I was about to go ape shit crazy on him.

  “Morgan, listen to me.”

  “Why?” I questioned, throwing him a ‘what’s the point?’ expression. Not waiting for a response, I went to bathroom to run bath water. I had a Thanksgiving dinner to prepare for everyone. Like that’s what I wanted to do right now. I didn’t even want to stay here. I wanted to get away for Christmas, but that wasn’t going to happen. Drew was going to make sure of it.

  “And I’m just supposed to be okay with this?” I said to my reflection in the mirror, kicking my bathroom door closed with my heel. I turned on the water and looked at the door before retrieving a tiny little pill and a razorblade hidden on top of the light fixture. I chopped it up like a pro on my shiny granite countertop while I internally bitched about my husband.

  Sure, Drew. Let’s just list the house without talking about it first. Let’s try to get moved out in the mist of the holidays. Why not. Hell, we might as well move to that little hick town you keep talking about, I ranted to myself. The smell of money touched my nostril and I snorted one of the two lines. Breathing in relief, my closed eyes fluttered opened to Drew in my mirror. His mouth hung open and his hand was frozen to the doorknob.

  “Drew, this isn’t what you think,” I instantly spoke. Shit. Why didn’t I lock the damn door?

  “What the fuck are you doing, Morgan?” Drew asked in total disbelief.

  “It’s not coke. I
swear.”

  “Why?”

  The rest of our foundation crumbled at that very moment. I was so proud of Morgan for overcoming something she’d let become a crutch for her. She had barely asked for a pill, sometimes I offered and sometimes I didn’t. I wasn’t even worried about it anymore. I thought she’d kicked it. Had it licked. She didn’t. My wife was snorting something up her nose in a ten dollar bill.

  There was nothing for me to do but walk out. I couldn’t talk to her without hurting her. My jaw hurt from being clinched all evening and I still couldn’t talk about it with her. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Nothing I did helped. I left Morgan to tend to the boys and I left. I had to go walk off some anger before we were alone together. I probably shouldn’t even come back.

  Walking along the shore, I wondered where to go from here. What the hell to do to fix this. The notification in my pocket told me my wife just messaged me. I didn’t even want to see it. I swiped it away without even reading it. And then I frowned at Sole’s name, ringing from my phone.

  “Hello, just wanted to touch base, see how things were going,” Sole spoke. I knew what he was calling for, and I knew the question wasn’t about my personal life. That’s what he got, though. For whatever reason, I laid the last three years of my life out to Solomon. I didn’t understand why everything had to be a fight with Morgan and me. And I wanted to fix it more than anything.

  Solomon listened with Hmm Mmms’ and yeahs’, never interrupting. All the way to where I told him I just watched my wife snort drugs up her nose. Sole didn’t judge me. Not once did I feel like I shouldn’t have told him.

  “Five years ago Stacy lost her mother to cancer,” he began his own story. “She cared for her for six months, watching her wither away to nothing more than a pile of bones. Two weeks after that, she had to have both her breasts removed, and Adam had just broken his leg. A lot of things fell on her shoulders that year. Things that happened rapidly, things she couldn’t change or control. I know what it’s like to have your wife addicted to pain pills. I know what it’s like to be walking in your shoes right now.”