An Underestimated Christmas (Underestimated 3) Page 8

  I walked into the house from the garage, to the glass doors and the silhouette on the deck. Looking around, I noticed the opened bottle of vodka and the bottle of prescription pills opened beside it. After looking in on both of my sleeping boys, I closed the pill bottle and glanced at the label. Four refills, four of four. The bottle was dated two weeks before and she had already filled the bottle four times. Why didn’t I know this? Was this something I needed to be concerned about? I don’t think you’re supposed to drink while on Lortab.

  My first reaction was to be pissed at her. She was abusing prescription pills and drinking while my boys slept. Hell no. Fuck no. I was pissed. I was pissed right up until the time opened the door and saw her crying. Fuck.

  Kneeling in front of her, Morgan latched on like she was holding on for dear life. I held her, not saying one word while she sobbed in the crook of my neck. I’m sure at least ten minutes went by with Morgan weeping in my arms. Why did I keep doing everything all wrong? How the hell was I supposed to fix this?

  I kissed Morgan’s puffy eyes and lips, holding her face in my hands. “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I just—I can’t—I don’t want…”

  “Shhh, slow down. Stop crying. I can’t understand a word you’re saying. What’s wrong, baby?”

  “Everything is wrong, Drew. Nothing is right. I can’t do this by myself. I need you.”

  “I’m right here, Morgan. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Stop fucking doing that,” she yelled, standing. “Stop fucking pretending like everything is okay. You can’t ignore it and make it go away, Drew.”

  “Are you hooked on pain pills?”

  “What?” she asked, changing the flailing armed attitude to hands on her hips in shock. I didn’t know what else to say. I was tired of her constantly wanting to bring up Nicholas.

  “He’s the same today as he was yesterday, and last week, and last year. Why isn’t that good enough for you anymore?” I asked, feeling the emotions shift to anger.

  “Drew, I don’t know how to get through to you. He’s sick. He needs help, and I can’t help him if you continue to live in denial.”

  “I’m not living in denial, Morgan. I don’t know why you’re so quick to jump on this bandwagon.”

  “Just get online and research it, Drew. That’s all I’m asking. Please,” Morgan begged.

  “I don’t need to research it, Morgan. Can’t you stop with this? Please,” I begged in the same tone she had.

  “He needs help, and you’re keeping him from it. I’ll shut up. I’m going to bed.”

  I hated the mellow tone in her voice. “Fuck!” I yelled, watching her walk away, slamming my fist into the side of the house. That was it. I gave the fuck up. What was the point?

  The time at the beach house fucking sucked. Morgan walked around like I didn’t exist, except for when the sun went down. At which time she didn’t have a bit of a problem spreading her legs for me. I spent the next three days playing with my NORMAL boys, wishing hours to pass so I could be intimate with Morgan. We walked around each other like we were afraid to be in the same room and then released the day’s tension at night. It was as fucked up as it always had been.

  The night before we were to fly out, I was checking emails when I noticed Nicholas’s package shipped. I looked up to Morgan, reading with one pajama boy on each side of the sofa. I smiled at her animated tone, trying to sound like a grizzly bear.

  I continued to listen to the story and the boys laugh at their mom while pretending to be busy on my laptop.

  “Mom, can we make rice crispy treats?” Nicholas asked as soon as Morgan said the end. I loved how she said the end. She was so dramatic, always sounded like it truly was the end. Morgan smiled at me with her eyes and closed the book. I listened to her as she tried to reason with Nicholas.

  Right at that moment is when the pop up on my computer caught my eye. Right at that moment is when Morgan’s words rang in my head, the end, the end, the end. Right at that moment is when I knew I had to fix this. I had to do something before it was the end.

  “It’s too late for that. Let’s go brush our teeth,” Morgan coaxed.

  I closed out the real estate ad, ignoring the prime property for a new store. “I think that’s a brilliant idea,” I called over the table to my family. Morgan slid the sleeping Tadpole from her arm and he curled in a little ball. I hadn’t even realized he’d fallen asleep.

  “We’ll make Rice Crispy treats tomorrow,” Morgan countered, ruffling Nicky’s hair.

  “Can we, Dad?” Nicky asked, turning to me. Of course, I looked to Morgan for the answer. We were usually pretty good when it came to not overruling one another. Not in front of each other anyway.

  “Can we, Mom?” I asked in my cutest little kid voice. She smiled. That was all I needed. My baking attempt with my son and my wife was supposed to be fun. Morgan had to ruin it by constantly pointing out the problems my son had. I didn’t need her to do that.

  “Okay, Nicky, get us a pan, a measuring cup, the cereal, and the marshmallows,” she clarified, smiling down at his excitement. Nick remembered the pan, and she had to tell him what next. He remembered the cereal, but no matter which way Morgan tried to put it, he couldn’t remember the marshmallows.

  She continued to make him look like an imbecile as she gave him instructions even I couldn’t understand. And yes, it was pissing me off. I hated the way she looked at me with her patronizing stares every time he couldn’t remember what step was next. He wasn’t even five for fucks sake.

  I was glad Drew was there. I was happy he was there to pick me up while I was having my disastrous event. He just so happened to show up right after an hour conversation with Alicia. I told her everything and groveled at her feet for forgiveness. I needed Alicia in my life. I didn’t need Chelsea in my life.

  I wasn’t trying to make Drew mad at all. I was simply pointing out the things Drew refused to see. By the time Nicholas was pressing the sticky mess into the glass pan, Drew was glaring at me. I give up.

  Frustrated, I ignored Drew’s glares. I cleaned up while he helped Nicholas finish what he thought would be an icebreaker and fun, family time. Leaving them alone, I took two pills from my purse and poured a glass of wine. A hot bath was a better idea than this. Drew was so closed-minded he wasn’t going to get anything that I was trying to convey to him.

  “Does your head hurt?” he asked, washing Nicholas’s hands and lifting him to the floor.

  “No, why?” I asked, confused.

  “What are you taking those for? The bottle says for pain. Where’s your pain?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Drew. Are you putting him to bed?” I defensively asked, not about to go there with him. I caught the accusation full force. What an ass. The point in me even responding was stupid. He was only going to hear what he wanted anyway.

  The dirty look was the only response he got. My glare shot straight through Drew’s head when I knelt to kiss Nicky on the head. My arm automatically jerked away when Drew grabbed my wrist. “Let go,” I ordered, trying to talk natural in front of Nicky. The thick tension in the air was felt like a ton of bricks. Drew felt it, I felt it, and I’m sure Nicholas felt it, too. He was busy getting his fingers sticky again, talking about needing to press here, and here, but he did look up once. Drew opened my fisted hand, finger by finger, his eyes landing on the two speckled blue pills at the same time mine did.

  “Don’t even go there, Drew,” I warned, pulling away from him.

  “Why are you taking them if your head doesn’t hurt?”

  “They help me relax. Put Nicky to bed. Night, little man,” I said, kissing his head again. “Drew, stop. I’m fine,” I pleaded when he secured the same wrists by tightening his grip. I stared at him, taking his hands from the firm hold he had around my arm the same way he did. Finger by finger.

  Swallowing the two pills with red wine, I waited for the hot water and the scent of papaya passion to fill my tub. Zoning out on
the image staring back at me, I wondered how much more. I get the old saying, things usually get worse before they get better, but come on. Enough already. I really didn’t know at that point whether Drew and I would make it. I put him before Nicky once. That hurt me. This one was hurting Nicky and no matter how much I loved Drew. I had to put Nicky first.

  I hadn’t even realized I’d been in a zone. “Your water’s full,” Drew said from the door. I turned and shut the water off. Drew dropped the lid and straddled the toilet with his elbows on his knees and his fingers entwined. Adding one more tap to the nail, I wondered when I had started feeling uncomfortable about taking my close off in front of him. It was awkward and I didn’t understand why. Drew was the only person who had ever seen me at my most vulnerable. This made no sense.

  “Did you want something?” I asked, hiding my naked breasts beneath the soft, fragrant bubbles.

  “Do you need help, Morgan?”

  “I’m not doing this, Drew,” I swear that became a record around him. I’m not doing this, Drew.

  “Morgan, you’re on the fourth refill in two weeks. One bottle should last you a month or better. That worries me.”

  “You have bigger things to worry about. You don’t need to worry about me being one of those moms on 20/20. I’m fine.” I wanted to keep going, tell him we should be talking about Nicholas, and maybe that’s what he should be worried about. I didn’t. There was still a big part of me that was afraid of the Drew I hadn’t seen in a while. I knew he was still in there. I knew he was capable of coming out and I let it go there. Normally, I could tell when I was about to set him off. This one felt different, worried.

  “I’m concerned, Morgan.”

  “Well, you’re concerned about something you don’t need to be concerned about.” I ducked my head, trying to drown out my husband’s presence, and not freak out about something I didn’t need to be freaking out about. I didn’t have a problem. I wasn’t addicted to pain pills. I could stop taking them whenever I wanted. As soon as this appointment was over with Nicholas, I would. I wouldn’t take them anymore unless I needed them.

  “Did you carry Tad to bed?” I asked, trying to elude to anything too deep. It didn’t take much to set one of us off these days. I knew we were both treading lightly. I just didn’t know what to do about it. We tried the phone sessions with Deidra. I refused to do it after the second time. What was the point in seeking counseling if I wasn’t allowed to be honest, say what I thought the problem was, and let her decide how to get through to Drew? She couldn’t. She knew nothing about Nicholas. Drew wouldn’t let me tell her. I had an inkling that Drew was still talking to her, but I wasn’t sure. If he was, it was at the office and I was never allowed to see his phone. Who knew what the hell he did?

  Avoiding any form of eye contact, I bathed and washed my hair. Drew gave up with a heavy sigh and left to take care of Tad, who I knew was still asleep on the couch.

  I quickly got out, rushing to be dressed and in bed by the time Drew returned. I almost made it. My hair stayed wrapped in towel while I disregarded Drew and turned down the covers. He pretended to do the same, retrieving clothes for his own shower.

  “I was hoping you were still in the tub. I was going to join you.”

  “Yeah, I’m tired. I’m just going to read for a little bit,” I countered, knowing he wanted me to say I could come back. I couldn’t. I wasn’t feeling it. The only thing I was feeling was stoned off my ass. Two glasses of wine and two Lortabs was all I needed. Yes, that makes me sound like a druggy, but it wasn’t like that. It just helped me deal with everything a lot better than without it.

  I didn’t remember Drew coming to bed. I remembered reading about two lines of a book I’d been wanting to finish, and that’s it. I remembered kissing him back, or did I kiss him first? Regardless of how fuzzy things seemed to be in the morning, I knew Drew and I had some pretty amazing sex. I know I straddled him backward, sucked him off, took it up the ass, and sat on his face. I knew I did all those things with immense passion and pleasure. I just didn’t recall the steps. It came back in intervals the following morning.

  I laid perfectly still in Drew’s arms when I woke before him, secured and closed in his arms. My thumb swiped the tear while I lay listening to him breathe, sound asleep. It wasn’t going to stay like this. We would be at each other’s throats before noon. It was becoming the norm with us. Fight. Fuck. Repeat. Fight. Fuck. Repeat.

  “Why are you crying?”

  Okay, maybe he wasn’t sleeping. I lay still, not moving, trying to pull off a false sleep. My breath caught in my lungs and the lump in my throat wouldn’t go down with any of the three swallows. I didn’t want to start the day like this.

  “I’m not, crying,” I assured Drew, trying to spin out of his arms and get up.

  He held on to me. “Please don’t shut me out, Morgan. Tell me what’s going on. I can’t make it better if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

  That pissed me off. Drew knew it when I shoved him away and got up. Really? Don’t shut him out? What the fuck did he expect? I wasn’t supposed to shut him out, but I wasn’t allowed to talk about what we needed to be talking about. Oh my god. Did he really just do that? What he was really saying was, ‘Tell me what I want to hear, and pretend everything is okay.’ Fuck that. Fuck his fucked up perception of what the problem was.

  I brushed my teeth, screaming everything I wanted to say to him in my head. That was my moment of weakness. That was the moment I realized I may have a problem. The noise was silent when I shook the empty bottle.

  “What the hell, Morgan? Will you talk to me?”

  I walked out of the bathroom, hiding the bottle in a fist and shot Drew a look that he read, well, leave me the hell alone. Drew knew as well as I did, we were about to start our day yelling at each other. He shut up, and I shut down. The pills weren’t on the windowsill anymore. Drew did something with them. I don’t know how to really explain it, but I was scared. I was terrified that I didn’t have them. Now what? I couldn’t go ask him for them.

  No. I was fine. Nothing hurt, and there was no reason for me to have a painkiller. I started coffee and walked to peek in on the boys. I knew Tadpole was still sleeping. He would have already woken us if he were up. Nicholas may or may not be. I’ve told him a thousand times he didn’t have to wait for me to come get him when he woke up, but most of the time he did. Unless I yelled for him from the kitchen, he would be sitting on his bed, flipping the pages of a giant picture book of bridges. Drew ordered it for him two years ago, and he still looked at it every morning.

  “Watcha doing?” I asked, dropping to my knees by his bed. My torso looked over his book and I growled, lunging at his neck with my sharp teeth. I grabbed him with big bear claws and pinned him to the mattress. His laughter was instantly contagious when my chin met his ribs, sending him into a laughing frenzy.

  “MooOoom!” he giggled, begging me to stop.

  “What do you want for breakfast?” I asked, kissing his exposed belly and blowing noisy raspberries. He cackled.

  “I want, I want,” Tad stuttered from the door.

  Forming an O with my mouth, I looked shockingly at Nicholas. “Pretend you’re a sleep,” I coaxed, closing my eyes. I grabbed Tadpole in the same, tickling bear hug when he didn’t fall for it.

  I rolled one turn to the foot of the bed and listened to Nicholas tell his little brother about a bridge in his book. He was so serious about it.

  “I gonna go on dat bridge,” Tad decided, pointing to the swinging bridge.

  “You can’t go there, Tad. It’s an ancient bridge. It’s not there anymore. Right, Mom?” Nicholas looked to me for help.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, having no clue if the bridge was ancient or not.

  “I can be Spiderman. Then me can,” Tad assured his big brother, sticking out his puny little chest. Oh god, he was a spitting image of his dad. Nicholas would rather argue with Tadpole than let it go. Nicholas didn’t care. He could have turned th
e page and told him he could go on that bridge, or that one, but that would have been too easy.

  “No, you can’t, Tadpole. It’s not there anymore. It’s the Ballasted Bridge in South Africa. Spiderman can’t go back in time.”

  “Me can,” Tad assured him. I caught him just in time by one leg. Nicky pushed him in the chest, sending him to the floor.

  “That wasn’t very nice. You could have hurt your brother,” I lectured.

  “Well, him can’t go to a bridge that is from a long time ago. Even if he was Spiderman.”

  “He’s three, Nicky. He’s little. He doesn’t know that. You have to be nice and explain it to him. I think you should tell Tadpole you’re sorry,” I persuaded. Nicky put his head down and turned the page in his book.

  “Tell Tadpole you’re sorry for pushing him, Nicholas. If you can’t say you’re sorry, I’m going to make you stay in your room until I have breakfast ready. Don’t you want to come out and be with Daddy?”

  “Come on, sport. Daddy already has breakfast cooking,” Drew said, lifting Nicholas over my head. Sure he did. Fruit Loops didn’t count as cooking. I stared after Drew as he carried Nicholas out, and then made Tadpole go to the potty. He assured me he already went, but the constant pinching between his legs told me differently. This is why Drew and I fought every day. Who the hell did he think he was? I walked to the kitchen windowsill, knowing there was nothing there.

  We finally got to spend some time with my mom, Caroline, and Jason that day, but it was much of the same. Drew and I talked like nothing was wrong and we sucked at it. My mother knew five minutes after we entered her kitchen. I blew it off and told her we just had an argument. I had planned on talking to her, telling her everything, and hearing her advice, but I was starting to panic. I was going to have to ask Drew for my pills. I didn’t want to do that. It was strong, consuming everything around me.

  I couldn’t enjoy the boys, have a conversation with my mother, or talk to my little sister about the next hot pop song—probably something from Taylor Swift. She loved her. I couldn’t do anything but think about taking a Lortab. Just one. That’s all I needed.