On September 12th, Oscar was sentenced to twenty-five years to life receiving twenty-five years for three of the convictions, and twenty-five years to life for the count of Kidnapping in the First Degree. The judge stated they would run concurrently but given that Oscar was sixty-six at the time of sentencing, he would be ninety-one before he could apply for parole or would die in prison before it got to that point. Evie wasn’t sure what her feelings were about it when Tommy told her, having skipped the sentencing to go to class. On one hand, she was happy he was facing the consequences of his actions, and she thought he deserved every moment he spent behind bars, but on the other, he was her father, and she couldn’t help the feelings of sadness that sometimes came over her when she thought about it.
After a short stay at Rikers, followed by processing and classification at the Fishkill Correctional Facility, Oscar was sent to Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville to serve his sentence. In a fit of pettiness, Tommy made a sizable “rehabilitation grant” through Sloane Technologies to upgrade the prison’s computer labs. The newly renovated Sloane Technologies Learning Center opened a few months later, complete with a polished plaque by the door. Evie had laughed when she found out; Oscar would have to see Tommy’s name every time he passed through the room, something she knew would make his blood pressure rise and likely cause epic temper tantrums.
Two weeks after Oscar’s sentencing, Evie’s uncle called and informed her that she needed to come and get her mother, they couldn’t handle her drinking and instability anymore. Evie had been shocked by the news, she’d never known her mother to drink before, but she told him she was on her way. Tommy and Thorn went with her, and when they arrived at her uncle’s place just outside Raleigh, she could hardly believe what she was seeing. Her mother had lost almost thirty pounds, which would have been a good thing if it wasn’t for the sallowness of her skin and how much hair she’d lost.
“What happened?” Evie watched as Della clutched Tommy’s arm and walked through the garden with him through the kitchen window. “I was here over spring break, and she was fine!” She turned around, glaring at her Uncle Vince and Aunt Helen.
“I don’t think your mother has been fine for a long time.” Vince admitted, running his hand over his bald head. “I think she was just really good at hiding it.”
Helen nodded, reaching for a rolling pin and dusting flour over the cookie dough she was rolling out. “We’ve been trying to get her help, but she laughed us off for the most part. If we pushed too hard, she would get upset with us and stay away.”
“Stay away?” Evie raised her eyebrow, completely thrown off. “I thought she was living here?”
“Off and on.” Vince admitted, sharing a look with Helen. “She’s been seeing someone for the last year. She would move in with him, they’d start fighting, break up and she’d moved back in with us, then they’d get back together, rinse and repeat.”
“She never told me that!” Evie turned to Thorn, who was sitting quietly in the corner, eating his second helping of the soup and sandwiches Helen had insisted on making for themwhen they arrived. Her eyes drifted over to where Della’s was sitting, untouched. “Why was she keeping things from me?”
Vince blew out an exasperated breath. “Don’t feel too bad, we didn’t know what was going on either. She said it was female friend. We only met him when he dropped her off here and said he couldn’t handle her drunk ass anymore.” Evie whipped her head around, shocked to hear her extremely religious uncle swear like that and he shrugged sheepishly. “That was a direct quote.”
Huffing out a sigh, she sat down and played with the remains of her soup. “How long do you think things have been bad?” she asked quietly after a moment of trying to wrap her head around everything.”
“I started finding bottles hidden in her room about four or five months after she moved in.” Helen explained, as she washed flour off her hands and opened a drawer. “But I wasn’t actually able to catch her drinking or drunk until she came back from New York last Christmas. She went out and came home so drunk that we had to carry her to her room.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then?” Evie couldn’t believe they had kept all this from her. “Or when you started finding bottles?”
“Because she’s a grown up?” Vince raised his eyebrow. “And what were you going to do that we weren’t? We confronted her about it, she blew us off, said she was upset because she went to her and Oscar’s place, and it was hard on her.”
“First of all, if she went to their place, she did it alone and without telling any of us.” Evie glanced at Thorn, wanting him to back her up.
“Never mentioned it to me or Tommy.” He confirmed with a nod. “And she refused to go when we offered to take her. Iwent with Evie to pack up some of the stuff Della wanted, but she was not with us.”
“And I don’t know what I could have done, forced her to see a doctor? Gotten her into rehab?” She ran her hands into her hair and pulled a little in frustration. She felt Vince place his hand on her shoulder and looked to see him smiling gently at her.
“You can’t force someone into rehab or to speak to a doctor,” he told her gently. “Trust me, we asked.”
“So, you think it’s bad enough that she needs rehab?” Evie’s voice dropped to a whisper as she heard the back door open and close, followed by Tommy and Della’s voices reaching them from the mudroom.
“Oh yeah. Definitely.” Helen nodded as she started using cookie cutters on the rolled-out dough. “As soon as possible.”
**********
It took Tommy and Evie four days to convince Della to come back to New York with them and another week plus Nissa keeping tabs on her while she stayed at Tommy’s to get her to admit to a drinking problem, explaining she’d turned to alcohol to cope with Mary’s death twelve years before, but had been able to keep it well hidden by only drinking when Evie was asleep or was away for school or camps. Oscar was too busy working to notice or just didn’t care enough to say anything and after a few years she was completely dependant on it to function.
When the fighting started after Evie announced she was changing majors, then moved out, she was left home alone with no one to help curb it, and even though Evie did her best to come by when she knew her father was gone, Della had been lonely and began drinking even more to self-medicate. Then Oscar was arrested and charged with kidnapping and the attemptedmurder of Tommy, who she had always loved like he was her own and had always thought Oscar did too, something broke inside her.
She watched the trial highlights in the evening on the news. Seeing how Oscar went off on Evie and Tommy in the security videos made her drinking escalate to new levels. She thought she was hiding things and maintaining a respectable image in front of her brother and his wife and was deeply ashamed to learn they’d known pretty much the entire time she lived there.
It didn’t take much on Evie’s and Tommy’s part after that to convince her to go to detox. Tommy once again came to Evie’s rescue and was able to get a private bed arranged quickly, not wanting Della to back out of the agreement. After a seven-day detox, she was transferred to a residential rehab center in Westchester County for a six week stay.
In the meantime, Evie and Tommy found a two-bedroom apartment that was close to her university campus and the Church of Notre Dame, since that was where Della asked to continue her outpatient care after she finished rehab and came home, something neither Evie nor Tommy wanted to pushback on too much. The fact that she was taking her recovery seriously enough to make the request was enough for them.
On her first night in the rehab facility, Della asked Evie if she would look into what she had to do to start the process of divorcing Oscar and selling their house. Wanting to get as much done as she could before exam season in December, Evie began searching for a divorce attorney with experience handling incarcerated spouses and found Elizabeth Simmons, who assured her she would get everything started immediately. Oscar was served in late October and, after initially contestingthe filing, eventually changed his mind and signed off on the settlement terms.
When her mother got out of rehab at the beginning of December, the apartment Tommy and Evie had found wasn’t ready yet, so Della stayed with Tommy while Evie remained in her old place to finish exams. As soon as she wrote her last one, Evie contacted a realtor approved by both her mother’s and her father’s lawyers and got their house listed for sale.
They spent the holidays at Tommy’s, blending traditions. Hanukkah fell within the same week as Christmas that year, and Evie wanted to make sure Nissa felt included, not lonely or left out, while they celebrated. She planned a mix of American and Jewish customs that started on December twentieth with the lighting of the first candle and continued through Christmas week, a gesture that earned her a long hug from Nissa and later from Tommy in quiet thanks. The season carried on until January seventh, Serbian Christmas Day, when Thorn brought in a small oak branch for theBadnjak, and he and Evie bakedCesnica, the round Christmas bread, together.
After the holidays, Evie and Della moved into their new apartment. Della had been attending AA meetings a couple of nights a week and church every Sunday since leaving rehab, and now that everything was within walking distance, Evie barely saw her anymore. When she asked about it - after having Nissa quietly follow her just to be sure - Della explained that she was volunteering with a few of the nuns who helped around the parish. Relieved to see her mother genuinely engaged and with no signs of slipping back into old habits, Evie didn’t question it further. Instead, she threw herself into her studies, determined to raise her grades after the difficult term she’d just finished.
