‘How about you don’t try to understand,’ he said, ‘for the moment, but just stay with the fact that you’re an addict. Take it slowly.’
‘I hate myself for taking them, for relying on them,’ said Callie, beginning to cry. ‘I drink, too. Drink and the Xanax. I’m narky without it, desperate if I think I’m low on stocks, and I can’t afford it really and I hate myself! Sometimes I curse Jason for bringing me to this and then I think, he didn’t make me buy the bloody drugs.’
‘One day, you’ll look back and you won’t hate yourself,’ he said, putting an arm round her.
‘I can’t imagine that,’ she said bitterly.
‘You will, I promise. Stopping is the first step. Admitting you’ve a problem and stopping takes some people years. But think of what you have to lose: Poppy. Plenty of people lose their kids because they’re addicts. Don’t be one of them.’
Callie started to cry then: the silent tears of pure pain. Ricky was right, Freddie was right. She was an addict and she was risking so much by continuing to see Glory, by taking the drugs, by drinking too much. She’d come to rely on those relaxants so much, but at what cost? If they meant losing Poppy, then she needed to stop.
Ricky let her cry and he held her as she sobbed till her face was raw.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered earnestly. ‘I didn’t want to hear that but I needed it.’
‘Nobody wants to hear it,’ he said. ‘There’s a meeting tonight we could go to in Tralee. Will you come with us?’
Callie nodded. She would do anything.
They walked back to the hotel the way Callie had come.
‘I feel like such a failure,’ she said again.
‘There are lots of us failures out there living great lives,’ Ricky said. ‘Me, Freddie, and it could be you too.’
Callie hugged him goodbye, whispered ‘thank you’ into his shoulder, and went into the hotel. In her beautiful, elegant room, she looked at her stash of tablets with disgust, then made herself flush them all down the toilet. It took all her strength not to take one more, just one – but she had a child to take care of. She had to start again, in every sense. No more self-pity, no more blaming anyone, just starting again. Being true to herself and her darling Poppy.
Sam
Sam felt relaxed as she drove away from her home on her first official back-to-work trip, which was to the nursing home in Ballyglen. Vera was over minding India, and there was no doubt about it, Vera took care of India as if she was the Christ Child himself. In fact, Ted and Sam joked among themselves that if Vera was still minding India when she was much older, India would probably think that she was a combination of the Dalai Lama and some sort of fabulous princess into the bargain. Vera laughed when they said this.
‘Ah, go away out of that,’ she’d say, flushing with pleasure. ‘She’s my granddaughter. I just love her.’
‘And probably spoil her a tiny bit,’ Ted teased.
‘You can’t spoil a small baby,’ Vera insisted.
‘She’s right there,’ agreed Sam. ‘And we are not spoiling our little princess anyway. She’s just being treated the way she deserves to be treated.’
‘Exactly,’ said Vera.
Sam’s mother had said she could babysit if they were stuck, but she’d added that she knew she wasn’t good at it, and would need her husband too.
‘You two can do your bit, don’t worry,’ Sam had said. And she’d meant it. But for a long trip, Vera was a better option.
She still hadn’t really talked in depth with her mother after their conversation, but now Jean came round more often, always with her husband, but she was doing her best. For two women who so rarely shared their feelings, it was enough.
‘What can I do to help?’ Jean used to ask formally.
‘Fold those baby clothes for me, if you wouldn’t mind,’ Sam would say, just as formally.
Even though neither of them was able to discuss their confrontation, this new plan was somehow working. Jean was seeing her granddaughter and Sam was slowly learning to come to terms with the fact that motherhood did not come automatically with a complete set of maternal feelings.
She thought of the quote Joanne had found for her and had had laminated: ‘You can’t change other people: you can only change how you react to them.’
‘Who said this?’ she asked, staring at it.
‘Dunno,’ said Joanne, ‘but it’s good. Sums it all up. Read and repeat every morning, big sis.’
