A Sad Soul Can Kill You (16 page)

Tia had a gut feeling that Lorenzo had taken too many pills. Even though their marriage was in serious trouble, she prayed he would be okay. She went over to the nurse's station in the emergency room. It was late in the afternoon and almost every chair in the waiting room had been taken. Some of the patients sat solemnly, waiting to be called. Others were less subdued, in obvious pain and agitated. She caught a glimpse of the burly security guard standing close by just in case his assistance was needed.

“Excuse me,” she said to the attendant behind the counter, “have they brought in a Lorenzo Sparks yet?”

As the attendant typed information into the computer, the faint sound of an ambulance grew closer. “Maybe that's him now,” Tia said. She waited nervously while they drove into the bay and brought in a patient covered up on a gurney.

She recognized Lorenzo's head sticking out from the covers, his Afro smashed down on one side. His eyes were closed, and he was wearing an oxygen mask. An IV was running fluids through a vein in his right hand.

The paramedics wheeled him toward Tia as she ran to meet them. “This is my husband,” she said. “How is he?”

“We've got him stable.” The paramedic looked at Tia's nursing uniform. “His pupils are pinpoint, and his vitals and respirations are pretty low. What kind of medication is he on?”

“Too many,” she said wearily. “He's been taking a muscle relaxer, a pain reliever, and a sleep aid.”

“Were the pain reliever and sleep aid over-the-counter or prescribed?”

“Prescribed,” she said. “All prescribed.”

The emergency room nurse came over to where they were standing. “You can put him in room 1-B,” she said.

Tia followed the paramedics as they took Lorenzo to his room and transferred him to the bed. A lab technician came in to get a few blood samples. And then a nurse came in to check his vital signs again.

“How is he?” Tia asked wringing her hands.

“His vitals are stable, but the doctor ordered a gastric lavage,” the nurse said.

“You mean you're going to pump his stomach?”

“That's right.” she said, preparing Lorenzo to be moved. “Why don't you wait in the waiting room. The doctor will update you as soon as he can.”

Tia returned to the waiting room and sat down heavily on one of the oversized cushioned chairs. She stared at the newspaper on the coffee table with its pages old and worn. Although her love for Lorenzo had been through some rough times, it was still mixed in with her DNA, and as much as she wanted to, she could not remove it even though he was unwilling to receive it. The only thing she could do was relegate it to a place in her heart where it remained wrapped up in an emotional cocoon.

She rested her head on the back of the chair. She wanted to be happy. She told herself she could be as long as the crack inside of her didn't spread any wider; as long as that internal gulf kept submerging her resentments, she would be happy.

But the gulf was close to overflowing, and the personal coaching she'd been giving herself off and on for the past two years did little to ease her tension. It had spread down the back of her neck like the malignancy that had spread through the cavities of her marriage, leaving little deposits of unforgiveness within the intricate merger.

She looked up at the ceiling. Lorenzo's unemotional attitude may have pushed her toward another man, but in the end, she'd made the choice to do what she'd done. She knew their problems went deeper than just the physical. Their lack of intimacy was just a symptom of something bigger. She just didn't know what. And because she didn't know, she had no idea how to fix the problem.

She closed her eyes. How foolish she'd been to think the answer to her marital problems was in the arms of another man. Her desire to be with Homer had not been based on a physical need. What she had truly craved was an emotional connection, and she thought that was what Homer was offering her. She'd latched on to it even though she knew she was committing an act of sin by stepping outside of her marriage—emotionally or physically.

She thought about the day Homer had walked up to her in the grocery store two months earlier. She remembered how flustered she'd become when he'd told her that he gave good massages.

She remembered looking at him and not finding anything particularly attractive about him other than the color of his eyes and the sound of his voice. But she'd been grasping at straws, and those two features had been enough.

He'd continued to stare at her until she'd had to look away . . . but not before she'd given him her phone number and had accepted his. And by the time she'd made it home from the grocery store, Homer's number was lighting up on her cell phone.

She'd told Shari that it was Homer's deep voice and mesmerizing eyes that had drawn her in. But it actually went beyond that. The real truth was that the only man she'd ever wanted to pay attention to her the way Homer had was her husband. But Lorenzo had wanted nothing to do with her. And the sad part was that she still didn't know why.

Although she had betrayed Lorenzo only once, the fire that had burned in her birthed from lust and desire now condemned her, and she could not come to terms with what she had done. She wished she could remove every piece of her skin that she had allowed Homer to touch.

With her eyes still closed, she lowered her head.
Make me over, Lord
, she prayed.
Please, just make me over.

 

 

An hour went by before the emergency room doctor came out to talk to Tia. “Well,” he spoke softly, “the toxicology screening came back positive for opiates and benzodiazepines. And he's got a minor concussion from the fall. As you know, we had him undergo a gastric lavage, and we're going to keep him here overnight for observation. But you can go in and see him now before we transfer him to a room.”

“Thank you,” she said as she stood up. She was glad she had never worked with this particular doctor or any of the staff on that floor. It would have been such an embarrassment.

“You're welcome,” he said as he walked away. “Oh,” he stopped and walked back toward her. “He wouldn't tell me who's been prescribing all that medication for him but you might want to get him to stop seeing whoever it is.”

“I've tried,” she said.

He looked at her with gentle eyes. “I'm not a therapist but getting him into rehab would probably be a good idea.”

Tia nodded. She waited until the doctor had disappeared around the corner before rising slowly from the chair.

She went back to the holding unit in the emergency room and walked over to Lorenzo's bed. He continued staring at the ceiling and did not speak. She reached over to give him a gentle hug, careful not to disrupt the IV tubing that ran from the machine to the top of his hand. His body stiffened like a corpse under her embrace and she quickly released her hold.

“Who found me?” he asked as he continued to stare at the ceiling.

“Serenity,” she said, staring straight-ahead. “What happened?”

“What does it look like happened? I fell.”

“That's not what the doctor said.”

“What?” Lorenzo looked at her with a blank look in his eyes. “Are you telling me that I didn't fall?”

“No, you fell,” she said. “But what caused you to fall?”

Lorenzo returned his gaze to the ceiling.

The IV pump began beeping at regular intervals. Tia looked at the hanging bag of solution and saw that it was almost gone. Like the bag, she was running on empty, and she didn't know how much longer she would be able to handle Lorenzo's unemotional state. She looked back at him. “What's wrong, Lorenzo?” She placed her hand on the bed rail. “What's really wrong?”

He remained silent as he choked back the tears he knew would come as soon as he opened his mouth.

She touched his shoulder gently. “Tell me.”

He looked at her and rolled his eyes.

She stood next to his bedside feeling completely useless.

Just then, the nurse came in, and Tia picked up her purse to leave.

“The bag is almost empty,” she said to the nurse as she walked angrily out of the room.

Tia sat in her car in the hospital parking structure. She started the engine and let the car warm up, then lowered her head onto the steering wheel. What was wrong with Lorenzo? Why did he hate her so?

The past thirteen years of their marriage hadn't been easy. She'd had to get used to Lorenzo's episodes of gloominess, and the hardest part had been never knowing when they were going to occur or even why they occurred. Still, their years together hadn't been all bad. There had been some good times too, some beautiful times, and she had held on to them.

She remembered the drives she and Lorenzo would take to Milwaukee when Serenity had been younger. Sometimes they'd drive the whole way back without speaking. And Tia would be amazed at the connection that flowed between them in the silence.

At the end of those drives, Lorenzo would park the car in the garage and say, “That was a nice drive.”

And Tia would respond. “Yes, it was beautiful.”

She remembered the silly jokes she told that made him giggle, and how just him smiling would make her smile. And she remembered how they would study the Bible together, often searching for answers to questions that one or the other had.

As time went by, Tia began to notice a decrease in the number of intimate times she and Lorenzo shared. And when there was an occasion, it seemed as if he was just going through the motions.

It was during Serenity's eleventh year that Tia noticed a distinct change in Lorenzo. The severity of his sullen moods increased, and he became distant and emotionally unavailable. Trying to talk to him about his behavior had been useless. He would either deny that anything was wrong or he'd give her short, snappy answers in an attempt to shut her up.

Droplets of moisture fell from her eyes and landed on the bottom of the steering wheel. What had happened? She couldn't do this much longer. It was too much. Even now, lying in a hospital bed, he still had nothing nice to say to her.

“Father, help me,” she cried. Her shoulders heaved up and down rapidly. “It's too much. It's just too much!” She shook her head from side to side. “How much do you want me to bear, Lord? I can't do this.” She folded her arms and began rocking back and forth. “Give me strength,” she whispered as her tears subsided. “Give me strength.”

The air flowing from the car vents began to feel warm as Tia slowly pulled out of the parking structure. She looked at the digital clock on the dashboard. It was almost 8:00 p.m. It had been a long day, and the nausea rising in the center of her stomach reminded her that she hadn't had anything to eat since she'd left for church that morning, and then headed straight to Serenity's audition.

She drove the several miles home quickly. When she pulled into her garage, the only thing on her mind was eating something and going to sleep. She didn't have the energy—mentally or physically—for anything else. She left the garage door up while she called Shari. The phone rang once before Shari answered.

“Hey, how's Lorenzo?” Shari asked.

“The doctor said he'll be all right,” Tia said coldly. “He took too many pills.”

Shari let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God he'll be all right.”

“Yeah,
this
time,” Tia said angrily. “What if Serenity hadn't found him? I should go and throw away every pill I find. How's Serenity?”

Shari looked at the phone, then at Tony.

“You're going to have to tell her,” he said.

Shari inhaled deeply.

“Tia,” she said, “when we pulled up in front of your house, the ambulance was just leaving.” Shari hesitated. “And Serenity wasn't there.”

“Where was she?”

“We don't know.”

Tony nudged Shari's shoulder. “You have to tell her,” he said.

Tia could hear Tony in the background. “Tell me what?” she asked. “What is Tony talking about?”

“Well,” Shari said. She spoke slowly and with a tranquil tone; it was the same tone she used at work when a frustrated or agitated client called her looking for help. “Earlier today, Tony and I found a bunch of chat sites on the computer that Serenity and Cookie had been visiting.”

Tia's mind went back to the day before when she and Serenity were going to visit her mother and Lorenzo had accused Serenity of talking to boys on the computer.

“Was Serenity talking to a boy?” Tia asked.

“Yeah, but it's more than that.”

“What else, Shari?”

Shari could hear the tenseness in Tia's voice. Her mouth had suddenly become extremely dry. “Well,” she said swallowing hard, “Cookie said Serenity made plans to meet the boy.”

“She did
what?
”

“Now try to stay calm, Tia. You already have one situation on your hands.”

“When was this supposed to happen?” Tia's voice was hard and edgy.

“Today. That's why we weren't home. When I couldn't reach you or Serenity, Tony thought we should go try to, you know, intercept the meeting.”

“And you didn't find her?” The pitch of her voice rose.

“No, we didn't.”

“Oh my God,” Tia moaned. Just when she thought God had heard her prayer and had given her an extra dose of strength, here was another battle. Was this the reason God had strengthened her? Not so she could make it through what she was already going through but to bring her through what was about to come. “I can't do this. Not now, Lord!”

“We'll be right over,” Shari said and hung up the phone.