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The ER doctor on call, Dr. Lahti, was optimistic. “The heartbeat is irregular, but I don't think it is anything life-threatening at this time. I suggest she be scheduled soon for a battery of tests, however, to make sure her heart is in tip-top shape. At her age, one can never tell.”

Overnight, Mom stabilized and was free to go home.

We followed a hospital staffer pushing Noni in a wheelchair. Hospital policy. But when we got to the car, she stood to her feet and grinned at us all.

“Can't keep a good Eagle down,” she quipped to her offspring lined up like royal subjects, her eyes alight with the sheer joy of living

I smiled and waved until Priss' car was out of sight. She was taking Mom home. And, oh, how I missed my Dad since his sudden death three years ago. I realized then that tears blurred my vision and that I trembled. The trauma of Mom's crisis mingled bitterly with the one we found ourselves embroiled in with Faith.

Another shock wave hit me.

Dan must have felt it, too, because he hardly said a word on the way home beyond expressing thanks that Mom was okay. I felt the tension thicken when we reached home and Faith still had not returned.

I tried to turn it off. Let it go. But denial never quite worked for me.

Dan disappeared for a while and as I prepared lunch, I heard him bumping around upstairs in the attic, where he locked valuables in a safe.

“Lunch is ready,” I called up to him for the second time. “Your food is cooling. You don't like cold chicken and dumplings.”

Moments later, he appeared, pale and shaken. “Look,” he held out a check book, “she's taken checks from my business account — several checks are missing.”

Within hours, Dan discovered that several thousand dollars were missing.

“The bank president asked if I wanted to prosecute.” He looked at me with haunted eyes. “I couldn't do it, Deede. I know she deserves it but — she's my daughter.”

“Our miracle child,” I whispered, stunned. “What happened, God?” I gazed upward, truly mystified, shaking my head. “Where did we go wrong?”

“Maybe we didn't go wrong, Deede. A person chooses their own path. Looking back, I don't see anywhere we didn't always have Faith's best interests at heart. We tried to do the wise thing every time we faced a crisis with her. And what has she done? She's thrown it all back in our faces.”

I saw Dan's anger gathering into a violent storm. I, too, felt betrayed but handled my anger differently. But
for once, in that moment in time, Dan and I were on the same page.

Our daughter had dishonored us to the nth degree.

Faith needed to go. She'd crossed a point of no return.

How could we ever trust her again?

First, we had to confront her. But how?

We didn't even know where she was.

Three days later, she showed up.

During those three days, along with Dan, I'd alternated between rage and utter despondency. Had I seen her during those seething moments, I envisioned myself slapping her up side the head. A visceral itch. During the down times, I simply moved zombie-like or curled into a fetal knot of despair. Dan threw himself into work.

When Faith did appear, my reaction was one of mingled relief and confrontation.

“Faith,” I met her at the door. “We know about you taking the checks and spending our retirement.”

She dropped her head as she brushed past me to head to the kitchen for a glass of water. I saw her hands tremble as she drank thirstily.

She looked at me with gaunt eyes. “I know. I knew you would — ”

Dan walked in from the back door and stopped dead in his tracks. If looks could kill, Faith would have hit the floor before the next heartbeat. “So. The prodigal daughter has decided to come home, huh?” His voice could have cut cedar.

“I came to apologize,” Faith said.

“Apologize?” Dan stalked to her, eyeball to eyeball. “
Apologize
? You steal from me, knowing how hard times
are for us and go out and blow it on drugs and God only knows
what
and that's all you can say?”

Faith's eyes filled with tears. “Daddy, can you consider for just a moment that it was a cry for help?”

Dan stared at her for long moments, barely holding his rage. “Help? You could have
asked
. You didn't have to steal from us money we worked hard for. Money we cannot replace.”

Faith nodded, snuffling and wiping tears from her cheeks, unable to speak. She trembled with fear and, I strongly suspected, remorse. But I knew Dan was less inclined to believe her vulnerable.

“I want you out of here,” Dan said quietly, lethally. And I knew he meant it.

“I don't have anywhere to go,” Faith rasped, virtually wringing her hands.

“That's your problem. You've dishonored us for the last time.”

“Please, Daddy …” Faith swallowed the lump in her throat and pleaded. “Please don't make me leave. I'll do whatever you want to make things right. Anything.”

Dan paused at the door, hand on knob, not looking at her. “Let me think about things, Faith. I don't know that I can get past this last thing you did. Let me think on it.” He closed the door firmly behind him.

Faith gazed at me, remorse pouring from her red, teary eyes. “I'm so sorry, Mama. I've got myself in such a mess I don't know what to do.”

“I'm sorry, too. This last thing threw us for a loop. Daddy's so distraught.” So was I. But I had to buttress up to keep Dan encouraged. Sane. After all, he was the ‘golden goose' who financially kept the lot of us afloat.

“I don't know how he can take any more of this.” I shook my head slowly, beaten to a pulp inside. I felt like curling into a fried crisp fetal shape as life seemed to ooze from me.

Faith burst into tears. “Mama, I don't know what I'd do if something happened to either of you because of me — ”

I sighed heavily. I had no answers. I didn't know if Dan would even permit Faith to remain under our roof. And I knew he —
we —
had every right to make her leave.

Faith began to collapse, catching herself before staggering the sofa and folding herself onto it, looking like something a feral cat dragged to the door.

“I do love you both, Mama,” Faith sobbed.

And I believed that she did. As much as she was capable of loving.

But — to quote Faith – she'd made a royal mess of things.

Dan and I talked and prayed during the next twenty four hours, trying to make a wise decision. The final verdict was Dan's. I trusted his wisdom. In the case of Faith, I did not always trust my own prudence. I was aware that my maternal leanings tended to color my judgment in this crucial matter.

At the same time, I prayed fervently that mercy would flavor Dan's choice of action.

He sat the three of us down around the kitchen table the next evening, which was encouraging since that's where our more intimate times passed.

Today, however, Dan looked anything but cozy — his implacable demeanor a witness to his tough upbringing. “Faith, I will allow you to continue to live here under the
following conditions. You will get a drug test today to enlighten us as to your addiction status. Then you will check in at a methadone rehab center until you're drug-free. You will not drive our vehicles. Under any condition. Period. No discussion.”

Faith nodded, desperate for clemency.

For survival.

“You will honor your parents henceforth or you will leave.”

“I will, Daddy,” Faith vowed passionately.

“A brother (or father) offended is harder to be won than a strong city…”

— Proverbs 18:19

 

 

The following year was hell.

Dan arose each dawn to chauffer Faith to and from drug rehab, a twenty-minute jaunt one way. Methadone had a terrible effect on Faith. So much so that we felt guilty that we had instigated the “cure.”

Had we known, I'm sure we wouldn't have gone that route.

Within weeks, her slender frame began to bloat and swell. The weight began to balloon. “I'm so hot,” she complained incessantly. Regardless of the season or temperature, sweat beaded her face like a second skin.

“You're freezing my fanny off, Faith!” I wailed daily when she plunged the air conditioner to record lows.

Dan reacted. “Faith! Do not mess with the air! I'm already paying a king's ransom to keep our utilities running. You're driving us to the poor house.”

In winter, she turned heat down to 50 degrees. “I live with a bloomin' Eskimo,” I moaned, rubbing together and blowing on my icy hands. And that was just the tip of the — pardon the pun — iceberg.

Still, Faith sweltered and wiped her brow amid arctic temperatures.

Methadone wracked Faith's body, causing her to eat everything that didn't move and stopped her menstrual periods. Her teeth began to show signs of the effect.

Faith was born hard-wired to be temperamental. Methadone therapy escalated her moods, swinging the index , with little provocation, from catatonic to whirlwind, to thunderstorm, to hurricane, to tornado. We experienced them all, sometimes in one day.

To his credit, Dan tried to be understanding when things blew up in his face.

Much of it, I blocked out. I could only stomach the memories in increments. These were bridges I tried to burn behind me. Ones I wish Dan could release.

Her favorite cousin Jensen faithfully visited Faith often during her most difficult times.

“Come on, Faith. You don't have but four months left,” he said during those last weeks. “I'm really proud of you.”

That was a day when her teeth were clattering with mild withdrawals. She was trying to cut down more than the recommended dosage. “I-I'm g-glad somebody's p-proud of me,” she stammered, wrapped in a blanket.

This was the only time she experienced the freezing sensation, during withdrawals. Interspersed were muscle spasms, all over, causing her to cry out in agony.

“Why don't you switch to suboxone?” Jensen asked her the next week. “I've been on the Internet studying treatments and suboxone seems to have the least side effects.”

“Show me where to go,” I said to the family computer whiz. Jensen's college degree was in computer science.

After thoroughly studying the pros and cons, we decided to switch Faith off methadone and onto suboxone. Her side effects seemed to diminish somewhat. The most dramatic shift was in her emotional state. Suboxone leveled out, to a degree, Faith's high-strung temperament.