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Oh, and there’s a paywall halfway through this essay.
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I wasn’t there when the cake was brought out on your first birthday. I heard everybody singing but missed the entire celebration. I was upstairs, nauseated and feeble, curled into the perfect position for sucking my thumb. Your mother would frequently check on me and try to coax me downstairs. “At least come down and say hi to everybody.” I couldn’t. No way. Even if walking were an option, I couldn’t let our family see the monster I’d become.
A few weeks later, while again suffering from opioid withdrawal, I was evaluated by a cranky nurse practitioner who seemed to think her social status inside the hospital was relevant to the outside world. The evaluation was necessary to convince your mother’s insurance company to cover a seven-day stay at a local detox facility. I needed to be confined or restrained, whatever it took. My mind had gone rogue and overpowered me.
I wanted to be more than a name on your birth certificate.
Also, your mother had given me an ultimatum.
The nurse practitioner handed me my discharge papers. “Oh, I almost forgot. I’m obligated to contact Child Protective Services. Expect a call within the next week. Good luck.”
I couldn’t understand, not at first, and the withdrawals seemed to intensify then. The room was too blurry for me to speak, a vibrant white so bright I thought I saw tracers: miniature comets leaping from the walls. I heard footsteps but didn’t see the nurse leave. The buzz of the fluorescents overhead grew louder in my head. A cramp wrenched my gut and twisted me from the chair. Every muscle in my body had condensed like dead stars. Hot nails protruded from the tumors I imagined were swelling in my lower back. Then, the scent of citrus invaded my space and reminded me I’d forgotten to cut fruit when opening the bar on my last shift, the day before I was fired.
I shuffled through the hospital’s lobby on wobbly legs, trying not to vomit. My palms, sweaty and trembling, held my face together. The second the glass doors parted, I ran across the thru-way to the grassy island, tripped, stumbled forward, dry heaved for a spell, pulled myself up, and paused to look around for a familiar sight. I needed a sign.
What had I done?