Later that summer my mom got a phone call while we were on vacation in New Hampshire. I saw my mom's normal distracted expression change to a more focused look, listening intently to the words my Aunt Darlene was saying--I knew it was my Aunt Darlene pretty quickly, no one could mistake her high, resonating voice squeaking through a phone's speaker. I sat across from my mom on a moss covered picnic table right outside our little cabin. The water down below shimmered with the sun's rays, marking the way to where the sun would soon set. My mom crushed the end of her cigarette into the damp table.
"Nancie's gettin into more trouble," I heard Darlene say. "She called the cops saying that Ken was beating her and that she found him cheating on her--all kinds of crap."
My mom moaned and asked questions as Darlene went on for the next half hour. I heard more words like slit wrists, bruises, and ambulance, but couldn't put the story together until my mom explained it after she hung up the phone.
"Nancie's a jerk," she sighed. "She called the police while she was all wound-up on something--drunk, drugs, who knows."
When the cops showed up to Nancie's house, more to investigate a crazed woman who had nothing better to do than call the police, my mom explained, Nancie told them that she caught Ken cheating on her with another women in her bed when she got home at three o'clock that day. Later she told them that Ken didn't get home until five, then changed her mine when the cops began asking questions on the timing. They soon got a picture of what was going on. Next was Nancie's display of her 'bruises,' ones she got from Ken earlier in the day. After the cops told Nancie the bruises were days old, and couldn't possible come from earlier that afternoon, Nancie began grasping at anything she could, how Ken never comes home, he works late other nights, hunts on some weekends. The cops, at that point, had a pretty good idea of what was going on. They told her not to waste their time again, that they had more important things to worry about than dealing with her drug induced lies.
"That's when Nancie got belligerent," my mom continued. "At that point I guess she went crazy, and the cops called for an ambulance to bring her down to the ER."
After she was checked in she called Darlene to come get her. There, thought, the doctors talked to Darlene and got tried to get what information they could: is she mentally unstable, does she have a history with drugs and alcohol, is she suicidal? Yes was the answer to all, and that was all they needed to hear. With Darlene's approval, they sent Nancie to the Psychiatric lock-down ward at the hospital a few towns over.
"So that's where Nancie is headed now. She'll be there for a minimum of three days." My mom dug into her purse and pulled out her cigarettes. "I guess to be evaluated for her crazy behavior and addictions."
"Are you kidding me?" I said, taking in the situation. It didn't completely surprise me with her recent arrest and suicide talks with my mom and Darlene.
"Nope, from there she could do anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months in rehab."
"You know she won't be able to stand that rehab place," I said, turning to watch the setting sun begin to silhouette wavering trees on the top of a nearby mountain.
A puff of smoke floated passed me as my mom spoke, "I doubt she'll last a week. She's probably trying to talk her way out of it right now. But that's where she needs to be"
No comments:
Post a Comment