Like No Other

When she got out of the car and started up the walkway, her beautiful brown hair flowing behind her, I wanted to hit my head against the steering wheel. Why had I been such a dick to her? She was just trying to care. It didn’t make any sense how everything went from amazing to crappy in just a matter of one phone call.
I dropped Travis and Drake off at Drake’s house and started towards Marcus’s when he stopped me. “Just go to the hospital. I’ll be there for you.”
I nodded and did as he said, partly because I just didn’t care enough to try to argue and partly because I didn’t want to be alone with my parents. I didn’t want to be alone period. We got to the hospital ten minutes later.
“So, what happened to her?” Marcus asked as we headed up to the automatic doors of the hospital.
I hesitated. “She over-dosed. Again.”
“I thought you told me that they had stopped the drugs.” I had told Marcus about the whole issue when we were in eleventh grade. I had to because my mom, high on oxycodone, kicked me out of the house. I had to stay with him for two weeks.
“They did. Then they started back up again. That’s why I moved out.” Not only had they started again but they were also getting into more serious drugs, like meth and cocaine.
“Why didn’t you tell me? You could have come and stayed with me. You know I’ll always have your back,” Marcus said.
I just shook my head, “I can’t live off you and your parents anymore. I’m a grown man. I can get my own place and take care of myself.”
By then we were at the front desk. There was a middle-aged woman with black hair and glasses sitting behind it. “How may I help you?”
“I’m looking for Melissa Fielding,” I told her and she entered the name into the computer.
“She’s on the third floor, ICU. Room 312, and you better hurry because our visiting hours are coming to an end.”
“Thanks,” I said, Marcus and I walking toward the elevators.
There was an elevator that was unloading people and we hopped on that one. I pressed the white button with the number 3 on it. Room 312 was not hard to find. My dad was standing outside pacing, his hands shaking at his side.
“Dad,” I walked up on him. He jumped, paranoid. He looked over his shoulders. The drugs made him like this. I just walked past him and into the room, not even bothering to try to talk to him. “Just go home dad.”
My mom was asleep. She had a tube going into her mouth and nose. Her skin was still a little green. I pulled up a chair beside her bed and grabbed her hand, the one without the IV. Marcus came in, but left a few minutes after, claiming to go get some food. When I heard the door click shut I started crying.
“Why did you do this to yourself?” I kept whispering.
The door opened, snapping me back into reality. It was a nurse. “Excuse me, who are you?”
I wiped my tears away and cleared my throat. “I’m Jeremy Fielding, her son.”
“Is that you’re dad standing outside?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Oh thank God,” she said sighing with relieve. “Look, he has to leave. Our visiting hours are over and he is extremely intoxicated. We can’t have him out in the halls like that. We’ve asked him to leave, but he refuses. If he doesn’t leave within the next five minutes, we’ll have to have him escorted out.”
“Yeah, I’ll get him home. Um, can someone explain to me what has happened? I would have been here sooner but I was out of town” I had no idea what was going on. She was in ICU, which was bad wasn’t it?
“Let’s get your dad out of here and I’ll get a doctor to come and catch you up.”
We walked out into the hall, my dad still pacing, looking over his shoulders every ten seconds. “Dad, come on. You gotta go home,” I grabbed his arm and started to lead him down the hall. I caught Marcus at the vending machines and tossed him the keys, asking him to pull the van up to the front doors of the hospital. He headed out.
“The waiting room is right here and if you could wait just five minutes I’ll get a doctor to you.” The nurse disappeared.
I led my dad to a seat but he refused to sit down. “There are spiders in that seat.” He said, jumping away. He started pacing again. I shook my head and slumped down, already feeling exhausted. I watched him as he paced.
He looked like he hadn’t shaved or showered in two weeks. He smelled like it too. His clothes hung off of him and they were dirty, his shirt stained with substances I wasn’t sure of. He had lost a lot of weight. You could see the gray hair coming in through the brown. His eyes had sunken into the sockets and his pupils were just a small pinpoint, barely even seen. His teeth chattered, you could see they had started to rot. It hit me how bad the situation had gotten.
When I moved out I refused contact with my parents. I just wasn’t ready to sit around and watch them waste away, me being the one who was suffering through it all. But maybe I should have tried harder. I tried to get my parents to go into a rehab many times before but every time they refused. Or worse, they would go and drop out after a couple of days. Maybe I shouldn’t have left them. Maybe….
The maybes kept circling in my mind until I felt like I was about to explode. I buried my head in my hands and after a few more minutes the doctor had entered. “Hi,” he extended his hand, “I’m Dr. Young.
I stood up, shook his hand, and introduced myself in turn.
“Mrs. Fielding is your mother, is that correct?” he asked. I nodded, feeling embarrassed and looking at the floor.
“You’re mother overdosed on Diacetylmorphine, or heroin. At about 12:30 this afternoon, you’re dad called in and the ambulance picked her up. When she arrived she was barely breathing and her blood pressure was extremely low. So, we had to pump her stomach, which emptied out all the toxins in her system. The tube in her mouth is called an endotracheal tube and it is just helping her breath and clearing a pathway from her esophagus to her lungs. When she wakes, we will give her some activated charcoal, which she will have to drink. This will make her vomit and help clear out her digestive system from any last substances that might have gotten into the stomach that we didn’t get out. We aren’t sure if she has taken anything else and we won’t know until we get the lab work back.”
My skin crawled as he listed off each thing my mother had to endure. I held my tears in, even though I just wanted to fall to my knees and let it all out. I had to stay strong.
“So, what do I do now?” I asked feeling completely hopeless.
“Right now, your mother is on a 24-hour observation period to be sure that she isn’t having any side effects from the overdose. After that she’ll have to be tested for hepatitis and HIV/AIDS. This can be caused by the sharing of dirty needles. She has an infection on both arms and that is what has concerned us.” My stomach dropped. AIDS? My mom might have AIDS?
He handed me a handful of brochures. “In the meantime, I strongly consider that you find your mom and dad a rehabilitation clinic. There, your dad can get tested for that as well.” I felt like I was going to faint so I sat down.
“I just don’t know what to do,” I flipped through the brochures.
The doctor grabbed a card from the pocket of his lab coat. “We have social workers on call here at the hospital. Claire Childress works specifically with people that have similar cases like yours. Take your dad home and come back. She’s gone to lunch but she’ll be back in an hour or so and you can set up a meeting with her. She’ll help guide you,” his pager beeped. He pulled it out and looked at it, “Now, sorry to cut this short but I have to get back. Mrs. Childress will help you with anything else you need assistance for. Good luck,” he shook my hand again and disappeared through the glass doors.
My dad suddenly picked up a magazine that was lying on a table in front of the chairs and rolled up. He started smacking the walls and seats with it. Luckily, we were the only ones in the waiting room. I grabbed the magazine from him and then grabbed his arm, navigating him out to the hall and towards the elevators.
“I had to kill the bugs. There were so many of them…” he trailed off and started mumbling. I’d never seen him this messed up. An elevator became available but there were people in it. I waited for the next one. We found one that was empty and I pressed the lobby button, it lit up and made its way down.
Marcus was sitting in the van in the entryway of the hospital, on the phone. I opened the passenger side door and helped my dad get inside. Marcus climbed out and jumped in the back so I could drive.
“Okay, see you soon,” he hung up the phone. “Don’t be mad.”
I gave him a look through the rearview mirror. “What did you do?”
“I called my parents and they are going to meet us at your apartment,” he paused, waiting for my reaction. I groaned.
“Why?” I asked. I didn’t want anyone else to know about this.
“Jeremy, this is crazy. You need help! You’ve been keeping this from people for way too long. My parents can help you. You’re like a son to them, you know that.”
Dad started to mumble again. Then he started yelling, “Get away! Get off me!” He slapped himself several times.
“Dad! Dad!” I tried to get him to stop. “There’s nothing on you!”
He scratched up his arms, shivering. “Get off me. Get off me. Get off me.” He kept repeating. His voice was a whisper now.
By the time I had pulled into my apartment complex, he had completely stopped. I turned off the car and walked around, to the passenger side, helping him out. He stumbled over the bushes and threw up.
Marcus’s parents pulled in then. Marcus’s mom, Tina got out and rushed over to us.
“Oh my God, honey. Is he okay?” she looked over to where my dad, done puking but now was just sitting on the ground.
I walked over and got him up. He kept saying crazy things to me that I didn’t understand. “He’s fine.” I had to practically carry him up the stairs to my apartment. Once inside, I led him to my room and laid him on the bed. He kept mumbling but fell asleep pretty quickly.
Marcus and his parents came in, sitting on the couch. “Jeremy, we love you very much. We love you as much as Marcus, never doubt that. You can come to us for anything.” Marcus’s mom got up and gave me a hug. “Why didn’t you tell us about your parents using again?”
She led me over to the couch which I sat on graciously. “I was just embarrassed. I think I was in denial too. There for a while I thought everything would just be how it was supposed to be, ya know? I thought that maybe things could have been different.” I trailed off. Marcus had taken a seat in the bean bag chair in the corner.
“Tell us now, tell us everything,” Mr. Rob said. Mrs. Tina took my hand.
I told them everything. I told them everything I’d been holding inside, wanting to tell someone, anyone about. In the end, Mrs. Tina and Mr. Rob took me in their arms and I sobbed into their shoulders. Not even caring that Marcus was there. Shit, he was crying too. It was then that I realized this was as close I was going to get to family right now. This was my family.