Free Broken by Willow Rose Page B

can't come to your graduation or your soccer-game because
she is passed out.' How do you think he feels?"
    I stared into her empty blurry eyes. How I detested
her when she was drunk, when she was constantly sedated like this. This wasn't
the Heather that I knew. This wasn't the woman I had married. How had she
become this ... this ... this sad excuse of a woman. This addict. I kept asking
myself these same questions. Why had she chosen this life for herself? Why
couldn't I get her to stop it? Why did she insist on continuing this abuse,
this addiction? Why? Why couldn't she choose her family? Choose to be a mother?
    In the beginning I had thought it was just a phase,
something she was going through. It had started right after the birth of
William. Post-partum depression I thought it was. And one excuse soon followed
another. She was having a hard time adjusting to being a mother, she was
fighting with her mother over something, she had been under pressure from being
alone this much, I had abandoned her. I didn't love her enough or show her
enough affection. The excuses were many, but there were never any solutions. No
improvement. She wasn't even trying. Then I started telling lies on her behalf
when she didn't show up to family dinners at her parent's house or at dinner
with friends. She wasn't feeling well, probably a stomach-flu 'there is a lot
of that going around lately.' Lies like that. Then she started acting out at
home when she was drunk. Yelling and screaming at me. At one point she even
attacked me and tried to strangle me with her hands. I fought her off but it
left a mark that I had to say came from playing too wildly with William. Not
sure anyone bought that one. I even made excuses for her behavior to myself.
'It will soon be better. Maybe if I was a better husband towards her. Maybe if
I showed my appreciation more.' So I bought her gifts, expensive things, like a
new car and jewelry.   She liked it
and it kept her happy for a few hours but it wasn't enough for her to stop
drinking and taking her pills that the doctor just prescribed like they were
candy. Some for her nerves, others to calm her down. Sleeping pills, sedative
pills, she was a goddamn walking pharmacy.
    "I don't know how that feels, Chris," she
said. "And frankly I don't care. I can't be your shrink right now. I can't
take care of your problems."
    "No, you can't take care of anyone, not even
yourself. Why do you insist on ruining yourself like this? Why are you trying
to destroy our family?"
    "What family?" she asked.
    "Our family. Us. You and me and William. We are
right here. Pleading with you to stop this. Asking you to be a wife and a
mother. Asking you to love us." My voice was trembling as I was screaming
at the top of my lungs. I had never raised my voice at Heather like that.
Never. I was way too afraid of conflicts to ever show even anger.  
    "You want to talk about love, do you? How about
me, Chris? How about you begin with loving me?"
    "I do love you Heather and you know it. You are
my wife. You are the mother of my child. But that isn't enough for you is it?
Us. We are not enough for you. What is it you want, Heather? I’ll give it to
you. You know that. If only you'd come back to me, if only you'd return to who
you used to be."
    Heather was crying now shaking her head. "I don't
know if I can do that Chris. It's not as easy as you think."
    "Why? Why is it harder than I think? Explain it
to me. Let me help you."
    "It's not something you can just fix. I am not
something for you to fix like you fix your patients. You can't pay your way out
of this, Chris."
    "But maybe we could fight this together. As a
couple, as husband and wife, as family." I said hearing my voice getting
more desperate by the minute. I wanted her to understand how important this was
to me. I wanted her to be the mother I knew she could be. I didn't want William
to grow up without a mother. Not like I had.
    "I am afraid this will end up killing you,"
I continued.