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Someone married someone and moved somewhere and was having a baby. At least that was all of the conversation Adrianna heard as her mother chatted to her over dinner, sharing the town gossip. Adrianna feigned interest as she pushed her chicken parmesan around on her plate, feeling guilty that she didn’t have an appetite for the meal her mother prepared.
“How’s work going, Ade?” her father interjected, diminishing her appetite even further. More lead filled the pit of Adrianna’s stomach.
Upon seeing her troubled expression, Donna asked, “Is something wrong at work?”
Adrianna dropped her gaze to her lap, feeling like a child in her parents’ presence. She took a deep breath and admitted, “I’m not working. I haven’t had a job since I moved to Chicago.”
Her father’s fork clattered to his plate and her mother gasped, “What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’ve been lying to you. I’ve never had a job.”
Digesting the information, both Fred and Donna stared at their daughter silently for a beat and then Donna asked, “Why would you lie to us?”
“Because I wanted you to think my life was much better than it actually was,” Adrianna answered, still staring down at her lap.
“What do you mean?” her mother repeated. “What’s going on?”
After Adrianna went quiet again her father demanded, “Answer your mother, Adrianna Marie.”
Oh God, he full named her. Now she really felt like a child, sitting there about to admit she broke her mother’s collectable vase from the Franklin Mint.
Inhaling another deep breath Adrianna blurted, “I mean I haven’t been doing well in Chicago. I never got a job, never made friends, and I’ve been living alone and depressed and taking too much Vicodin.”
Donna gasped once again and Fred slammed his fist on the dining room table. He stood violently, knocking his chair into the wall behind him while his face reddened. “I told you!” he shouted at his wife. “I told you we never should have allowed her to move out there! But you insisted she was an adult and let me go along with it against my better judgment! And now look at her, she’s addicted to drugs!”
While Donna cried into her napkin, Adrianna came to her defense. “Dad, stop!” she pleaded. “It’s not mom’s fault! And I’m not addicted to drugs; I was dependent on them but I’m not anymore!”
Fred Adello stared at his daughter and felt like a failure. He had one child who, not long ago, had been accepted to a prestigious medical school and was on her way to becoming a doctor. Now she was a broken girl, wasting her life away in an apartment in Chicago. When Adrianna saw he had tears in his eyes she began to weep.
“Dad, please,” she begged, “just sit down and listen to me.”
Donna continued to sob and Adrianna’s father just sat with a stony look on his face while she told them what the last two years of her life had been. While it wasn’t all bad, she explained as best as she could that her depression had spiraled out of control and how she wasn’t able to deal with it or the physical pain.
“But I met someone,” she whimpered. “A wonderful man named Jack and he helped me. I’m not taking pills anymore and I haven’t taken one in seven days.”
“Why didn’t you tell us, honey?” he mother pleaded, wiping mascara from under her eyes. “Why didn’t you ask us for help?”
“Because I didn’t want it,” Adrianna answered. She blew her nose into her napkin and her father offered her his own to wipe her face. “I didn’t think I deserved it.”
“Why?” her mother wanted to know.
“Because I blamed myself for Rachel.” Adrianna’s tears fell freely again and she was sick and tired of crying. She spent more time crying the last week than she had in her entire life.
Her parents reacted the same way Jack did, telling her that she was being ridiculous for thinking that way. “We told you when it happened, Ade, that it wasn’t your fault,” her father said gently. He had softened at his daughter’s admission.
