AllFreeNovel
Share Us
After that we caught up. So much happened in the three months since I talked to my mom. I told her about the education classes I was taking online. She smiled at me. “Changed your whole life,” she declared.
“I did. I want to help young people,” I declared as Delilah sat my burger in front of me. I was starving.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Anything else?”
“Nope. We’re good.”
We talked about the baby stuff we were going to look at after we left here. Mom wanted to go with us if it wasn’t an imposition. Skylar liked that idea. She wanted us to mend our relationship as much as I did.
Then I explained about Delilah’s three kids. The wrong impression we had about their mom. I wasn’t sure what was going on there but something definitely was. She was supposedly an addict too. Their grandparents sent money from Florida but didn’t want to help any other way. They were enjoying their life as retirees.
Mom shook her head. “Ronan, I like this change in you. You always did enjoy helping out at the football camps.”
“I did. Coach has been guiding me a lot too. The meetings and the counseling sessions are helping. My friend from the meetings, my sponsor of sorts is Sam Clifton.”
She sat her cup down and said, “Sam, from our high school?”
“Yeah, he’s a pastor at the church here in town where we have our meetings.”
“Talk about turning over a new leaf. Did he tell you he used to deal drugs?” My mom asked.
“He did. He’s pretty upfront about his past.”
She laughed and shook her head. “He was a bad ass in high school.”
Mom paid the bill for us. I didn’t want her to but she did. Delilah was waiting on a table. She kept looking at me as we waited on Mom. I smiled and waved. She smiled back at me. Then Delilah caught me out in front of the diner. Mom and Skylar went to the truck leaving me alone with her. “Ronan, “she bit her lip. “Dom tells me everything. I hope you don’t mind.” I knew what she was talking about.
“I’m a recovering addict.” I made this easy on her.
“He told me. He is very impressed with you. You have your life together.”
“Do you need to get your life together?” I asked her thinking someone should have been that straightforward with me. I noticed how her hand trembled. Her eyes darted back and forth. She was getting shaky. She needed her fix. I bet she had trouble sleeping. Trouble waking up. She was very thin. Haggard looking. She was a full blown addict. I just hadn’t made it that far when I overdosed on the heroin.
“Oh, I’m not that bad.”
I laughed. “Neither was I until I almost killed myself with a drug overdose. Took some hard soul searching to see that I was an addict and I needed help. Plus, I wanted to be around to see my son’s birth.” I glanced over my shoulder where Mom and Sky waited on me.
She inhaled sharply. “What did you do?”
“I shot heroin up that was laced with elephant tranquilizer. I didn’t know it was. Not my finer moment,” I added. “Up to that night, I was strictly a weed and coke kind of guy with pills on the side.”
Her eyes widened.
“I died twice that night. My brother is an ER Physician at one of the downtown hospitals. My friends dumped me on the doorstep of the hospital barely breathing and with little pulse. He watched the other doctors revive me.”
She looked down at the concrete. “I meant what did you do to get help but thanks for sharing that with me?”
I smiled sheepishly at her. Maybe I was too honest now that I could see the error of my ways. “An eye opener isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“I go to a private drug counselor every month and I go to group sessions weekly at the Christ Church of Kings outside of town on Main. Every Saturday at three except today because we were in birthing class.”
“Thank you Ronan and thank you for being nice to my kids. They need someone like you and Skylar.”
They needed her, I thought but didn’t say it. “I have to ask. What’s the deal with them? Dom takes them everywhere with him. They have to be home when you get home? I expected you to be this drugged out, bitch to be honest but you’re not. Addict for sure but you’re kind and you love them don’t you?”
