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Anger flames inside me, and I can’t hold back, even if it costs me.
“My life was irrevocably changed when my mom was forced to disappear because of your family, and not for the better. Don’t you dare tell me I should be thanking you,” I say.
“My father paid for your mother to go to the best detox program in the country at the time. She got a second chance at life because of my family. You wouldn’t be sitting here now if we hadn’t helped her.”
I realize this is Billy’s narrative. We all have them. The stories we tell ourselves. The plots we write ourselves out of during difficult moments in our lives when taking ownership of our roles is too much to bear.
I did it with ED for a long time, solely blaming my eating disorder on losing Mom. At a certain point, I had to take ownership of my role to reclaim my agency and understand the choice before me so I could choose recovery.
Billy’s story is that his father saved my mom. A story he has undoubtedly told himself over and over again through the years until he absorbed it as the truth. Whenever the voice inside of him questioned whether his family’s opioid empire played a role in his daughter’s death, he has soothed himself with this story.
“You have her hubris,” he says. “At least I knew I wasn’t fit to be a parent as an eighteen-year-old kid.”
“Maybe it wasn’t that,” I say. “Maybe your father made you believe that because he never wanted you to have Sally.”
His eyes flicker with anger. I just poked a hole in his story. The one he’s desperately clung to for decades. The one that built his house of cards.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
“To make a deal,” I say.
“She’s never coming back,” he says it like he’s trying to hurt me as retaliation, and it works. The words sear through me so deeply it takes my breath away. I try to maintain my composure.
“I’m not here about my mom,” I say. “I’m here for Cristina.”
“Cristina,” he says, almost chuckling. “Why do you care about her after the so-called atrocity my family committed against you?”
“Because it’s too late for Cristina and me. We both lost our moms,” I say. “But it’s not too late for your future grandson.”
“Grandson?” he says, furrowing his brows, confused.
“Cristina is pregnant. She’s having a baby boy. I’m here to make a deal, so he doesn’t grow up without his mother.”
Billy gets quiet for a minute. He didn’t expect this. “Cristina’s pregnancy is none of your concern,” he finally says.
I look at him and think about the pictures I saw of Mom and him when they were younger—the one in Laura Poitier’s yearbook where they were at the acting studio together, when the world was still his to conquer, and when his dreams of becoming a director were still intact before his father gutted them in the pursuit of TriCPharma’s profits.
I’m counting on something—Billy never had the chance to become the person he wanted to be or to discover who he might have been. His healthy narcissism was never mirrored as a child, which caused a narcissistic injury. I recognize it because of the many patients I’ve had to reparent throughthe years, acting as a conduit for the cheering parent on the sidelines of a soccer field they never experienced.
“What if your grandson wants to become a director?” I say. My voice sounds more uneven than I’d like, revealing my nerves. “Will his dreams be snuffed out like yours were for your father’s company’s bottom line?”
He drills me a look, but it doesn’t stop me. There’s no getting out of here unless I do what I came here to do.
“Don’t you have enough money?” I ask. “Or are you the billionaire at the slot machine in Vegas, trying to squeeze out one more quarter, even if it comes at the cost of dead bodies, including your daughter’s mother? Haven’t enough children lost their moms in this cynical game?”
He stands up from his desk and walks toward me with a menacing look, clenching his jaw tightly.
I instinctively get up from the couch, backing toward the door. The numbness I felt since Eddie left me at the hospital yesterday vanishes. A life force suddenly bubbles up inside of me.
My back is to the door. Billy keeps walking toward me. I have one of my hands behind me on the doorknob. I can feel the lima bean charm pressing against my wrist, imprinting my skin.
“If you don’t set Cristina free, I’ll go to the press and tell the entire world the truth about what happened to Sally,” I say. “I’ll cause TriCPharma more headaches than you could ever dream of until none of your board members, shareholders, whoever, want you around anymore. And I’ll do it until my last dying breath.”
He looks at me like a lion holding up an antelope with its mouth agape right before he’s about to devour it. “Did it ever occur to you that it might not be a good idea to come into my home and threaten me?” he asks.
Yes,I want to say … when I realize something.
I’m in his office threatening him without any cameras around, where he could do anything to me and throw moneyat people after to make me disappear, but he hasn’t touched me.
