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“That’s kind of you,” she says. “I just wish I could’ve made a difference … for Joey.”
“I bet wherever he is, he’s thankful that you tried,” I say.
She smiles at me through her tears. “I can show you the hearing if you want,” she says.
My mouth drops open. “You have it?” I ask.
“I downloaded it on my laptop at home,” she says. “Senator Lyon’s a dinosaur. They’re all dinosaurs here. He doesn’t even know how to download. I’ve been tempted to release it to the press, but since it hasn’t officially been unsealed yet, I could go to prison if anyone found out it was me.”
I sit at a small dining room table in Dawn’s modest one-bedroom apartment near Capitol Hill as she positions her open laptop in front of me.
“Can I offer you any food or water?” she asks.
“Water, please,” I say.
She goes to the kitchen, and I start playing the hearing.
A much younger Senator Lyon is overseeing it. Witness after witness speaks about how they were affected by TriCPharma’s opioid drugs—husbands who lost wives, wives who lost husbands, children who lost their parents, parents who lost children—when Mom is finally called.
I gasp at the sight of her. Despite the decades that have passed since I last saw her, and the computer screen now between us, she still feels closer to me than she has in years.
“Good morning Chairman Lyon, Ranking Member Mobley, and Members of the Subcommittee,” Mom says clearly and confidently. “Thank you to Congress for asking me to participate today to discuss the opioid crisis in the United States and the Cadell family’s role. I’m here as someone who was once addicted to TriCPharma opioid drugs and now is a clinical psychologist specializing in treating addiction.”
Hearing her voice after so many years, talking about something that impacted her so deeply, something she never shared with me, feels surreal. Like she’s come back from the dead in a different incarnation than the mom I thought I knew.
“First, I’d like to speak about my experience as a young college student who became addicted to TriCPharma drugs. I’ve always suffered from anxiety, and during college, I had a boyfriend who told me he had pills to help calm me.”
Alexander Valentine said that Esther Hermes didn’t like Mom’s boyfriend. This is probably why. Whoever this guy was, he turned her onto these drugs.
“At first, they did calm me. But as is the case with opioids, I needed more and more to get the same effect, and increasingly became nonfunctional when I wasn’t taking them.
“Detoxing at Bell Hospital in New York City at the age of eighteen was one of the most wrenching experiences of my life. It was a time that should’ve been filled with hope and promise about my future. Instead, I was in a detox unit, going through the physical anguish of withdrawal.”
Dawn approaches me, handing me a glass of water. I momentarily pause Mom’s testimony.
“I haven’t seen a video of my mom since she died twenty-six years ago,” I let Dawn know, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “It’s also the first time I’ve ever heard her speak about her struggles with addiction.”
“That must be hard,” she says.
I nod and take a sip of the water before resuming the testimony.
“After I was discharged from Bell, I went to a halfway house. The subsequent years of my life were challenging, requiring intensive therapy and an enduring commitment to my recovery to rebuild my life.
“I’m here today because the Cadell family robbed me of my youth. And tragically, their drugs have become more ubiquitous since I was an eighteen-year-old college student. As a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, I have witnessed the devastating toll they continue to take on families, destroying lives and stealing loved ones in their prime.
“Last year, I attended a funeral of a patient who died from a TriCPharma overdose after being prescribed one of their pain drugs for a back injury when he could’ve been treated with over-the-counter ibuprofen. Chronic pain is a serious quality of life issue. But these drugs are being grossly overprescribed at dangerous doses because the Cadell family has only ever had one goal—to ensure as many peoplebecome addicted to their drugs as possible so they can turn a profit.
“It’s time to end their callous, immoral, criminal enterprise. Doctors take a Hippocratic Oath: Primum non nocere. First, do no harm. Prescribing TriCPharma drugs is harmful to patients. It’s time we all stand up to the Cadell family.”
And it’s over. I close the laptop.
“I need some air,” I tell Dawn and walk toward a small balcony off the living room.
When I step outside, I close my eyes, trying to put aside the shock of hearing Mom discuss her experience as an opioid addict, focusing on her testimony to see if I can extrapolate anything that might lead me to her.
Nothing she said struck me as any different from what countless other opioid victims have reported through the years. Nothing that would make the Cadells nervous if she ever came forward, assuming the president unseals the hearing.
The only thing that stood out was her palpable anger toward the Cadells, which felt personal. I guess itwaspersonal. They stole her youth.
