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“It’s changed me. I have this vulnerability now. I don’t mean to sound negative, but I know I’ll have to grapple with this addiction for the rest of my life. It feels unfair to be dealt this hand at my age. Had I known how addictive TriCPharma drugs were, I never would’ve taken them in the first place,” she says with a pained, regret-filled look.
“For others struggling with opioid addiction, what would you like to say to them?” he asks.
“That there’s hope. There’s always hope for recovery.” It feels like she’s speaking to me through the screen about my own recovery and the eating disorder that first took root inside me after she was gone.
“We’re glad you’re here with us,” Dr. Siegel says.
She nods. There’s still nothing jumping out at me in this interview. Nothing that gives me any leverage over the Cadells or leads me any closer to her if she’s still alive.
“Irene,” a woman calls from off-screen.
“Looks like the nurse needs you,” Dr. Siegel says to Mom. “We can finish the interview later or tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Mom says.
She pushes her chair away from the table and stands up. And for a split second, right before the video turns off, I see it—her pregnant stomach.
“I didn’t remember she was pregnant,” Dr. Siegel says as I stare at the screen with my jaw wide open. “Did you know about her pregnancy?”
I shake my head, still unable to form words, in complete and utter shock, staring at my mom’s stomach. She looks four or five months pregnant.
What Alexander Valentine said comes firing back at me, how Mom was more motivated than most to recover at the halfway house. This was why—she was going to have a baby. A baby she wanted to give the best possible chance to have a healthy outcome.
Sadness hits me, a sadness I know too well. Mom must have ended up miscarrying. She tried to get healthy for the baby, but it was too late.Thisis why she told Pearl she was thankful to leave New York behind her—the pain of it all. It’s also probably why she was so eager to hang the Cadells in her congressional testimony. They hadn’t just stolen her youth; they also had stolen her pregnancy.
“I guess this is what the Cadells are nervous about me finding out,” I finally say to Dr. Siegel. “It wasn’t what she said in your interview. It was the fact she was pregnant and miscarried because of their drugs.”
“Maybe,” he says quietly.
“But since then, there have been other women that have miscarried because of TriCPharma. Why do they care about my mom? It’s also strange she didn’t mention it in her congressional testimony. If she wanted to make the Cadells look bad, why didn’t she disclose she miscarried to congress?”
“Maybe she didn’t,” he says.
“What?”
“Maybe she had the baby,” he says.
His words don’t register.
“You think my mom had a secret child and never told my dad or me about it?” I ask.
“I interviewed a lot of addicts at Bell. Many of them had done things while they were using, things they didn’t necessarily advertise,” he says.
I shake my head, adamant. “There’s no way she could’ve kept another human being a secret from us for that long.”
“Maybe she gave them up for adoption,” he says.
“If that’s true, why would the Cadells care about me finding out about it now? And how can I find out if this person even exists? I can’t look up a birth record without a name, and I don’t know who the father is.”
“Google?” he says.
I stand up. “Can I use your computer?” I say, pointing to one on his desk in the corner of the office.
“Sure,” he says. He walks to his desk and turns on the computer.
I try Googling “Irene Mayer and children.” There are several Irene Mayers, but all that comes up for Mom are a couple of dated grainy pictures of her, Dad, and me that Dad probably posted on his Facebook page before he died. There’s nothing about her having another child or, for that matter, ever being pregnant before me. This part of her life was erased like she was twenty-six years ago.
Dr. Siegel returns to the VHS player and ejects the tape from it. “I want you to have this,” he says, handing it to me.
