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Eventually, within the week, everyone but his mother left to return to their former lives, Ryan included. Surrounded by his loving coworkers who had known Caroline, too, only Caroline wasn’t there. It confused him at first, how much the knowledge of her presence somewhere in the hospital had filled his heart with well-being. Now that she was gone, the pain was unbearable.
It wasn’t until a few months later when a nurse asked him to have a drink after work that the impact of Caroline’s absence really hit home.
“Buddy, come out with us,” another anesthesia doctor said. “We’re all headed out for happy hour, not just that nurse.”
So he went, and the alcohol slid down his throat, cold and satisfying, settling the numbness to a level that made his angst more tolerable.
That drink was the beginning. The hospital physician had prescribed Ativan for Ryan during the last months of Caroline’s life, and it took the edge off. After she died, the bathroom cupboard that was designated hers was filled with opioid painkillers and anti-seizure medications, and he started to take those as well when his script for Ativan ran out. Adding vodka to the mix, he barely functioned.
A year after her death, with multiple complaints by his coworkers and patients reporting that he had alcohol on his breath or slurred his words, and when it was clear he was working impaired, his boss finally stepped in and issued a random drug test.
“I don’t know how you’re walking, let alone putting people to sleep, Ryan. You’re suspended indefinitely. And just an FYI, we have to inform the medical board.”
They didn’t waste any time, and his license was suspended, as well.
“You’re lucky we don’t press criminal charges against you,” the chief of the anesthesia department told him.
The chief of the medical board advised him that if he went to in-patient rehab, he could petition to get his license back. But before that happened, it took another year of continuous substance abuse before he had a moment of lucidity when his parents stepped in and guilted him into going into a facility that would help him dry out.
Over eighteen months, after doing two stints in rehab and falling off the wagon twice, he landed in a court-ordered rehab, and it was during that third round of ninety days confinement that he lost his car, his house, and everything in it.
He’d find out later that Caroline’s parents had rescued her belongings. But his were left to the wolves.
Chapter 4
Sometime during the story between when he met Caroline and his car was repossessed, Sofia and Ryan had reached for each other’s hands as they walked the beach.
“What happened when you left rehab the last time?” she asked, her voice exposing her sadness.
“Believe it or not, after I was discharged, I went to my house in an Uber. There was a sale sign with a foreclosure plaque on the front lawn.”
“Oh, how awful. I’m so sorry.”
He laughed a little. “I can laugh now, but it was a shock. I guess I thought things would just keep going as usual. Our mortgage was paid automatically each month, but eventually the money ran out.”
“I hate to bring up bad feelings, but why didn’t your family try to help out?”
“They did at first, but they’d had enough,” he said. “I really put everyone through hell. I’m not the first person to lose a wife, but something about me, my mental makeup, drove me into self-destructive behavior. I discovered a lot about mental illness while I was in the last round of addiction treatment. I finally woke up, I guess.”
“Still, losing your house seems pretty drastic. Someone should have helped you. Her family even.”
“They lost any hope after the first round of rehab,” he said. “I don’t blame them either.”
“Who’s your friend with the shed?”
“Ha! Believe it or not, my old boss. The one who put his foot down.”
“So is he feeling guilty?”
“No, no guilt. He was right to do it before I hurt a patient. My handwriting got a little shaky toward the end, but I still took care of my patients. I was just lucky nothing untoward ever happened. If there had been something out of the ordinary like a cardiac arrest, I’m not sure I’d have been able to handle it.”
They walked along for a while in silence. “I see where our lives parallel somewhat, as you said. Jake died and Caroline died. But you were married. I wasn’t.”
“It doesn’t matter. You were together for a long time. It’s significant that you are living within a few yards from where his body was found.”
“Oh. I was hoping you’d forget that,” she said, chuckling. “It sounds a little macabre.”
“People have different ways of handling their grief. You moved here. I lost my mind.”
