Chapter 10 - I WAS NEVER THE ADDICT THEY WERE BUILDING
The truth came together through records that had existed before I ever called Noah.
Pharmacy pickups.
My surgeon's telephone notes.
The home-health pill count.
Eric's old prescription history.
The bottle found in his vehicle.
Diane's own statement.
And finally, text messages produced during the legal investigation of the medication issue.
The important exchange was not dramatic.
That made it worse.
Three days before Diane flushed my pills:
Eric:
She's counting them now.
Diane:
Because you keep taking too many.
Eric:
I need enough to get through work.
Diane:
Then make her stop using them unless she absolutely needs them.
Eric:
She'll notice the refill.
Diane:
Then we deal with it.
The following day:
Diane:
Tell the doctor she's getting dependent.
Eric:
Already called.
I read those messages three times.
Every earlier clue snapped into place.
Eric had not been monitoring my medication because he feared I was becoming addicted.
He was monitoring it because he was diverting it.
The refill I never saw.
The old dental prescription that disappeared.
The questions about how many tablets I had left.
The call telling my surgeon I was overly focused on medication.
The accusation that cancer had become my personality.
And Diane's performance in the bathroom.
She had not impulsively thrown away pills because of some warped religious conviction.
She was destroying the remaining count after Eric had already taken medication from me.
If the bottle vanished completely, there was nothing left for me to count.
If I later needed more pain relief, Eric could say:
See? She's already out.
If I became angry, they could say:
See? She's desperate for pills.
They had built a trap where nearly every reaction supported the same lie.
Then came the final message.
Sent the morning Diane came over.
Eric:
If she asks where the other bottle went, say we think she's abusing them.
Diane:
She'll scream.
Eric:
Good.
I stopped reading.
Noah took the pages from my hand.
For five years, I had believed my brother's suspicion about our father's missing medication destroyed our relationship.
Now I understood something more painful.
Noah had been wrong about one thing.
Eric had not needed my father's pills badly enough then for anyone to prove what happened.
But the behavior Noah saw had not disappeared.
It had grown.
And when cancer made controlled medication available inside our house again, my husband used my recovery as supply.
Then he used my vulnerability as camouflage.
May you like
My cancer had never become my whole personality.
It had become Eric's opportunity.
