Chapter 7 - THE EMPTY BOTTLES IN HIS GARAGE
Police did not raid my house because I told them my husband might have taken pills.
Real investigations don't work that way.
My attorney advised me to make a factual report about the medication interference and the incident in the bathroom.
I did.
The pharmacy and medical providers handled their own records.
Then Eric made a mistake unrelated to me.
He was pulled over for a broken taillight after leaving work late.
The officer did not arrest him for being my husband.
During the stop, according to what later became part of the case, Eric appeared impaired enough that the encounter escalated into a lawful investigation.
Several prescription bottles were found in a work bag inside the vehicle.
One had my name on it.
It was the postoperative refill I had never received.
The bottle was nearly empty.
I learned about it through my attorney after investigators contacted me to verify whether I had given Eric permission to possess the medication.
I had not.
My knees went weak.
Noah sat beside me when I answered the investigator's questions.
Did I know Eric sometimes carried my medication?
No.
Had I asked him to transport that bottle?
No.
Had I taken any pills from that refill?
No.
Then another bottle was identified.
An old prescription originally issued to Eric after a back injury eighteen months earlier.
That history had never been important to me.
Now I remembered the weeks after the injury.
Eric had become irritable.
Sweaty at night.
He complained constantly that the doctor had “cut him off too fast.”
Diane had come over repeatedly.
She said he simply had a low pain tolerance.
Then, after a month, everything seemed normal again.
Or I thought it had.
Investigators did not tell me Eric had an addiction.
That required medical evaluation, not my opinion.
But the evidence had shifted.
He had possessed controlled medication prescribed to me.
Medication he had collected from the pharmacy and concealed.
That evening, Noah and I returned to my house with arrangements made through counsel so I could collect more personal property without a confrontation.
Eric wasn't there.
Diane wasn't there.
In the garage, I opened a cabinet looking for a suitcase.
Behind a stack of cleaning products stood four empty orange pharmacy bottles.
Two belonged to Eric.
One label had been peeled off.
One had my name.
It was an older medication prescribed after a dental procedure the previous year.
I had taken exactly three tablets.
Then forgotten about the bottle.
I remembered asking Eric months later whether he'd seen it.
He told me I probably threw it away.
I stood in the garage holding the empty container.
Three years of small moments began changing shape.
Not proof of every suspicion.
May you like
A pattern.
And somewhere in that pattern was the reason my husband had started calling me an addict before I had ever asked for more medication.
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