Should Have Known Better

“With Reginald? No!” I pulled at the chain again and pulled the wet rag my mother had laid across my forehead off and threw it to the floor.

“Mrs. Johnson, I need you to calm down,” Officer Russell said. “I know this is your first offense, so I need to explain some things.”

“I don’t care about what happens to me. Get my children. Please,” I begged her. I cried and kicked in the bed. “I need to see them.”

“You’ll see them soon enough.” She put her hand on my leg to stop me from moving. “I know you’re upset and confused, but you have to listen to me right now. Do you understand?

“We have a mandatory minimum sentence for drunk driving in the state of Georgia. And you were driving with your children in the car, so they were automatically to be put in protective custody. Luckily, your husband called your cell phone while police were detaining you and he was able to come pick up the children. So they’re safe. But we are pressing charges. And he’s been given temporary custody.”

I felt embarrassed and ashamed. Felt like I was lying in that bed naked. Alone. Cold. I looked away and at a bare white wall as the officer went on. I heard half of what she said. Maybe less. I kept thinking of Cheyenne and R. J. and what they’d seen. How they’d cried and begged me to turn the car around. Their two bodies stuffed into one seat. They must’ve been so scared.

“When you passed out,” I heard her say after a while, “the officers weren’t sure what was wrong with you. They knew you’d been drinking, but when they spoke to your friend—”

“My friend?” I turned back to Officer Russell.

“Yes, a Mrs. Bellamy? Sasha Bellamy. She was with your husband when he called. She told the officers you might be using drugs.”

“What? That’s crazy. She’s crazy,” I explained. “I don’t use drugs. She’s just trying to steal my husband. That’s what this is about. That’s why I was out there.” I looked at Officer Russell. “I know I shouldn’t have been drinking, but I was upset. It was just one time. I’d had a fight with my husband and it was wrong for me to do that to my children, but I don’t use drugs.”

She patted my leg like I was a psychiatric patient or wounded soldier.

“I hear what you’re saying, but you need to know that when the officers brought you to the hospital after you passed out and they told doctors they weren’t sure if you’d been drinking or using drugs or what kinds, they had to test you.”

I shrugged my shoulders expecting a clear denial of anything Sasha had said. I’d never used drugs. Not once in my life. Not even a pill beyond what I’d taken for pain after having the twins.

“You tested positive for methylenedioxymethamphetamine or MDMA.”

“What’s that?”

“Ecstasy.”

In all my anger, in all my fear and embarrassment, I actually laughed at this. Not loudly, but just like I was sure she was joking. Ecstasy? It was a joke. And if that was a joke, maybe all of this was.

Maybe everything was fine. Some big joke the world was playing on me. I felt like the chain on my wrist had loosened.

“I don’t use drugs. Something must be wrong.”

She pursed her lips and reached for a clipboard hanging on the foot of the bed. She slid out a sheet and handed it to me.

“This isn’t from me,” I said, reading exactly what she’d told me, and my fear returned immediately. “I don’t use drugs. There must be a mix-up. There has to be.”

“Mrs. Johnson, we see this all of the time. Suburban mother working hard, needs some relief. The pills are easy to come by. They give you relief. You hid it with alcohol.”

“But I didn’t—” I tried.

“But there’s only a matter of time before you can’t hide it anymore. Before you hit a wall,” she said. “And I think you hit your wall last night.”

“I’m not hiding anything. I didn’t hit a wall. I admitted I was drinking and I said I was wrong. If there’s a fine or something I need to pay, I can do that, but I’m not a drug user.”

“Why aren’t your children in school?”

“They are. It’s the end of the school year,” I said, trying to let her hear how rational it all sounded, but even listening to myself, it just didn’t. “Just one more week. I took them out, so we could come here. . . .”

“Come here for what?”

“My husband.” I paused and looked back at the white wall. “He’s having an affair with Sasha.”

“And what about your job? You haven’t been there in days. Had someone been covering for you?” she asked.