What Remains

What Remains

 

I can’t say she ruined my life. I can’t say she didn’t love me. I can’t say she didn’t change me.

 

Thirty-one years ago, I was 26, newly divorced, and had a three-year-old daughter.

               

                I fell in love with her. Or something I thought was love. Maybe it was only lust, but not physical lust. Lust for what I thought was a life filled with spontaniety and fun and not the grueling life of being a mother and a wife. Or what I thought was a grueling life.

                Skye turned my world upside down. She drove a Trans Am. She did a lot of coke, and she sold a lot of coke. And she lived with another woman whom she claimed was only a roommate.

                I ditched my daughter with my ex-husband. Or a babysitter. For nights on end.

                I did a lot of coke. It made me feel good.

                We went on a lot of road trips to nowhere.

                I spent countless nights in her canopied bed.

                I lost a lot of weight.      

                I did whatever she asked me to do.

                She grew marijuana in a secret grow room in the basement.      

                She grew paranoid.

                We ripped out the plants, took them to a second-rate motel and dried them on screens.

                We put the unusable parts in garbage bags and put those garbage bags in the trunk of my car and we drove them to the dump.

                We went to a lot of bars. We went to a lot of house parties. We drank a lot. We sold a lot of dope.

                I missed work. A lot of work. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drink anything but chocolate milkshakes.

                I didn’t care. About anything. Or anyone. Except her.

We were together a year and then we weren’t.

 

She went to prison.       

She got out of prison.

She couldn’t stop doing coke. She couldn’t stop what she did.

She still drove a Trans Am. She had a new lover.

She died in the Tucson desert with her lover. Murder. Suicide.

 

I can’t say she didn’t change me.