Crystal Lies - Melody Carlson [85]
So I told him good-night and headed for bed, and I know it sounds horrible, and it’s difficult to admit, but I suddenly felt very uncomfortable in my own apartment. Unsafe even. Jacobs condition was confusing and frightening to me. And I wasn’t thinking only of his lack of personal hygiene, which was bad enough. But that blank look in his eye and the knowledge that he had been using and may have even become addicted to crystal meth were deeply disturbing. I hadn’t done much research yet, but I’d seen a TV news show recently that had exposed how meth addicts can often become violent and unpredictable as a result of the drug. And I still remembered how Jacob had been that night when I’d confronted him about the hypodermic needles—like a stranger.
Once in bed, I felt restless and wide awake and suddenly wished I had a deadbolt on my bedroom door. Then I had to almost laugh at myself since the doors in this apartment weren’t much heavier than cardboard anyway, and already Jacob had managed to put his fist through the thin walls a number of times. What good would a deadbolt do, really? But as I lay there imagining the kinds of horrors that would lend themselves to a bad scene in a Lifetime movie, I finally had to ask myself why I even cared. What difference would it make? So what if my son murdered me in my sleep. Why would I want to go on living with a son who was such a mess anyway? Perhaps it would be best to simply get it over with. Maybe mothers like me deserved what they got. Besides that, my life wasn’t much to fight for these days. Happy thoughts to put me to sleep with, I know, but it was how I felt.
Even so, I did manage to pray again. Despite my hopelessness and apathy, I asked that God would protect both me and my son. And then I managed to fall asleep and eventually woke up the next morning, still alive. At least partially. More and more I was thinking that a large part of me had already died. I couldn’t exactly pin down when this had occurred, but perhaps it had been a process. Some of this death was related to Geoffrey, some to Jacob, a little to Sarah and her unwillingness even to speak to me, and some as a result of Sherry’s recent loss.
I got up before six and took the basket of Jacobs filthy clothes down to the laundry room. I think I was hoping to find Jack around. But, of course, it was too early for him to be doing laundry. So I put the load in and sat down, and, feeling exhausted even though I had slept relatively well, I put my head in my hands and wondered how I was going to survive all this.
Fortunately or not, depending on how you look at it, I had a funeral to attend today and various responsibilities to fulfill…and as a result I had little time to dwell on my misery just now.
I finished Jacobs laundry, folding each piece just as carefully as I had done when he was my sweet, little, chubby-cheeked baby in diapers. Then I went back upstairs and took a shower and got dressed. I took time to select the perfect outfit, the one Sherry had enticed me to purchase. It wasn’t that I particularly cared about my appearance these days but more because I didn’t want Sherry to be ashamed of me. I wanted to be strong and dependable for her. In all honesty I’d been living my life for her benefit these past few days. Trying to masquerade myself as a together sort of woman who was fully functional and rational. Perhaps I was even mimicking the way that Sherry had been when she rushed to my rescue as my life crumbled into pieces. But at least my facade was working. For Sherry anyway. It didn’t seem to be working for me.
To my surprise, Jacob managed to sort of pull himself together as well. Oh, his hair was still a bit shaggy and limp, and his eyes still contained that lost and vacant look, but his clothes were clean and somewhat appropriate. Sure, it wasn’t the sort of outfit that