And I Don't Want to Live This Life : A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Murder (9780307807434) (40 page)

“I don't know what I'm doing wrong,” she sobbed. “He's so … 
difficult
. My others are fine. I wish I knew what I was doing wrong.”

“I don't think you're doing anything wrong,” I said.

She blinked, surprised. “My doctor says it's me. That I'm handling him wrong.”

“It might not be the case,” I said. “Some children are like that and there's nothing you can do about it. My daughter was like that. I know.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much. You know, I've always believed that, but I needed to hear it from someone else. I needed someone to tell me I was doing the right thing.”

She needed her doctor to tell her that.

To the medical community I say: Be more open with parents. Communicate with them, share your insights. If you don't have
answers, don't pretend you do. Say so. Nothing is gained by handing out platitudes like lollipops. Or guilt. On the contrary—much can be lost.

To parents I say: Don't give up on your instincts. You know your child best. If you don't agree with your doctor's diagnosis, press on. Get more answers. See another doctor. Don't accept what you're told at face value. My biggest regret is that I did. Demand the truth—even if that truth turns out to be the painful realization that nothing can be done. You'll still be better off than Frank and I were. Believe me. You won't torment yourself like we did, wondering what you're doing wrong. You won't blame yourself. You'll know that yours is an abnormal child. You'll know that yours is a child for whom you can do nothing. Except love.

I'm not saying Nancy's life would necessarily have turned out differently if I knew then what I know now. Chances are, she still would have ended up in an institution, or in prison, or dead. But we would have been aware of what we were getting into. Maybe we'd have found a place for her, someplace where she could have had her books and her records. Maybe the wounds inflicted on the four of us would not have cut so deep or taken so long to heal.

Something happened to Nancy in the first twenty-four hours of her life. I know it. There was neurological damage. I've met parents with children who had problem births like hers—prolapsed umbilical cord, a high bilirubin level. Many of them are just like Nancy: angry, aggressive, in pain. This is no coincidence, and doctors now acknowledge it. At Children's Hospital in Philadelphia, for example, therapists now follow problem-birth babies closely for the first two years of their lives. They observe them at home, test their progress every few months. That's good. Maybe they'll get a body of information together. Maybe they'll improve their ability to detect neurological damage. Maybe they'll be able to help someone else's baby. It's too late for Nancy, a generation too late.

It's good to see people opening their eyes to this syndrome that has no name. You tend to close them until it happens to your child. There is no such thing as a child who is not worth saving.

At this point in Nancy's life she couldn't be saved. Methadone kept her alive a little longer. It was the next best thing to a cure and we applauded it.

We took her out to dinner. Her choice for a restaurant was Grotta Azzurra in Little Italy. We'd taken all three kids there for dinner years before and had a nice meal. This night Nancy enjoyed herself, enjoyed the food. But after about an hour a little timer seemed to go off in her head. She got restless. It required great effort for her to play the part of good daughter, and she'd run out of energy.

“I wanna go,” she said, putting her fork down.

“Don't you want to finish your dessert?” I asked.

“I wanna go.”

Actually we were anxious to get back home. This was the first time we'd left Suzy and David for a weekend without a baby sitter.

So we left. We dropped her off at a friend's apartment in the Village and headed on out. When we stopped for gas on the New Jersey Turnpike, I called home. Suzy answered. She sounded upset, frightened.

“What's wrong, Suzy?”

“Nothing, Mom.”

“Why do you sound that way?”

“We had a party and—”

“You were told not to have a party!”

“—and we smashed your car.”

It was the last straw. I couldn't stand to hear anymore. I hung up on her. I got in the car and told Frank, then totally withdrew. We drove all the way home without speaking. I didn't have the strength to deal with this. Or the desire. I decided to resign. As a mother. As a human being.

When we got home, the car was sitting in front of the house. It was so badly smashed that I could not look at it. Suzy and David were waiting for us in the foyer, cowering. I didn't greet them.

“Frank,” I said. “You handle it. I quit.”

They all looked at me, shocked. I had always been strong enough to deal with whatever came along. Not this time. I'd had it. My limit had finally been reached. I went upstairs and closed myself in the bedroom. I thought about grabbing a suitcase and filling it and running away. Then my mind went blank. I just lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, limp, drained. Eventually I slept. Frank crawled into bed next to me sometime during the night. We didn't speak.

I felt okay in the morning. I asked Frank for the details. He gave them to me. The kids had thrown a beer bash by the pool. Sometime during the evening they'd loaned the car to a friend who asked for it (which they were forbidden to do) and he had proceeded to wreck it along with two other cars.

We did, of course, lose our car insurance again. This time we were forced to take out a high-risk policy at triple the rate.

Left on their own for the first time, Suzy and David had done just the sort of thing Nancy would have done. They were getting to be the age she had been that awful last year she'd spent at home. They were testing us, testing to see if they could get away with the kind of behavior Nancy had. They couldn't. We would not tolerate this sort of recklessness and irresponsibility from them. History was not going to repeat itself. We came down on them very hard. They were grounded until they left for camp in July. Unlike Nancy—thank god—they took their punishment, cowed by our anger, apologetic.

We'd gotten Nancy away from them, but her specter remained.

Nancy stayed on the methadone program for about four weeks.

I didn't hear from her very often. One time, the strip club she was dancing at was raided for a liquor license violation, and she was busted. She was stuck in a cell for a couple of hours until the club owner bailed her out. She ended up having to pay a $150 fine. She didn't have the money so I paid the fine for her. I couldn't stand the idea of her going to jail.

Then she met a guitarist named Jerry at Max's. She liked him a lot. She wanted me to meet him. I don't know if he returned her ardor. I somehow doubt it, since he broke it off to move to London and play in a band there. Nancy was pretty down about his leaving, but seemed to be coping until she discovered that her friend Phyllis was flying to London for two weeks—mainly to see Jerry.

She called me, sobbing hysterically.

“Do you
believe
her? That rotten.… She was my friend! She's fucking
my guy
!
My … guy
! He's
mine
!”

“I'm sorry, Nancy.”

“Do you
believe
somebody would do that!”

“It happens. People do that.”

“To you?” she demanded.

“Well, no. But you have to accept it.”

“I don't have to accept a fucking thing.”

She slammed down the phone.

And went back on the smack. I could tell from her slurred voice on the phone a few days later.

“You're shooting again, aren't you?” I said.

“Uh …”

“Aren't you?”

“Well … yeah. Like, uh … well, yeah. I am.”

“Oh, Nancy, why? Why did you start again? You were doing so well.”

“Jus' figured I'd do it one time, Mom. One little ol' time, ya know?”

“Nancy, that's so stupid! Totally stupid! You're an addict! You
can't
just go back to it once!”

“I … yeah. Well, you know what they say: Never trust a junkie. Not even your own daughter.”

She hung up, chuckling sadly to herself.

Nancy stayed on heroin through June and July. By then Suzy and David had left for camp. Every evening Frank and I sat at opposite ends of the pool, both of us in our own oasis. Silence.

One afternoon she called the house while I was on my way home from work. She told Frank to have me call her at once. She wouldn't speak to him, wouldn't answer his questions. She sounded terrified, he said.

I called. There was no answer.

“How long ago did she call?” I asked Frank.

“Five minutes, tops.”

I called again to make sure I had the right number. I let it ring a couple of dozen times. I was about to hang up when she picked it up. I heard heavy breathing, then a muffled moan.

“Nancy!” I cried out.

There was a long pause.

“Huh?”

“Are … you … okay?”

“Tired … just tired, Mom.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh.”

She hung up. A few days later she called me to thank me for saving her life. She'd OD'ed. My call had roused her enough to call Lance Loud for help. He'd taken her to the hospital.

“You saved me, Mom. You saved your Nancy's life.”

I didn't know if I had done her a favor or not. She seemed to think so. But I believe that she knew, deep down inside, what I myself was becoming certain of: Only in death would she find peace.

After that incident she swore off smack, though. Not that she let on that there was any connection.

“It's just no good, Mom,” she told me on the phone. “Gotta get off. Nobody likes the way I look. Gotta get off so I can keep workin'.”

She spoke about kicking her heroin addiction as if it were like taking off ten extra pounds.

“And it's really expensive. I'm gettin' off.”

“I want you to know we're with you. Anything we can do …”

“I'm glad.”

“Same program?”

“Uh-uh. State of New York ran out of money. Big surprise, right? But I found another one. Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital. Goin' up there tomorrow mornin'.”

“Good luck, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

My job no longer took me to New York regularly. I made arrangements to take a personal day off so I could go up and see her. I thought it was important to give her positive reinforcement.

She was very enthusiastic about my coming. Truly, the change in her when she was on methadone was remarkable.

“Come in really early, Mom. We'll spend the whole day together, you and me.”

“Will you be awake?”

“Call me from Penn Station. I'll be up!”

Unfortunately the day I chose to come to New York fell in the middle of a horrendous August heat wave. It was already ninety degrees and muggy when I got on the train at eight in the morning. It was close to a hundred by the time I got to New York. I wore a loose-fitting T-shirt and jeans. As I sat there on the train, I fantasized that Nancy had just graduated from Penn and gotten a job in New York. She and I were going to shop for the new business suits she'd need. We'd try Bloomingdale's. And Saks, of course. And Bendel's …

The train plunged into the blackness of the tunnel and then we were in Penn Station. I called Nancy from a pay phone. She was up and raring to go. I bought some fresh hot bagels and a bunch of
daisies at the station, then took a cab to her apartment. She was showered and dressed. She wore a tight T-shirt, black jeans, and platform sandals. She hugged me and squealed with delight over the flowers. She carefully arranged them in a pitcher, then made a pot of coffee. We had breakfast.

“You've
got
to see Fiorucci's,” she jabbered excitedly. “That's where these jeans came from. And then we'll go to Bloomingdale's, okay?”