Feels Like Home:
Chapter 6
"Oakley baby…" I soothe, she is laying on the hospital bed, cradling her wrist and sobbing. There is blood dripping down her face and onto her light pink top. I have no idea why they didn't attempt to clean the lacerations or even stop the bleeding in the ambulance. I guess that was a secondary concern to her broken arm. "I know this is scary, but everything's going to be fine. I'm here and your parents will be here soon. You have an entire hospital of doctors and nurses here to look after you." I say in a gentle singsong voice, as if I am singing a lullaby with my words trying my best to calm her down.
"This hurts." She mumbles miserably.
"I know sweetheart, but someone will be in to give you medication soon."
"I hate you! I want my mummy!" She screams and I sigh. I haven't been able to get ahold of her parents and I'm not sure that anyone else has either. When nobody could get ahold of her parents initially, she asked them to page me. I look at the chart the ambulance workers left with her documenting what they did. Her stats are all over the place. From the little bit of information, I could get from the woman who road with her in the ambulance she was on a playdate and had jumped off of the trampoline and fallen. She ahs a cut on her forehead. She has a gash across her face, and her wrist is starting to swell and bruise. I suspect that it's broken.
When they called, I was finishing up an operation. I wasn't able to get to her right way, but it was within minutes. God, I want to shake her parents. Who just leaves their kid somewhere and turns their phones off? The minute I saw her face I paged Mark nine one one and gave him the room number. If these lacerations are not cared for properly, she will have permeant scarring. They had initially had her in a bed in the Pediatric ER with only the curtain around it. I quietly demanded she be moved to a private room. It wasn't so much the sound of her crying that was bothering me, but the sound of the other sick children and their families. I text, call, and page her parents again. I realize they are not in the hospital. If they were in the hospital they would already be here, but no. Neither of them were on the OR board today. They must have cleared their schedules, and pushed their surgeries for another day, or on another surgeon. She needs Meredith. I am the wrong person to be doing this. She needs her Mom. I don't know how to soothe her.
The contrast in her mood scares me, though it comforts me at the same time. At least she feels comfortable enough with her Mom to cry for her when she's hurting. I've never seen her hurt like this before. Her eyes are dark, scary. She's flipping through the channels on the TV, whimpering as the waves of pain radiates through her wrist and head. I want her to cry for her Mom when something's wrong. It's just a very different situation from the child who was threatening to tell the Police that Meredith and Derek stole her last week. I have a lingering feeling that she's secretly a Mommy's girl, even though I know she'd feel like she is too grown up to admit to something so babyish.
"That's understandable. I'm not the person who should be here with you right now. I know you love your Mommy and want her here; she'll be here soon." I soothe, though my thoughts are darker. I hate myself for what I've done to her. I hate myself for what I've put her through. I shouldn't have even been a consideration. Meredith and Derek should be here right now. They should be cuddling her and helping her to feel better right now.
"Mummy and Daddy had 'errands' to run today. Mummy said I need socialization with kids my own age and forced me and Willow to go to the stupid baby-sitters house for a playdate. The baby-sitters kids are in homeschool social group with us. Willow is still there; she loves playing with the other kids."
"Did Mommy and Daddy say where they were going? It's really important we get ahold of your parents Oakley." I was thinking that maybe if they had told her the place, they were going I could look up the number and call the business to try and get ahold of them that way. It's old school, but it might work.
"I'm five." She says with an air of annoyance. "They never tell me anything but that 'Adult things are none of my business." She says crossly.
"Do you want to talk about what happened? Do you want to tell me how your face and arm got hurt? Did someone hurt you?" I ask, and she is silent for a long time, just watching me. It's a familiar look. She's trying to decide if she can tell me without getting herself into trouble. Willow had that same look when she told me about all of the pranks that they had pulled on their teachers and previous Nanny's.
"It was epic." She says, with a little hint of a smirk. I look at her confused and she continued. "I didn't want to be there and so I ran, jumped really high, and did a double flip off the edge of the trampoline."
"You hurt yourself on purpose?" I ask after a moment when I realize what she's saying, concern begins to sink in.
"Mummy and Daddy will come back if I'm hurt. My Mummy will take me home and I'll get to play with my toys instead of being stuck with a baby-sitter all day long." When I arrived to the emergency room the mother who was in the ambulance with Oakley was in shambles, apologizing, crying. Saying she only took her eyes off of the kids for a couple of minutes to get them some snacks from inside. Eventually she left, saying that she needs to check on her children at home. She had left them in the care of one of her teenage children to come to the hospital with Oakley. She gave her version of events before she left, and they matched what Oakley said anyway. It all happened so quickly, she only left to get the kids a quick snack from inside, etc.
"I'm worried about you Oakley." I admit. She looks up at me, now she is the one who looks confused. "You're just a little girl. You shouldn't have to do these things to get your parents attention." She needs more stability in her life. Maybe I could take Meredith up on her offer and have the girl's more. We could spend a couple weeks during summer vacation together or maybe some other school holiday when there are not lessons to attend to. If I had stayed in New York would this still be happening now? Would she have realized that she is loved? Would she still feel the need to hurt herself for attention?
I know I am downplaying things. Things were horrible before I left. I wouldn't have still been here, even if I had stayed. Things would still be exactly the same for her. I was so sick. I wouldn't have been able to get better if I had stayed.
"Well, I wasn't supposed to get hurt." She says, and I have a feeling that she's not telling the entire truth. "I didn't stick the landing very well. This is the first time I've ever done a flip before on a real trampoline. In Gymnastics class the trampolines are all flat on the ground. When you fall you land on the trampoline or the padded floor." She tries to explain.
"You've started Gymnastics lessons?"
"Mummy and Daddy put me in whatever lessons I want. The more lessons I take the less they have to spend time with me." She says, with a shrug, as if this is just her normal. The door opens and one of the pediatric nurses come in. She says hello to Oakley, asks her what happened, gets her height, weight, temperature, and blood pressure. She makes notes of her vitals in the computer before handing me what seems like a mountain of paperwork.
"I can't sign these, I'm not her mother." I object.
"I'm aware of you're unique situation." Brandy says, nodding at me. "I need permission to start treatment. Dr. Montgomery. We'll work out the kinks with her parents when they can be contacted." I am assuming that Meredith has not yet signed permission for me to have Oakley treated at the hospital. "You have permission to have her sister treated, otherwise we would not be having this conversation and would have to wait." Meredith had given me consent to take Willow to the emergency room all those years ago. I had done the same for her with Heavenly. "Do you give me permission to start treatment for Oakley Grey-Shepherd?" She asks, and looks over to Oakley who is busy protesting.
"You are my Mommy. I came out of your tummy not my Mummy's tummy! That's means that you're my Mommy! You made me. That means I'm yours." She had started crying again.
"I'm your Aunt Addison." I correct her, before Brandy continues.
"I need you to sign this paperwork. We'll give her a CT scan and an x ray of her wrist. Medication to keep her comfortable. You've worked here long enough to know the drill. Labs are backed up right now. We can take her for testing as soon as Dr. Sloan sutures her face, but it will take several hours to get results back. Pending the results, we will either admit her for surgery to fix the break or cast her so she can go home."
"Someone needs to contact her parents. I cannot legally consent on their behalf." Meredith and Derek still haven't called me back. I wonder what the hell they're doing that they do not have their phones on them.
"I could call DCFS and let them know we have an abandoned minor so they can sort this out OR you can sign the paperwork so we can treat this child. Look at her. She's clearly suffering. You're the closest thing she has to family right now, in this moment." I frown at this realizing just how very isolated we all are. I haven't spoken to Bizzy of The Captain since Heavenly died. Meredith, Derek, and Mark… well their parents are either dead or estranged, or so far away that we never see them. Mark's father took the death of his mother so hard that he hasn't been able to function in nearly a decade. They were never interested in raising children though. Derek's mother practically raised Mark as her own.
"I'll sign. She's not an abandoned minor. She's one of our own. I'll stay with her. Her parents wouldn't be out of range without just cause." I sigh and take the paperwork from Brandy. I look it over and fill it out quickly, signing at the bottom. I do not know all of the information on the page. The nurse says she'll look it up from Oakley's file and get information such as allergies, insurance, and social security number from there. I am thankful that we live in such an age of technology. I don't like the wait and see approach. You never know if a child is allergic to something, and you just have to go in blind when medical history is unknown. I nearly killed a child when I was overseas. He had a raging infection, and I gave him an injection of penicillin. Within seconds he was covered from head to toe in a nasty rash and his throat started swelling up. He stopped breathing. His parents were killed in the bombings. No one knew that he was deathly allergic. I realize that Brandy is talking to me and look up at her. She is injecting medication to the I V port inserted in the ambulance. She explains to me that Oakley will be sleepy, and that this will help the tests and treatment be completed without distressing her. She also gave a medication to help with the pain. Mark comes in right as Oakley was falling asleep. Brandy leaves after checking her vitals one more time.
"Where were you? I paged you nine one one what took you so long?"
"I was reconstructing a guys face, motorcycle accident, that takes time Addison. What the hell happened here?" He asks, looking down at the little girl we've created sleeping on the bed.
"She jumped off a trampoline."
"You let her play on a trampoline? Do you know that trampolines cause about one hundred thousand injuries every year?"
"Not me." I say putting my hands up. "Her parents left her with a baby-sitter."
"Where are her parents?"
"How should I know?" I snap, unreasonably harshly. "I'm not their keeper. Nobody was able to get ahold of them and so I was called to stay with her."
"I don't want to fight with you." He says, trying to calm me down. "This laceration looks bad. You were right to call." Mark says. He injects a numbing agent into Oakley's face and she barley even flinches in her sleep. He waits several moments and then begins to clean and slowly suture the wounds on her face.
"I know." I don't know why I am so annoyed with him. He did nothing wrong.
"Addison…"
"I guess… I just… This isn't how I wanted you to meet her."
"She won't remember any of this. The medication they gave her is good."
"No, but you will." I don't know why I didn't keep her jumping off the trampoline from him. I should have kept that to myself. He doesn't deserve anymore hurt, anymore regret than he already has. I know that he wants a relationship with her.
"She looks so much like her sister." He says, carefully examining her face. "It's like looking back in time." We are silent as he finishes up the stitching and puts medical tape over. "She should be fine, she shouldn't have a scar, but if she does it will be minimal. Everyone heals differently."
"Thank you, Mark."
"Anything for you…" He says with a little smile, and then asks "Do you ever regret giving her up? The way our lives turned to shit. How we stopped fighting? Don't you hate yourself for that? I hate myself for not fighting for us."
"If you fought for us, you wouldn't have your wife, your children. Something good came from us not working things out."
"You know that's not what I meant."
"Sometimes I think what a waste it is to throw away all that history."
"We did the best we could at the time."
"Yeah." I agree sadly.
"She's going to be okay Addison. Look at all the shit our parents put us through as children and we both turned out just fine. Meredith and Derek are loving parents."
"That's not what I'm afraid of."
"What is it then?" He asks, so gently.
"I don't want her to be like me." I say, but don't elaborate.
"I'm done here, lets get her to imaging and we can go from there." Mark says, changing the subject. He pages Brandy back into the room. She comes and helps transfer little sleeping Oakley onto the gurney.
"Mark…" My voice breaks as memories flood back to the night that Heavenly was taken off life support and was wheeled away to the operating room for the organ harvest. He must be thinking the same thing because he gently puts his hand on the gurney, stopping Brandy from pushing Oakley out of the room.
"Look at her." He says, and I do. "She's only sleeping Addison. She's going to be fine. Come give her a hug and a kiss. She's just going for imaging. She'll be awake and screaming at you again before you know it." His voice is so soothing that I move to the sleeping little girl on the bed, kiss her on the forehead, and give her the best hug I can without disrupting the I V.
"I'll be right here when you wake up." I tell her. "Your Mommy and Daddy will be here soon, but until then I'm here. You're safe. Everything's going to be okay." Brandy nods at me, and then wheels her off for testing, asking me to stay in the room until she returns. Mark wraps his arms around me. I don't resist. I can feel myself relaxing in his embrace. He rests his head on my shoulder as we watch Oakley disappearing into the elevator.
"Everything's going to be fine." He whispers. "It has to be."
I am sitting on the hospital bed, trying to finish charting on the portable laptop when Meredith finally arrives at the hospital and comes into the room. I look up at her. It is clear that she rushed from wherever she was. She is a mess.
"Addison I'm so sorry. Where is she?" She asks, rushing through the hospital door, looking confused to see me sitting on the bed and not Oakley.
"It's not me you need to be apologizing to." I say, coolly.
"Is she alright?" She asks, looking from the charts to me.
"She's still in imaging. They are trying to determine if she will need surgery to repair the break in her wrist. Her CT scan came back clear. She only has a minor concussion. Mark sutured the lacerations on her face. It looks bad right now but he's sure there will be minimal to no scaring."
"Thank you for taking care of her." Meredith says, and I don't respond to this. "Addison, I hate to ask you this, I know that she's hurt, but can you watch her tonight?"
"You have some nerve. She already thinks you don't love her." It's too much, but I don't care. Meredith's face crumbles, but she looks conflicted as well.
"I know." She admits. Moving some of the charts and sitting down next to me on the bed. "I want to be here with her, but this is really important, please."
"Is what you're doing more important to you than your daughter?" I ask, and she starts to cry. She puts her head in her hands and the sobs come. She doesn't speak for a long while, and I don't move to comfort her.
"What's going on?" I ask when she is finally able to calm herself down.
"We were in marriage counseling. Phones are not allowed. I don't know if I can fix this Addison." Meredith says, so sadly. "He wants to go through with the divorce. We were fighting and I went to the bathroom, I'm spotting." It takes me a second to realize why her spotting would be an issue, and then it feels like a brick wall has crashed down on me. I have been so stressed myself that I had completely forgotten she is pregnant. Damn it. I should be gentler with her. I should be taking from her stress not adding to it. "I think all the stress…and now Oakley's hurt and I just …" She cannot complete the thought though, just looks at me helplessly as the tears fall down her cheeks.
"We can do an ultrasound while we wait for Oakley to make sure everything's alright, at least we could eliminate some of your stress." I say, trying to come up with something, anything. "Have you called your doctor? How many weeks are you? Have you started prenatal care yet?" I have been so busy with work that I didn't even consider that she may want me to help with her prenatal care, especially after the loss that she's suffered. Finding out she's pregnant is like a single grain of sand in the entire beach of things I've been dealing with lately.
"Are we playing twenty-one questions now?" She snaps.
"I'm trying to help you."
"I know." She says apologetically. "I'm not sure. I was on birth control, the baby we lost was meant to be our last. She looks down, sadly. I wonder if she named him. Some parents choose not to. It's too hard. Then there are the parents like me who find comfort in naming their lost baby, even if they do not frequently speak of them again. Even if no one else knows of their existence. "Derek said he hopes I'm miscarrying. That we cannot handle another child." Meredith says, and she physically shivers.
"He said that?" I ask, shocked. It's so unlike Derek.
"Yeah." She says numbly. "He went to the marriage counseling session today drunk. He was drinking the whole way there, vodka in a water bottle. Oldest trick in the books."
"Hmm." I say sympathetically. "I'm not sure there's much I can do for Derek, lets worry about you first, and then we can come up with something together if you want." I say after a pause. "Spotting, and sometimes even bleeding can be common in early pregnancy." She nods but does not speak. I gather up the charts and put them on the counter before calling the nurses station and requesting a portable ultrasound machine to be brought in. They do without question and Meredith lays down on the bed that Oakley had previously occupied. I find the heartbeat easily and turn up the volume on the machine so that she can hear. A look of pure relief floods her.
"Baby is measuring at exactly 12 weeks." I move the wand around, taking measurements, looking for anything abnormal that could have caused the spotting. "Heartrate, Oxygen and Blood flow all look great." I print out the pictures and hand them to her. She wipes the gel off of her abdomen and repositions her shirt before sitting up.
"It's not a miscarriage?"
"As far as I can tell everything looks good." She is crying again, and I hand her a tissue. I move the ultrasound machine to the corner so that they will have room to bring Oakley in when she has finished with her tests and then explain to Meredith the bloodwork, I want her to get done, just to confirm everything is alright and her numbers are rising.
"I'm scared Addison."
"I know."
"I don't know how to do this alone. When Oakley and Willow were babies, I had Derek."
"Maybe you won't have to." I soothe. "The clinical trials have been shut down. Hopefully now everyone's stress levels will decrease. Derek can attend A A meetings or something, and I'm here to cheer you on if you need it." I add the last part as an afterthought. She doesn't have a chance to say anything else though because the next moment Brandy is wheeling little Miss Oakley back into the room. She is sporting a bubble gum pink cast with Peppa Pig and the doctors signature on it in sharpie. She still looks tired, but she is alert and sitting up in the wheelchair.
"She is quite the little chatter bug." Brandy says, smiling at Meredith.
"Mummy!" Oakley shrieks, smiling big.
"Hi baby!" Meredith smiles back at Brandy greatly and then carefully scoops Oakley out of the wheelchair and into her arms. She sits down in the rocking chair with her, hugging her so tightly while Brandy goes over the test results and discharge instructions, letting Meredith know that she has called Oakley's prescription into the pharmacy already.
"I'm totally bummed." Oakley announces when Brandy tells Meredith that Oakley won't need surgery. "I wanted to see what the inside of the operating room looks like."
"Oh, are you going to be a surgeon like your Mommy and Daddy when you grow up?" Brandy asks her.
"No. I'd just like to see." She falls silent, and then looks at Meredith pepping up again. "You're here! You came! Aunt Addison wasn't lying!"
"Of course, I came. You're my little girl. I will always be here for you." She smooths her hair back and rocks her in the rocking chair while Brandy finishes giving her discharge instructions and hand her the form to sign.
"You're all free to go little one. You were very brave today." She says, and Oakley nods. She cuts off Oakley's hospital band and removes the I V . Oakley doesn't even wince at the needle coming out of her arm. Brandy gives us a final look, telling us goodluck, and not to hesitate to bring her back if there are any number of different scenarios before leaving the room. Meredith sits rocking Oakley for a while longer, and Oakley almost asleep by the time she speaks again.
"Can you take her tonight?" Meredith asks. "I have to try to sort things out with Derek. I only need a few hours Addison." Oakley looks up at her mother, dismayed.
"I don't want to go with Aunt Addison." She announces. "I want to go home with you!"
"Baby…" Meredith says gently, "I need you to go with Aunt Addison, just for a few hours. I will come and get you, or if you're already asleep I'll come sleep next to you in the fairy room. I'm only going to be gone for a little while."
"Tu es la pire mère de tous les temps." (You are the worst Mother ever.)
"C'est important. Oakley s'il plaît." (It's Important. Oakley please.)
"Pourquoi tout le monde est-il plus important que moi?" (Why is everyone more important than me?)
"They're not Oakley." Meredith says, gently. "You need to rest though so you can recover from your fall. I don't want you to be up worrying about Mommy and Daddy arguing. Daddy has been drinking today and it's making him sick. It makes him say things he doesn't mean. I know him drinking and raising his voice scares you."
"So, you're choosing him over me?" Oakley clarifies, looking up at her mom, heartbroken.
"Absolutely not Oakley."
"Well, what is it then?" She asks, her bottom lip trembling.
"Keeping you safe. It may not seem like it right now, but I'm putting your needs first." She tries to clarify but Oakely doesn't respond to this, just looks up at me miserably.
"Aunt Addison hasn't boughten the new book yet." She complains. "We've already read all of the books she has at her house and watched everything on the apple tv thingy." She says , dramatically.
"Well maybe if you're feeling up to it Aunt Addison can take you to the bookstore and you can buy a new book?" Meredith tells Oakley, looking at me, pleadingly.
"Fine." I agree, reluctantly. Oakley looks so defeated when I agree. Meredith helps her up off the chair, and she walks over to me without even telling her mother goodbye. She takes my hand with her uninjured one and practically pulls me out of the hospital room.
"Oakley, I love you." Meredith calls from behind us. Oakley turns around, just for a split second, looks her mother right in the eyes and responds.
"C'est un mensonge. Tu ne m'aimes pas." (That's a lie. You don't love me.)
"Oakley I'm sure your parents will be here for you soon." We heard them arguing next door while we were eating dinner. I took her to the Cinema room, turning on the first show that I could find. The cinema room is soundproof, so it wasn't necessarily needed. She takes the remote and changes the channel, annoyed.
"Ils ne se soucient pas de moi. Je ne suis pas leur vraie fille." (They don't care about me. I'm not their real daughter.) She says, narrowing her eyes at me, and clicking through several more channels. I have so many streaming services and the maximum package for cable. I don't think she's really trying to find something though. I don't even bother reminding her I do not speak French. She throws the remote across the room in frustration. The screen turns off, the remote crashes against the wall and the batteries fall out. She leaves the cinema room and starts up the stairs.
"Oakley…"
"No!"
"Excuse me? You do not get to speak with me that way." I remind her, firmly.
"I don't want to talk about it!" She huffs. I follow her up the stairs, she goes to the bedroom and throws herself down on the lower bed. I can see her physically trying to restrain herself from sobbing. I sit down on the floor next to her bed, gently rubbing her back. She doesn't resist.
"Oakley what's going on with you?"
"I don't know!"
"Okay, well I'm here if you want to talk. I'm right here." My knees are aching from kneeling down beside the bed. She stays silent for what feels like forever.
"They don't care about me because I'm not their real daughter."
"Something came up, Oakley there was an emergency."
"There is always an emergency."
"Your parents love you; they want to keep you safe."
"My arm hurts. I hate this stupid pink cast."
"I have your medication in the kitchen. It's time for your next dose."
"No. I hate liquid medicines." She protests. "I won't take it! I won't take it and you can't make me!" I had to physically restrain her to get the first dose in her, and still ended up with most of the medication all over the both of us as she refused to swallow and spit it out at me.
"We could put it in pudding or frosting or maybe even apple sauce." I say.
"No!"
"Then I guess for now you can hurt. Let me know if you change your mind."
"You can't do that! That's child abuse. My arm is broken!"
"I'm not playing these games with you Oakley. Maybe you'll remember this the next time you decide it's a good idea to do something dangerous to get your parents attention." E lock eyes and just watch each other for a moment. I guess she didn't expect me not bend to her will or argue with her. Her parents can find with her about the medication when they take her home.
"I'm going to sleep." She huffs.
"Fine." I say passively, but I don't move.
"You can leave now. I don't need you. I can get myself ready for bed. All my parents have taught me is I don't need anybody. I can take care of myself."
"Oakley…"
"NO!" She curls up on the bed and covers her face. "I don't want to talk to you. Just leave. Just get out."
I sit outside of the bedroom, just looking at the closed door for a long time. When Oakley had realized I wasn't going anywhere she walked over to the door and slammed it shut in my face. I didn't move. I sat there on the ground frozen, remembering the time I tried that with Bizzy. It didn't go over well. The bedroom is long silent before I stir again. I silently berate myself. I should have gone in sooner to comfort her. I shouldn't have allowed her to cry herself to sleep. I am the adult here. The truth is that I don't know what to say to make this better for her and so I said nothing. What is there to really be said? I could tell her that her parents love her, that things will get better, but it's like a broken record. She will not believe me until she is given reason to believe. That starts with her parents getting their act together, not with me. I stand over her bed, just watching her breathe for a few minutes. She is fast asleep. She is breathing slowly and evenly, as if troubles from earlier forgotten as she dreams. I tuck her under the covers and then go to my bedroom. I lay down on the bed, too anxious to sleep, but knowing that it will eventually take me. I call Meredith again, there is no response, so I text her letting her know that Oakley is okay, and to use the hide a key and wake me before she leaves. I wait a while but when there is still no response I finally drift off into a restless sleep.
The pitter pattering of Oakley's feet on the wooden floor wakes me. I look over at the bedside clock, still hazy from sleep. It's three in the morning. I must have dozed back off, thinking that Oakley just needed to use the bathroom and would take herself back to bed. I am startled awake sometime later by the sound of several things happening at once. Oakley screams and falls to the ground with a loud thump, something glass breaks, and Oakley continues to cry. I run to the bathroom to find her sitting on the floor, crying, but looking stunned. The mason jar that I stockpiled medication in all those years ago is broken, the pills scattered on the ground in a rainbow of colors and sizes all around her. I look up at the third shelf from the bottom. The secret door has been opened reveling the safe which has also been opened. The towels and extra toiletries that was in front of the door have been placed in the bathtub.
"Oakley what happened?" I demand when I am able to find my words. "How did you get this jar?" There is no way she could have known about the hidden safe in the wall of the bathroom linen closet. There is no way she could have both figured out how to open the hidden door and the combination to the safe. I always keep it locked, and the hidden door shut with things in front of it. This was for me thought. I did not want to make a rash, impulsive decision. I wanted to be absolutely sure. I never in my wildest thoughts imagined one of the children would gain access to them.
I pace back and forth in panic trying to organize my thoughts. I am trembling, my legs feel weak. She's alive. She's okay. I feel like I am going to be sick.
"Did you eat any of this medication?" I ask her, frantically. She is crying so hard through. She cannot respond to me. I grab her up, away from the glass. I have to resist the urge to shake an answer out of her as panic fills me.
"I want my Mummy!" She whimpers. "You're hurting me! Let me go!" I loosen my grip on her and check her head to toe to make sure that she doesn't have any cuts from the broken jar. Luckily it broke into a few larger pieces and several smaller. I pick up the broken glass carefully and throw it in the trash bin. My mind is racing in a thousand directions at once. I feel like I cannot breathe.
"Oakley answer me!" I shout at her. I should call nine one one. I should call her parents. OR should the first call I make be to poison control? She is crying, but otherwise behaving completely normally. Is it possible that she didn't ingest any of the medication at all? I should count the pills and see, but I have no idea how many pills were in the jar. Possibly thousands. I had a way of pretending to take my medications and then slipping several away in the seams of my clothing. I feel a little bit guilty. Meredith was doing the best she could, but I was smarter, and determined. The miniscule amount of trust she had in me too much. She watched me take my meds, I could never smuggle them all, but I think I did well enough. I ended up with a full jar. I am not proud of what I did, but I needed to make absolutely sure that there was no humanly way I would ever wake up in the event I decided to end everything. I had a plan. I would find the key to the roof. I would sit on the roof and take the pills while drinking a glass of fine red wine before completely passing out and falling. I reasoned that if the pills didn't kill me the fall certainly would have. Now I am thankful that I didn't take that path, but back then it was the perfectly thought-out plan. All the kinks were already worked out. Oakley doesn't respond, just stands Infront of me, looking at me blankly as tears fall down her cheeks. I grab her again, making sure to be more careful this time.
"Oakley this is very important. I need you to talk to me. Did you take any of these pills? Did any of these pills touch your mouth?" I ask, tone demanding. She looks terrified and shakes her head hard, looking away from me. "Are you certain?" I ask her, and she nods. I relax a tiny bit. I grab my medical bag from the linen closet and check her vitals. Everything's normal.
"What were you doing in here?" I lower my voice. It takes several moments for her to gather her composure, she keeps trying to move away from me, but I don't want her to grab any of the pills still scattered on the floor. I will have to bring the broom in, Or the hoover.
"I want my Mummy."
"Oh, believe me. I want you to have your Mommy too." I say, wishing that she'd have just taken her kid home tonight instead of dumping her on me. I realize that I do not really care if Meredith and Derek get divorced or not. Derek has a way of screwing things up with every woman he has ever dated or married, some sooner than others. It's bound to happen eventually.
"I said I want my Mummy!" She screams. "My arm hurts and I WANT MY MUMMY!" Her voice raises with each word. I can tell she is skilled in the art of screaming at people to get her way.
"Tell me what you were doing."
"NO!"
"Fine, you don't get to go home until I get the truth. I'll call your Mommy now and let her know that I'm keeping you."
"I said I WANT MY MUMMY! You can't keep me here! I'll call the police."
"Want me to call them for you?" I ask realizing that she is obviously fine, or she wouldn't be this… fine. I type 9-1-1 into my phone and show it to her. "You can tell them what a little terror you're being. Maybe they'll take you away." I don't mean it, and if I didn't know for certain she would waiver I wouldn't have said it.
"Better not." She says warningly. "I'll tell them you abused me. I'll tell them that you gave me this broken arm and the cuts on my face. They'll take you to jail."
"And the police will have you committed to children's psych unit. Being in jail would be a vacation compared to being here." It's harsh. I don't mean it. I am just scared enough and hurt enough that I would rather be anywhere than here. She is crying harder, but I don't know how to comfort her, despite my harsh words being to blame. I don't know how to help her through whatever it is she is going through. All it takes is one lie to tarnish a reputation though. I feel like she, even at her young age knows this. It doesn't matter that her hospital records and eyewitness testifies would clear me in an instant of all wrongdoings. She looks at me, and when I don't look away sighs dramatically.
"If I tell you, can I have my Mummy?" She asks, bottom lip trembling.
"Yes."
"I can't sleep. I tried to take the pills in the jar to help me sleep, but I couldn't get the jar to open because of this stupid cask. I dropped the jar and then I slipped. Will you please take me home now?"
"So, you were looking for something to help you sleep?" I ask her. I don't want to tell her that her parents have not called or even texted. I don't know if she can go home or not. I have no idea when she'll be able to go home. I can't really just haul her back over there and remind them that they forgot to pick her up.
"Mummy gives us Melatonin."
"Does this look like the Melatonin your Mommy gives you?" I ask, gesturing to the mess on the floor. If I can get her to go back to bed, I can clean it up, then I can burn them in the fire pit. I am not a fan of flushing prescription drugs. It damages the water supply and is dangerous to marine life.
"No." She admits.
"Next time you need something while you're here I need you to wake me up. I will help you." I say, and she nods. "I want to know why you were in here, climbing shelves and breaking into my safe. I want to know why you were messing with a jar of pills that you know are not the pills you take." I demand. "I want to know the truth." She is silent for a while, just fidgeting with the trim of her nightgown.
"Look at me Oakley." I say. My heart is still racing so fast. I wonder if I'll have a heart attack. I take several breaths, trying to calm myself down. I keep reminding myself that she's fine.
"Heavenly's lonely." She says, and I almost don't hear her. "She showed me how to find the pills. She told me if I took them my arm would stop hurting. She said that I would be able to sleep, and that I would be able to stay with her forever." I let go of her, coughing, taking a few steps away from her. A chill goes down my spine as I realize the severity of what could have happened. This isn't just a little kid getting into things anymore. There was intent. The fear inside of me is filled with rage when I hear her explanation.
"Oakley you do not get to use Heavenly like that. You made a bad choice, a scary choice but Heavenly is gone. She's not here and she's not telling you what to do. You need to take responsibility for your own choices." I don't know what to think about the whole Heavenly thing that first Willow and now Oakley are convinced of. I want to convince myself that it is all in their imaginations. That Heavenly is in heaven or wherever. There are so many strange things that have happened with Oakley and Willow knowing things they shouldn't, but couldn't that be a coincidence? Still… how did she gain access to the safe if someone hadn't told her?
"She told me that you'd say that. You don't believe." Oakley says, shrugging, unphased.
"How can I believe in anything anymore?" I ask her, harshly, this catches her off guard and she is crying. I don't care. "My daughter is dead. She was shot by some psychopath with a gun at her daycare center. You and Willow pretending to see her? Talking about her like she's still here? It's too much. I can't do this anymore. She's dead Oakley you have to accept that. Willow has to accept that. She's not coming back." I'm crying, and I realize that I am shaking her, not hard enough to hurt her, but even so. I let her go, and she just looks at me, not moving. I'm scaring myself, and I'm scaring her I can see it in her eyes.
"I'm sorry Oakley." I say, quickly and I mean it. She comes closer to me and hugs me. I sink down onto the ground, leaning against the bathtub, holding her tightly in my arms. "Oakley I'm sorry I scared you. I shouldn't have…I should have handled this better. I'm not angry with you. Your mother is going to lose her fucking mind when she finds out about this." I say, and she looks past me, and shakes her head.
"You won't tell her."
"I'm absolutely telling her. I can't keep a secret like this from her."
"You can't say that F word. Mummy says that word is a bad word."
"I don't care what your Mommy thinks right now. Baby you could have died tonight. Do you understand how serious this is? I need you to understand Oakley." She doesn't say anything more. My phone rings and we both jump, startled. I take her by the hand and into the bedroom. I don't want to risk her grabbing any pills while I am distracted. I sit against the closed bedroom door and look at my phone.
"It's your Mommy."
"Please don't tell her." Oakley begs, trying to take the phone from my hands.
"I don't have a choice Oakley." I am shaking so hard. Any one of those pills could have killed her or caused permeant damage. They are prescribed for an adult, at an adult weight, not a five-year-old child. "You could have died. You can never do something like this again Oakley."
"Please. I promise I'll be good. I'm sorry I didn't wake you up. I was just looking for something to help my arm stop hurting, something to help me sleep. It was an accident." She says innocently. "I don't understand why you are so scared." She looks at me with those huge doe eyes. "Mummy won't let me come here anymore if she knows I was bad. She'll take me away from you again. Maybe forever."
"If that's what she chooses so be it. She has the right to parent you as she sees fit. You could have died tonight, Oakley." I repeat.
"I didn't even get hurt. I fell on my bottom. I didn't hit my head or even my dumb broken arm." She protests. "Really there's nothing to tell her." I feel a sense of relief when she says this, at least we won't be back in the emergency room tonight. The phone stops ringing, and I get a text letting me know that Meredith has left a voice mail.
"Oakley, I have to tell your Mommy what happened. She deserves to know the truth. She needs to know what happened so we can come up with a plan to keep you safe." I say, and she pulls away from me, climbing back up onto the bed she pulls the covers over herself, covering her face in a huff.
I sink down on the ground next to the bed, rest my head on my knees and just cry. I can't stop it. It's like a waterfall washing over me, the adrenaline fading. I am so exhausted. She is asleep before I move to pick up my phone again. I look at the time, four thirty am. I listen to the voice mail; Meredith was asking if she could just pick Oakley up in the morning. I call her, and she picks up on the first ring.
"We need to talk." I say. "You need to come over right now."
I let Oakley sleep and prop a chair underneath the door knob, so she won't be able to exit the bedroom if she wakes up before I am finished. I clean up the mess in the bathroom, and call into work sick. There is no way I will be able to work after the night I've had. I wake her up then and haul her downstairs with me. I feel like I cannot trust her to be alone. We are waiting for Meredith in the Livingroom when she arrives around five thirty. Oakley's eyes are bloodshot. When I woke her up she had yelled, kicked, screamed, scratched, hit me several times with her casted arm and even bit me in an effort to convince me not to tell her mother. I held her tightly to my chest until she finally calmed down. She has taken to laying on me, sobbing quietly. She had agreed to take her pain medication and I had given her a dose of the cocktail the doctor had prescribed. It seems to be calming her.
"Oakley are you okay? What happened?" Meredith asks, rushing to her when she walks in the door. Oakley just looks at me. She's numbing herself. I know that look all too well. I realize I am still shaking and realize then just how damp my cheeks are. I try to pull myself together before I completely crumble. Meredith looks from her daughter to me, silently demanding an answer.
"Meredith... I'm sorry… she tried to… she almost…" I can't get the words out. I feel like I cannot breathe again. I swallow hard and look from numb little Oakley to her mother again. "I think she tried to kill herself. She could have died Meredith." Oakley gives me a look of pure loathing and moves away from me as if I had hit her. She flops herself on the opposite end of the couch, crossing her arms as well and she can do with a cast, and glaring at her mother and I.
"Surely, you're not serious. She's five years old Addison. She doesn't even know what that means. How dare you put something that heavy on an innocent child." Meredith objects. She must see something in my expression though because she goes pale as she watches Oakley. She had taken her handheld videogame from bookshelf near the couch and was trying to figure out how to operate it with her cast on.
"Why exactly do you think I'd make something like this up? I'm telling you because she needs help Meredith."
"Look at her. She's playing her game. She's fine."
"She broke into the hidden safe in the bathroom and tried to take the bottle of pills that were inside. There is no way she could have known how to access the safe or the code. I have always kept it locked and have never opened it when in their presence."
"Why do you have pills in a hidden safe?" Meredith asks, turning this all back around on me.
"Do you really have to ask that?" I ask her. I know the events from before I left are playing vividly in both of our minds. I was suicidal. I wanted an out. I was tired, so tired of fighting. I was lost in grief. "Is that all you're getting from this conversation? This isn't about me. This is about your daughter."
"How could it not be about you when she's just like you?" Meredith asks forcibly.
"Excuse me?"
"She was fine before you came back. You haven't even been back two months yet and now you're trying to convince me that she's suicidal? You're the problem here Addison. Not Oakley. Oakley is just a child. She doesn't understand the severity of her actions."
"Stuff like this doesn't just happen Meredith. There were problems before I came back, and you know it. I did nothing to encourage this behavior."
"You didn't exactly discourage it! Why were you not watching her?" She demands. "She's a baby. She shouldn't have had access to the bathroom alone."
"That's ridiculous and you know it." I say, laughing meanly. "She is more than capable of taking care of her own bathroom needs. I didn't give her access to the safe. The door is hidden. It looks like a normal wall and the safe was locked. I did my part to keep everyone safe."
"Obviously not if what you're saying is the truth, you messed up Addison."
"If I am such a irresponsible humanbeing why did you leave her with me? Why weren't you watching her?" I ask the question harshly. "She just suffered a major injury yesterday. You're her mother. She should have gone straight home with you after she got discharged from the hospital. It should have been you caring for her and getting abused by her, not me." I don't mean to add the last part, but I did anyway. I don't care about what she said. Kids say things they don't understand or do not mean all the time. I care about her violent actions. I know that I am already bruising on the several places that she hit me with her cast, and when she bit me, she broke the skin. I wonder briefly if there is anything you can catch from a child biting you. I hope that she is up to date with all of her vaccinations.
"STOP FIGHTING!" Oakley screams, and we both fall silent, looking at her shocked.
"Oakley, I love you. I'm worried about you." I say carefully. "I just want you to feel better. Maybe your Mommy is right and being here is too overwhelming for you." I say gently. I don't mention anything about Heavenly. I don't want her to get into more trouble with her mother than she already is.
"It's not too much for me! It's too much for YOU!" She screams. "You said so!" She looks so distrustful of me, and Meredith looks angry, like I've said something inappropriate in front of her child. If only she knew. "If you were really worried about me you wouldn't have stopped me. You wouldn't have found me. You don't want me. My parents don't want me. What would it have mattered? Heavenly wants me."
"I want you Oakley." I say quickly at the same time as Meredith says "We do want you." Meredith goes over to Oakley and picks her up, Oakley doesn't resist and rests her head on Meredith's shoulder. Meredith sits down on the rocking recliner, rocking her soothingly.
"I do want you." She repeats. "Oakley I've always wanted you, and I will always want you. I love you." Oakley seems to melt into Meredith's embrace despite her harsh words against her previously. "I know I haven't been a really good mother lately, and I'm sorry." She says, gently wiping away Oakley's tears. "I promise I'm going to do better."
"I'm sorry Mummy. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be bad. I just… I … I don't know why Mummy."
I don't go back to sleep after Meredith has taken Oakley home. I try, but I just can't. I take a shower, trying to calm myself down but it doesn't work. Meredith offered to stay with me, but I insisted she take her daughter home, thankfully she listened to me. I keep getting rushes of adrenaline surging through my veins. The numbness I thought I had rid myself of from all those years ago setting back in. It feels almost comfortable. My protective coating. In another sense I hate this feeling. I just can't stop it. I can't help it. Despite completely losing my shit in front of Oakley I was brave in the moment. I made sure she was alright. That is what matters. I can cope in the moment, but it's the aftermath that gets me. I got lucky. It was nothing more than luck that Oakley is alive and okay. I should have gotten rid of those pills years ago when I chose life instead of a certain death. I knew they were still there. I should have thrown them away when I first got back. This is my fault. I passed on some kind of genetic defect for mental health struggles or maybe I damaged her with all of the trauma I put my body through during the pregnancy with her. Her life is an entire trainwreck and there is no way that I can do anything to make this better for her. Tonight, may have been innocent. She may not truly understand the gravity of what she almost did, but her words will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Without really knowing where I am going, I get in my car and drive. I stop in front of the glowing neon lights to the one liquor store in our area open before ten am. I sit in my car for a long time. The events with Oakley playing over and over in my mind, but instead of her being fine I see her laying on the ground, dead, surrounded by all of those pills and knowing that It was my fault she felt so hopeless. I have to keep reminding myself that she's safe. She's home with Meredith and Derek. She wasn't hurt, but my mind keeps going back to what could have been. When I cannot take it anymore, I open the door of my car, and walk inside.
Authors Note:
THANK YOU for reading chapter 6 of Feels Like Home! Please comment and let me know what you're thinking so far.
Oakley omg. It feels creepy and realistic though. Inspired partially by this creepy book I read as a kid where a little girl is friends with a ghost, and the ghost almost gets the little girl to kill herself to be with the best friend ghost : O
Sorry about the mix up earlier. I uploaded this chapter, and then realized how much editing it needed so I took it down, and here is the edited version. : )
Please as always review and let me know what you think! Do you think Addison will relapse or you think she's chill with all this stress?