Her First Mistake by Carey Baldwin (books for 10th graders txt) 📕

Now, an excruciating spasm gripped her writing hand. She dropped her pen and massaged the tight ball of pain out of her palm. The spasm passed, and she checked her watch. They’d been working for nearly five hours without a break. “Are you hungry?” she asked.

Alma looked up. “If you are, we can take lunch.”

In truth, Mia didn’t have much of an appetite. And she’d had trouble falling asleep, thinking about her quarrel with Aunt Misty, not to mention ruminating about how to convince Keisha, the woman from the Piano Man, to drop her extortion plan. That was a nightmare of a problem she hadn’t yet figured out how to handle. But today her focus was on Alma. She seemed to be growing thinner by the hour and it was important to get her to eat regularly. Mia had also been put in charge of reminding Alma to take her medication. According to Angelica, the doctor recommended a noontime pill and nap and that wouldn’t sit well on an empty stomach. “Great! I’m starved.”

They wandered into the kitchen where Mia prepared sandwiches from the chicken salad a neighbor had brought over the day before, and then went to retrieve Alma’s pill from the medicine cabinet in the master suite. On the second shelf, she located three prescriptions. Searching for escitalopram, she picked up the bottles, reading the labels one by one: lorazepam, dextroamphetamine, escitalopram. She tucked the escitalopram in her pocket, shut the medicine cabinet, and then drew in a quick breath.

Dextroamphetamine. Why was Alma taking the same medicine a couple of the five-year-olds took for attention disorders? Maybe that explained her agitation yesterday. She hated to think a doctor would give her antidepressants and tranquilizers, only to counteract them with a stimulant like dextroamphetamine. Maybe it was an old prescription. She opened the cabinet again and took a good look at the dextroamphetamine label. It had been prescribed earlier in the month… to Baxter. She put it back on the shelf and made a mental note to discuss the matter with Alma. Mia would bet her chicken salad sandwich that Alma had been sneaking Baxter’s dextroamphetamine. Why he was taking that was none of her business—but Alma’s health was.

Back at the kitchen table, she took a small bite of her sandwich and smiled at Alma, whose plate held nothing but crumbs. “I was only gone a minute. You must’ve been hungry.”

“Turns out I was.” Alma shrugged. “I don’t remember if I ate yesterday or not. Angelica says I didn’t, but I really couldn’t tell you. It’s all these damn pills.” Then she frowned and pointed at the prescription bottle Mia held. “I know you want me to take that, but I’d rather not.”

Mia lowered her voice. She didn’t want to patronize Alma, but she needed to have a frank discussion with her. “I’ve brought your escitalopram—Angelica said that’s an antidepressant, and I think you should follow doctor’s orders and take it. Yesterday, you said you didn’t want tranquilizers, but I don’t think it’s wise to suddenly stop taking any of your meds. Lorazepam is for anxiety—I know because I used to take it. What if we call the doctor and ask her for a schedule to wean you off the tranquilizer—the lorazepam. Does that seem reasonable?”

“Perfectly.” Alma leaned back. “I’m not trying to be difficult. I trust you, so if you want to call Dr. Zester, I’ll give her permission to discuss my care with you.”

The old Alma was back, and so was Mia’s appetite. Alma trusted her. “Okay, we’ll send over consent, and I’ll speak with the doctor while you’re napping.”

“We’ve got too much correspondence for me to take a nap.”

“Yes, but I can hardly keep up with you as it is. It’ll give me a chance to catch up with stamping and addressing and to make a post office run.”

Alma looked like she might be wavering.

All she needed was a tiny shove over the edge. “You have to stay strong for Celeste. And that means taking good care of yourself and getting proper rest.”

“You’re very wise, Mia. Your mother would be proud.”

Mia hoped so. She wanted to make her mother proud—she always had. Dr. Baquero didn’t approve, though. Once, she said that Mia, like a lot of children of alcoholic parents, had an excessive need for approval, and that Mia was in denial about her mother, putting her on a pedestal, burying her resentment. It crossed Mia’s mind she might be putting Alma on a pedestal, too, but where was the harm? “That’s kind of you, Alma. Thank you.” She reached out and rested her hand close to her friend’s. “May I ask you something personal?”

“Yes.”

“Did you take dextroamphetamine yesterday—I noticed it in the medicine cabinet.”

Alma waved her hand as if it were unimportant. “A few. I had to. I didn’t have anyone helping me then, and I needed to get these letters done. There’ll be a whole new batch tomorrow, you know.”

“But the dextroamphetamine is prescribed for Baxter.”

“If it helps him get his work done, it can help me with mine. He has adult attention deficit—that’s what the doctor says.”

Was there an unspoken but at the end of that sentence? “And what do you say?”

“I say he has too many businesses to run and not enough help. But not to worry, now that I’ve got you, I promise I won’t take any more of his get-er-done pills. I won’t need them.”

“Won’t need what?” Baxter said as he burst into the kitchen, a large brown bag in his arms.

“Your attention pills.”

Baxter dropped the bag, with a thud onto the table. “Alma, stay out of my medicine. You shouldn’t be mixing stimulants and tranquilizers or taking anything that’s not prescribed for you.”

“And you shouldn’t work so hard.”

“I’m not going to let you bait me into an argument. I brought you young ladies a surprise.” He sent her a smile, then pulled out a carton of ice cream from the brown bag, and then another, and then another,