Hurricanes in Paradise by Denise Hildreth (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

The rest is a blur. We called 911. Neighbors came out from everywhere. The ambulance got there and rushed him to the hospital, and that was when I fell completely apart.”

She dabbed at her face with her napkin.

“My neighbors got me home and Jeremy was there in just a few moments. I don’t even know who called him. Then one of my neighbors took Gabby until my mother could get her. I pulled myself together enough for Jeremy and I to get to the hospital. But the baby was pronounced dead two hours later.” She twirled her napkin mindlessly in her fingers. “It was all downhill from there. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The feeling of his little body underneath the car, the look on Janet’s face.”

“Did you and she ever talk?”

“Yes, she and her husband were precious. I couldn’t get out of bed for days. Didn’t go to the funeral. Couldn’t take care of Gabby. About a week after the accident, both Janet and her husband, Craig, came over to see me. They told me that they forgave me. That they knew it was an accident and that I had in no way been careless. And the four of us just sat in our family room and wept. It was the most horrible—and most precious—moment of the entire journey.”

“Why wasn’t that enough?”

Riley looked at Laine, her head moving slowly from side to side. “I just couldn’t make it quit playing in my mind. Then it became all the what-ifs. ‘What if it had been Gabby?’ ‘What if I was that mother?’ ‘What if I really was speeding?’ Every night it plagued me. I couldn’t sleep. I had no appetite. And the only way I could shut down my mind was to drink. Crazy, because I had never been a real drinker. Would rather have calories in a glass of sweet tea than in a glass of wine.”

“Were you drinking wine?”

“At first. But Jeremy put an end to that really quick. So I went to vodka. I would hide it in the house. That’s when you know you’re in bad shape, when you begin to hide it.”

“Did he find it?”

Riley smiled softly at Laine’s compassion. It was on her face. It was in her voice. “Oh yeah, he found it. One day he came home and I was so drunk. And it was just Gabby and I there. Here I was trying to drink away the torment of thinking that it could have been my baby that died, and I’m putting her in danger anyway. It was crazy. And that was his final straw. He told me I couldn’t live there anymore if I was going to drink. That he would take me anywhere. Get me any help I needed.”

“Did you go?”

“Yes, I went. For two weeks. And then got kicked out for getting drunk. I just couldn’t stop the scene in my head. It tormented me.”

Laine leaned across the table. “I’m so sorry, Riley.”

“Me too. Jeremy wouldn’t let me come back home, so I moved in with my parents.”

“How long were you there?”

“Two months. My parents tried everything. My mother had the ladies from her church come over and do an intervention. My dad tried to talk me through it. But they kicked me out when my mom came home one day and found me stealing from her. Here my parents are, some of Charleston’s premier citizens, and I, their once-respected daughter, was now crashing on friends’ sofas.”

“Did you ever try AA?”

“Yes. My dad took me to AA himself. Sat right there in the meetings with me for a month. But I didn’t want any part of it. The lowest point came one night when I was in this run-down hotel off of King Street in Charleston, and I walked out into the street with nothing on but a T-shirt and my underwear. It’s pouring down rain and I beg God for someone to hit me. Run me over. I wanted to end the pain the way it had all begun.”

Laine wiped at the tears that were falling down her cheeks.

Riley laughed softly. “The manager of the hotel ran out into the street and told me I could get back inside, that there wasn’t any of that happening while he was on duty.”

“What got you sober?”

“Reality. One day my dad came and picked me up at the hotel. He had someone keeping tabs on me most of the time. He took me out to a restaurant to feed me and told me that Jeremy had filed for divorce. That it wasn’t because he didn’t love me, but he needed to protect Gabby, and that he and my mother had encouraged it.”

“That must have devastated you.”

“It was the best thing that happened to me, honestly. When he dropped me back off, all I wanted was a drink. I walked down the street and heard this loud music. I thought there must be a bar nearby, so I kept following the sound. But when I got closer, it was a black church with the doors swung wide open and music pouring out. I was drawn inside like a praying mantis draws its prey. I sneaked into the back row and started crying. At the end of the service everyone had left, but I couldn’t move. That was when my old nanny Josalyn found me. It was her church. Of all the churches in Charleston, I had walked right into hers. She had been our nanny for years and years. She had retired just a few years earlier and had been kept up by my family about what was going on with me. I was curled up on the pew like a baby when she got to me. She said two words: ‘You ready?’ I knew exactly what she meant.”

“What did you tell her?” Laine asked.

“I said, ‘Yes. I’m ready.’ She put me in her car, took me to her house, prayed over me, fed me, read the Bible to me