It's Madness!
We were at a low point in our tempestuous relationship with Carrick. In November, she had run away from New Hope Manor, an affordable long-term rehab that we felt was her best shot at sobriety, and was back living with Pete on the Lower East Side. We knew he had been supplying her with drugs; we didn't know at the time that he was a small-time dealer supporting his habit by selling heroin.
Realizing that we were only enabling Carrick by giving her access to a bed, warm shower, full fridge and money or possessions she could hock, we had barred her from our house. My last conversation with her was taut with fear and rage. She was in a car with a fellow named Chris, with whom she had run way from a detox that New Hope that sent her to. As Chris' car idled at the end of our block, I ran outside to make one last plea.
Carrick rolled down the window. I started to address Chris. Carrick said: “I'm going to die, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“I just want you to know what you're getting into," I said to Chris. "She's going to wind up in jail, dead or in a rehab. I want it to be a rehab.”
“Great vote of confidence,” Carrick said, as the car pulled away.
I tried not to let those words — mine and hers — haunt me, but they were in the back of my head for months. I never knew when a call was going to come from some stranger to tell me that Carrick had been arrested, or injured, or found dead.
One morning in early December, the phone rang.
"Is this Mr. Forbes?" the voice said.
I didn't recognize it, and I was filled with trepidation. It must be like what the parents of soldiers in Iraq feel. This time it was a solicitor for the American Heart Association.
A day before I got word of Amber's death, I finished Alice McDermott's Charming Billy, a novel about an alcoholic who, despite the best efforts of his family and his own attempts to quit drinking over the years, dies. One phrase, in particular, rang out as pathetically true.
"Billy succumbed to an illness we couldn't cure in time. It wasn't a failure of our affections," the parish monsignor tells the family. "It was a triumph of the disease."
An hour after I got word of Amber's death, a friend emailed to ask if I'd be interested in playing racquetball, one of the activities that was keeping me sane. "Sure," I replied. "I'm kind of bummed out this morning and could use a few games. First, Deirdre left a cancelled check on my chair. Carrick had forged one of her checks for $30 just before we took her up to rehab the last time. Four others are missing."
Then I told him about Amber.
"Ann must be devastated," I wrote. "I only met her a couple of times, and I know I am," I concluded.
"Did I mention that on Friday I got a bill for $1,600 from the ER of a hospital in Port Jervis that decided that it could not treat Carrick? No details except that it had billed my insurance and this is what I owed. I can't imagine what the bill would have been if they did treat her. And because of the patients rights bill, I'll bet you that I can't get any information about what they did (i.e., what they are billing me for).
"It's madness, I'm telling you, madness!!!!"