Elephant : Tough Times

It had been a harrowing weekend for us. After several testy phone calls from Pete, Carrick's boyfriend, and Carrick herself, Deirdre and I had picked up her up at their apartment in the East Village and driven her to Yonkers General hospital on Sunday afternoon. She had agreed to enter a detox on the telephone, but she changed her mind during the car ride uptown and refused to go through the doors of the emergency room when we arrived. We drove away. Here's what I wrote in my journal:

She showed up at the house about an hour and a half later. Deirdre told her she could not stay. She said she'd sleep in Zinnser Park. I told D I thought she'd made the right decision, didn't she agree? She said that she thought that she hadn't made a wrong decsion, but she wasn't sure if it was the right one. THIS IS WHAT WE'RE REDUCED TO, REALLY. HOPING WE HAVEN'T MADE THE WRONG DECISION. During the course of the night, Carrick came back several times. It broke my heart [to not let her in the house]. I was happy to see her sleeping in the car (front passenger seat of the wagon) when I went out to walk the dog. In the morning, she was on the couch. Dede said she was there when she came down about 6:15.

Carrick had slipped the lock on one of our back doors so she could enter and leave at will, like a thief in the night. Deirdre spent the morning trying to find a detox that would take her. I videotaped her in all of her frustration; in fact, the scenes we shot around that time became some of the most poignant footage in "Saving Carrick."

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