A sharp left, right into the toilet.

I think it’s important to note that my sister has spent a good part of her adolescent and adult life dealing with depression and anxiety.  I think it’s important because it’s the only explanation that helps me reconcile her intentions and her love for her kids with everything that has happened.  It’s the only thing that lets me forgive her for the hell she put her kids and our family through.  It’s the one fact that I cling to, like a buoy, in the vastness of the circumstances, that gives me reason to believe that she didn’t mean for any of this to happen, she just didn’t know how not to let it happen.

That, combined with her recreational drug use, are also the only possible semi-explanations for why she let him come back into their lives. . .and why she kept clinging more and  more tightly to him as things spiraled further out of control.

No sane and sober person would have tolerated him for a full 24 hours.  She somehow managed years.

If I had to point to any one thing that really forced the downward spiral, it was him.  It’s not even hard to say so.  It doesn’t make me flinch at all out of the tiniest bit of question about whether or not it’s true.  I don’t hesitate for any portion of a second, wondering whether it’s the whole truth.  I (choose to) firmly believe that she would have made it if he hadn’t come back into the picture.

To my best recollection, my sister had been working full-time and supporting her household for about two years when he came back.  She had an apartment.  It may have been small and it may not have been in the best part of town, but it was hers.  She paid for day care and food and utilities and car insurance.  She struggled, no doubt.  She had more completely exhausting days than not.  And, knowing what I know now, I’d guess she cried herself to sleep a lot more often than I would ever have supposed.  But, she was doing it.  By herself.  I wish I would have known at the time what a huge accomplishment that really was. 

It started as an awkward shift in her relationships with all of us.  There’ s no way she was going to openly brag about his return.  She knew what we thought about him.  She had given us all of the information that led us to that conclusion.  He had disappeared and left her and their baby to fend for themselves.  You might mistakenly think he had a change of heart and wanted to right his wrongs, but you’d be so very wrong.  He had no business coming back.  He most definitely had no business coming back and moving into their apartment and giving her another mouth to feed.

Eventually, of course, we all found out what was going on.  We heard from her less, saw the baby less.  She’d avoid phone calls and forget to call us back.  I’m sure she didn’t want to hear us lecture her about the bad decisions she seemed to continually make when he was around.  But, how could we not? 

He was back, and he was controlling her every move.  We were irritated.  We hated to see her take a sharp left, right into the toilet, when she had held it together for so long.  But, you can’t reason with an addict and you can’t talk sense into a victim.  Being the sickening, eternal optimist I am, I held onto the tiniest sliver of hope that they’d both wake up one day and get it right.  Clearly, that never happened.