Prologue
The day I gave birth to my daughter was the happiest day of my life.
I sat at the breakfast table waiting for my twenty-year-old daughter to come downstairs, and I sat there until after one o’clock in the afternoon.
“Morning, Mother,” she grumbled as she stumbled past me to the refrigerator.
“Afternoon,” I said calmly. It was a struggle, but I forced myself to keep my voice even and soft despite how much I wanted to scream at her. “Please, sit; I want to talk to you about something.”
With a great display of her disdain, she dropped into a chair across from me and glared. “What?”
I wanted to ease into the conversation. I thought I would have a better chance of getting her to agree with me if I worked my way up to my point; but, after one look at her tangled hair and the day-old makeup smeared across her sallow face, I jumped in head first.
“How long have you been using heroin?”
For a brief moment, her eyes widened in fear, maybe shock, before she masked her expression and lied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mother.”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. And forget about trying to lie your way out of this. I’ve seen the track marks on your arms, and I found used syringes in the trash. But, I think this is more than enough proof,” I said firmly and held up a little bag of whitish-brown powder. “Now, answer my question. How long have you been using heroin?”
She swallowed thickly and stared at me in silence for long moments. Finally, she said, “A few months, I think.”
A few months. I thought she had been using much longer than that.
“And what were you doing before? No one just decides to start shooting up one day.”
She shook her head and looked down at her clasped hands. “I just tried a few different things with friends. Smoked some weed, took some pills, snorted a little coke. Stuff like that.”
“Tell me about the first time you tried this!” I screamed and shook the bag fisted in my hand. “Tell me!!”
Tears began to slip down her cheeks, turning black as they slid through the mascara and eyeliner crusted beneath her once bright eyes. “I spent the night at a friend’s house. We’d been drinking, and she was passed out in her bed. When I got up to use the bathroom, her brother was in the living room with his best friend, his best friend’s brother, and his best friend’s dad. They had some heroin and asked me if I wanted to try it. I don’t know why I said yes,” she sobbed. “But I did, and I liked it! I loved it, Mother! I loved it!!”
I fought to contain my rage. She didn’t say it, but I knew exactly who she was with—her cousins and her uncle were the ones at her best friend’s house. I silently fumed as I wrapped my arms around my baby and held her against my chest while she went on and on about how much she loved heroin. How it made her feel. How she only lived and breathed so she could poison herself with it. She spoke of it as though it was the key to eternal happiness.
“Sweetheart, do you want to stop?”
She nodded her head against me. “Yes, please.”
“I’ll get you the help you need,” I said and continued to try to soothe her. “It’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.”
Everything was not okay.
Twelve hours before my baby girl was supposed to check in at the rehab center, she went to tell her best friend goodbye.
Six hours later, her best friend called to tell me she had been taken to the hospital for a suspected overdose.
She was pronounced dead at the hospital, though I later learned she had been dead for hours before anyone found her.
The day my daughter died was the worst day of my life.
The day I buried her was the last day of my life.
Chapter One
River
Out of all the places in the United States, I had to be sent to the one place I never wanted to return to—my hometown of Devil Springs. Years ago, when I finally got away from that dreadful place, I promised myself I would never return. Unfortunately for me, I signed a contract as a traveling nurse and agreed to go wherever the agency sent me. Never in a million years did I think they would send me to Devil Springs. But they did. And I had to go unless I wanted to pay the price for breaking the contract, which was equivalent to an arm and a leg and possibly my firstborn child. Not to mention, I would likely never be able to work as a traveling nurse again.
With no other options, I sucked it up and headed to Devil Springs. The contract was only for three months—which happened to be the same amount of time I had left on my general contract with the agency. Three months wasn’t that long. If I only went to work and did my shopping in a neighboring town, I had a good chance of making it out of Devil Springs without running into my mother or my brother. Right?