The Letter

She sat her pen down and plopped her head into one hand, pulling her hair out of its tight bun with the other. Her long dark hair fell down her back. Exhaustion rolled over her like rocks down a hill, her body aching all over. Natalie had just received a phone call from her brother. He was in jail, again, and asking for bail, again. Persistently telling her he wasn’t sure they would release him if she didn’t bail him out. Choking and coughing through his own tears, knowing if she didn’t come through he would be detoxing soon. She couldn’t do it anymore, so she told him he was on his own this time, and hung up the phone. 

She remembered taking him to rehab the first time, and how hopeful they both had been. It was a short, two-week program that they were sure would be enough. When he came out he had such life in his eyes. The gaunt look had gone, his cheeks had color, and for the first time, in a long time, he wasn’t just skin and bones. Now, sitting at her breakfast table after a week of no sleep, running around all night checking homeless shelters, she can’t believe how naive she had been all those years ago.

Through Al-Anon and other support groups, she knew intellectually none of this was her fault and that his addiction was his own. Emotionally, she was scared to let go. 

She had worked so hard for so many years. She had gone to every meeting, put him in the most innovative and expensive treatments. Sometimes she sent him far away, other times kept him close to home, and tried anything that was recommended to her she was able to try. He always put on a good show right after getting out. Then one day she would notice money missing, he would stay out all night, and the cycle would start over again. Every intervention she promised to cut him off, and never following through was draining.  

The childhood that made her cunning and determined had made him impressionable and unambitious. Having lost both their parents at a young age, they only had each other most of their lives.

Rob had failed at every attempt at having relationships. Staying single was the easiest choice for Natalie, because when someone would get too close, something would happen. One night, Rob broke into her apartment and her boyfriend beat him up, because he thought Rob was a burglar. Technically, he was, as he had snuck in looking for pills or money or whatever he could find because he knew Natalie wouldn’t call the cops. 

It was time to shift her focus.

She was going to write him a letter. She tied her hair back into a bun on the top of her head and began.

She wrote on the top of the page: I love you Rob. 

She looked at those words. Would he even care? Anger filled her cheeks and turned them red. The drugs were the only things he cared about. She balled up the paper and threw it behind her. She started again.

I hate you. I wish you would just see how much I have done for you and how much of my life has revolved around you and your actions. I have sacrificed so much. I am alone and it’s all because I have loved you more than I have loved myself.

She wrote those last words and it crippled her. She collapsed on the table, her shoulders shaking as the tears started. The kind of cry where the truth from the years was flowing out of her, and it wasn’t pretty. The room felt smaller when she looked up. Her little apartment was a sign of the destructive path her life had been on. She had moved into this complex because it was close to a half-way house Rob had been in and out of. They would always take him back, so when she could convince him to get back into treatment she could be close to him. 

The tiny economy kitchen she had never cooked in. She used to love to cook. Feeling the extra weight on her body from the past few years of lack of care, she shifted in her seat. The letter had smears on it from her tears. She balled it up and threw it on the ground. 

She got up from the little table, and decided that if she were to continue, she was going to need a drink. She knew she shouldn’t keep alcohol in the house, so she had to hide any little bit. She had a small half pint bottle of vodka tucked into an old purse. Digging though the closet to try and find it, the irony of the moment hit her. She plopped herself on the floor in front of her closet, purses around her. She couldn’t remember which bag it was in, but her resolve was strong. The urge for the drink was big. She brushed off the contradictory feelings and pulled a big black bag out of the back of her tiny closet. It was heavy, it had to be in there. 

She plucked the bag from the mess and moved to her bed. The flower quilt she sat on was one of the few things she had kept since childhood, and she couldn’t help but notice it in this moment. Sitting crossed leg on her pillows, she dumped the whole bag out. There was a little handle of Tito’s. Rob had never found it. The bag was full of old stuff; Ticket stubs, receipts, and an old bottle of hand sanitizer that Nathalie decided to set aside. The bottle had landed on an old journal she wanted to take a look at, but first she took a big swig straight from the bottle. Her eyes closed tight as the liquor ran down her throat. Her pale face went flush immediately. She leaned back into her pillows and looked at the mess she had made in her room, all for this little bottle. Picking up the old journal, she smelled the leather and breathed in the well worn pages. It had a little bird cage charm hanging off of the tie that held it all together. A sweet, small smile crept across her face. She hadn’t seen the charm since she was in high school. The rush of old memories prickled her skin with goosebumps as she opened the pages. Once she started reading, that feeling drained out of her as quickly as it came. Escaping with the bottle of vodka, she took another swig, closed the journal, and went back to the table. 

Furiously, she started writing again: I am done. I don’t ever want to see you again. I will never forgive you for putting us on this path. I never want to speak with you again. I hope you die. She stared at that last word. All her focus was directed at the end. That’s what this was. Letting go of him meant accepting him as dead. Today. Not on the day it happens, but now. She had to sit with the reality of this. She tore this page up methodically. Tearing down the middle, then stacking them together, and down the middle again until she had just squares of paper in front of her. A messy representation of the puzzle that was their intertwined life. 

She took another drink from the bottle. The first drink she ever took was with her brother. 13 years old, drunk at a house party that she had no business being at, but you couldn’t stop her. Natalie loved him so much and all she wanted to do was be with her big brother. He was only 2 years older and they had been close from childhood. When he became the cool kid in high school and she was still stuck at the middle school, he was her ticket into that fast life. 

She had something in her that he did not. She could do all the same things as him. Sneak out, stay up late, drink, smoke weed, you name it and they did it. But, she could get her work done. She always found a way, she was smart. He didn’t have her way with words or control of his temper, things for him always went wrong. He could never shake that thought out of his head. When she did well in school, and got a good job right out of community college, he couldn’t stop the party and she couldn’t let go of him. 

The memory of the worst day of her life came into focus, as if it were always under the surface, waiting to appear. She could see him there, clear as if he was laying on her floor now. He was curled up like a baby on his side, his vomit all over the floor. He was convulsing, overdosing on a cocktail of drugs. 

She saved his life.

The thought of him dead now, after saving him, felt like betrayal. He would see it as betrayal. How could she save him one day, and then another have to accept him as dead? It couldn’t be this way. She had to find another way. Otherwise what was the point of saving him then, if she was going to abandon him now? 

She grabbed a clean piece of paper and began once again. Rob, I love you and I know this has to be the wake up call that you need to get clean, for real this time. If you can’t I will be forced- She stopped suddenly, recognizing the old habit she was falling into. Seeing him so close to death and having a hand in his recovery had changed her. She always helped him, but these last two years had been different. After watching him so close to death and bringing him back, she felt even more responsible. It couldn’t be that way anymore. She balled up the paper and threw it on the ground.

What was she going to do with this stupid letter any way? Wait until he comes a knocking, just give it to him and make him leave? No, that would never work. If she was going to do this, she could not see him. Not now, not like this. It would be like watching a dying animal caught in a trap and not able to help it. She didn’t want to look into his eyes. She shook this thought away . 

She pulled her long black hair out of the bun and put it right back in. Tighter this time, as if that determination would help her write. 

Rob, this is the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. We have been on this rollercoaster together for too long, and I am getting off. This means I love you more than you can imagine. I love you enough to walk away. I have put time, money, and effort into your recovery and because of that, you have never put forth the effort that you have needed to dig yourself out of this hole. I have tried over and over again, and it hasn’t worked... so here we are. Do not call me until you have been clean and sober for a year. I cannot do it. I have to see real change in you before we can have a real relationship. This is because we both deserve a better life. I’m going to move out of this place in one week. Do not come looking for me. Get yourself clean, and then I'll be there. But not a day sooner. 

I love you forever, brother.

Natalie.

She folded the paper in half, laid it on the table and let her hands rest on top of it. She knew those were the right words. She sat in the quiet resolve of the moment. The waves of emotion had stopped and she felt the reality of it all. The stark reality that she had to accept no matter how hard it was going to be. 

The things she knew to be true: She could no longer be the enabler in her brother’s world. He would come back here looking for her, and she needed to be gone. She didn’t have it in her to see him again, or this resolve would break. 

She picked up the bottle of vodka, and took one more swig before bringing it with her to the couch, where she unplugged her phone and got to work. 

She needed to take a few days off of work, but that was as easy as sending an email, she could work from anywhere. She sent that email and took another drink. Next up was getting out of town. She could just get on a plane and go to the beach, but that didn’t feel right. She texted her best friend who lived two states away. SOS I’m packing my stuff to sleep on your couch for a week or two. Rob was arrested and I have to let him go. Call you when I get on the road. Love you. 

Another drink from the bottle, a deep drink that emptied it. Last thing to do was get out of this apartment. If she was going to drive, she needed to sober up. She went to her room and packed a couple of bags, then took a shower. Her resolve strengthened as she moved through her tiny apartment. She was not going to sleep here ever again. She was going to shower, wash this place and this chapter off of her. 

She came out of the shower to a text from her best friend saying “Ok, love you. Talk soon.”

She cleaned the mess she made off the table and stacked her bags by the door. She picked up the letter, turning it over and over again in her hands. She opened it back up and took a picture of it with her phone. Folding it back up, she wrote ROB in big letters on the back side and taped it to the front door.