Little Black Book

As past events in my life began to unfold, I found myself losing grip on reality. 20 years of hardship and heroin led to the loss of my marriage, a relationship that I felt defined a huge portion of my life. We tried to make it work but when our 10 month old daughter passed whatever remained just crumbled.

Over the past year or so a friendship began blossoming between myself and a woman I was introduced to. I felt something for this girl the moment my eyes caught a glimpse. She was stunning, outside as well as in. But I loved her from a distance, honoring my vows until the very end.

When my wife and I officially separated after losing our baby I began spiraling fast. Following a brief relapse I sought solace in the arms of this beautiful woman. She pulled me out of a very dark place. It felt fast but right at the same time.

So now I live as a recovering addict, on my own in a sense, learning to survive apart from my other half. Things are far from perfect but I never needed perfection. I needed to learn how to love myself. In return, I learned to love others.

We live together now, my muse and I, along with her Ketamine addicted sister and their bedridden mother. She has stage four cancer and is just biding her time. A true modern family making a go at it in a trailer park, upstate New York. Rather than crying over everything I lost such as money, my best friend for the past 20 years and living separately from my 14 year old daughter, I am learning to embrace what I have gained. I am shedding this tapeworm of suffering and seeking fulfillment in acceptance and forgiveness. Today I am happy.

After witnessing the hardship this poor mother endured for so many years and the difficulty her daughters face being the main caretakers, I found it impossible not to step in and offer my assistance. We quickly became friends and I spent a lot of time with her. We smoked joints to ease her physical pain and laughed until we cried watching Cheech and Chong in her bedroom until 2:00 in the morning. She sometimes made snarky comments about the way her daughters treated her but I could tell it was a difficult subject and she didn’t want to ruin our moments together.

As time passed, we grew closer. I fell in love with her daughter while her sister still seemed to be living the same day I met her on repeat. I spent all of my time in this little trailer looking after my new friend and teaching my partner everything I could to help her establish her life independently. And even though I love taking care of her and her mother and the incredible joy it brings to my heart, unfortunately it does not provide an income. My account was dwindling.

On Valentine’s Day, 2021, her mother summoned me to her room. Her glasses were on and she was rummaging through a plastic filing box, intent on locating one particular item. I offered to help and she asked me if I could find a little black book. It was definitely in there she repeated more than a couple times. About a minute or so later I procured the little black book she was hellbent on finding. As I attempted to hand it to her she stopped me and took my hands into hers.

“Open this and read through it please.”

This was obviously something very important to her.

“Come and see me in the morning because I am getting pretty tired and it would mean the world to me. I don’t trust my daughters to understand how vital this is. Please, just read through it tonight and you will have a better understanding.”

It seemed a little odd but I didn’t pay too much attention to it. She did have cancer in almost all of her body and early signs of alzheimer's and dementia so she gets confused a little here and there. I wished her a good night and made it back to my room around 3:00 am. After a little meditation and some light reading I undid the little leather black book and cracked it open.

My first observation was there were only a handful of pages written on. Upon further inspection I realized that the first two pages were letters to her daughters telling them how much she loved them and apologizing for not providing a better life. The third page had a list of numbers on it. I easily recognized the set of numbers as bank account and routing numbers. The next page was blank as well as the page after that. Blank, blank. Nothing.

I sat on the edge of my bed, perplexed at what I just read. Why me, I wondered? What was I supposed to do with her bank and routing numbers?

Still not satisfied, I flipped through the entire book. The second to last page had a short letter addressed to myself. Uneasiness crept inside my stomach.

In the letter she thanked me for being her friend. She loved how I treated her as an equal and never made her feel like a burden. The time since I moved in had been some of the happiest days she felt in a while. She signed her name at the bottom, all of the writing very dainty and frail, obvious something she wrote recently. At the bottom was a P.S. message. She explained how she couldn't trust her daughters with the account and informed me that she made me the primary account holder. There was $20,000 in there and she wanted me to have it. She left no instructions as to what I should do with the money, only that she trusted me to use it wisely. On the bottom of the page was a small heart with the words 'goodbye my dear friend, I am finally at ease' scribbled next to it, barely legible. “Please look after my girls.”

It took me a few seconds to make sense of what I was reading. Then it hit me.

I ran through the trailer hallway, from one end to the other and busted through her bedroom door. My heart knew the truth even before my eyes got a chance to see it. She was laying there, in the same position I had left her in, pale and motionless. She was dead.

I pulled the blanket off of her upper body so I could lay my head on her chest and listen closely for any signs of breathing. That is when I saw them. On her stomach were four empty pill bottles, carefully placed so they would not accidentally roll off the bed before she got the chance to give me her little black book. This was premeditated without a doubt and in her eyes, the last gift she could give her family. One final act of compassion, a chance to live their lives.