My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me (29 page)

doctor promised me he would not be awake for at least four hours. I was to go home, get some rest and then come back.

I told Luke that I would get my mom to drive me to the hospital in exactly four hours, at 10:30 AM. I was sure my mom wouldn’t mind giving me a ride on a Saturday morning.

Arriving home at 6:30 AM, I snuck back in through my bedroom window and changed back into my pajamas so that no one would suspect I’d been out.

Not much later, I pretended to get up to the sound of my alarm. I showered and tried to occupy myself until it was time to go back to the hospital. I tried to figure out how to tell my parents that Jason had been in an accident without telling the truth about sneaking out. I was sure I would get in trouble if they knew.

I don’t know exactly how I told them about the accident, but I do remember being specific about the need to be there by 10:30 AM. They didn’t seem too concerned.

I was panicked, overwhelmed with emotion and exhausted. To pass the time until it was time to go, I occupied myself by making chocolate pudding, Jason’s favorite. I figured if he was hungry, even though his face was swollen, he could at least eat chocolate pudding.

On Saturday morning Danielle was extremely eager to get to the hospital to see Jason, who had apparently been in an accident the night before. While waiting for me to drive her to the hospital, she made some chocolate pudding to bring to Jason as a gift. The pudding had been placed in Styrofoam cups and was now to be carefully transported open and without lids. It was a sweet gesture.

Danielle: It was 10:00 AM, time to leave. I told Mom, who seemed unconcerned.

“In a minute honey,” she responded. Like hello? Did she not understand? I was in a hurry.
Jason is in critical condition and all she is concerned about is drinking her stupid coffee and reading a book.

“Mom, I really need to get to the hospital, could we please go now?” I said, trying to be nice when really I wanted to scream.

“Sure honey, just let me finish this page.”
Grrrrr!!! Okay, fine.
I sat waiting by the door, holding the pudding, which I’d carefully spooned into two small containers. Minutes passed. It was now 10:12 AM. I wanted to be there already.
What if Jason wakes up and realizes I’m not there? Okay, calm down, you are stressed and tired. Mom is standing up, she is coming.

“Okay honey, I am just going to brush my teeth and change, then we can go,” she said, as if she was being sweet about it.

“Uh Mom, I really need to be there now. Can we just go now?” I asked. “Do that when you get home. You aren’t going to see anyone.”

It was now 10:17. She didn’t seem to understand the seriousness of the situation.

“If I am doing you a favor by driving you, then you can just wait a couple more minutes for me to get ready.”

Okay, seriously, I gave her plenty of notice, an hour and a half. She is normally on time for everything else. Nothing I do is very important. Just a couple of minutes ... she had a couple minutes to finish reading her book, now a couple more. Well, I don’t have a couple of minutes. My boyfriend is in the hospital. They don’t know what is wrong with him. If I did this to her when someone she cared about
was
in the hospital she would freak.

Finally she was ready at 10:33 AM.

We climbed into our new red minivan with its immaculate factory interior. Danielle placed the chocolate puddings into the cup holders so they wouldn’t spill over. We did up our seatbelts and headed down the hill towards the hospital. She seemed to be in a hurry, but then Danielle did everything in a hurry and whenever anything needed to be done, she seemed to expect it to be done yesterday. Boom, boom, hurry, hurry, fast, fast. That was always her

style.

Danielle:
Oh boy, I could not have picked a slower person to drive with. The speed limit is 30 MPH and she is only driving 20 MPH! No traffic anywhere, no pedestrians, nothing, a straight road, yet she is only doing 20 MPH I am thirty-five minutes later than I planned, and she cannot even be kind enough to drive the speed limit. I wish she would get a ticket for going too slow! Okay stay calm,
I coached myself.

We arrived at a T-intersection, where turning left would be about ten minutes faster. Normally it is hard to turn left at this intersection because of traffic, but today there were no cars to be seen. Mom stopped at the stop sign.

Do you need to stop for thirty seconds to check both ways,
I wondered?
Is she trying to make me mad? Well, I won’t say anything. We’ll be there soon enough. I sure hope Jason hasn’t woken up yet.

Mom signaled right.

“Mom, we are going to the hospital,” I reminded her. She sometimes forgets where she is going.

“Yes I know,” she said.

Doesn’t she know how to get there? Turning right is a huge detour. We are in a hurry. Still looking both ways, I guess, sitting at the intersection.

“Just turn left mom, it’s way faster,” I said, frustrated. Then I decided to take control of the situation by pushing the steering wheel left.

My mom freaked out, saying it was illegal to turn left at that intersection. She cranked the steering wheel as hard as she could in the opposite direction. Thank God there was no traffic. For a moment we were all over the road. Then it was too late. We were taking her way: the long way. I was furious. I swore and screamed at her.

I cannot imagine a more insensitive person.
Both of us were yelling.

I am holding back. Everything inside me just wants to smack her.
I

continued to yell at her and she continued to yell back at me. Then she missed the next turn. I looked at the clock inside the van, 10:47 AM.

Why, why, why does my mom have to be so mean?

I drove straight through the next intersection, where I would have turned left if I was still going to the hospital. I was not going to do Danielle any favors while she was addressing me with undeserved disrespect.

“What are you doing?” she yelled, reaching and grabbing the steering wheel again, this time with ten times the force. I held on for dear life and slammed on our horn to alert other vehicles that everything was not okay in our car.

“Get your hands off the wheel!” I shouted, while trying to steer us over to the side of the road where we wouldn’t endanger others.

I was frightened, humiliated, incredulous.
What was wrong with my once sweet daughter?

Danielle:
She’s pulling onto a side street. I can’t breathe. I can’t think! What should I do? I have to get to the hospital. Why is this so difficult? She doesn’t care about me or what I need at all.

Finally I managed to park safely on a side street. I sat, adrenaline pumping, completely unsure of what to do, wishing someone had seen what happened and would offer me help.

Danielle: My mom yelled at me. I think she was freaked out because I tried to turn the steering wheel while she was driving. But there were no cars around and we were barely moving. It wasn’t dangerous.

“I need to get to that hospital now!” Danielle shouted.

“I’m not taking you anywhere behaving like that,” I shouted back, trying to remain in control of myself. “And you will never address me with those terms again. I will not drive you anywhere ever speaking to me like that. I’m doing a nice thing for you. I don’t have to drive you to the hospital to see Jason. If you want me to do things for you, you have to treat me with respect.”

There was silence. I thought about just jumping out with my car keys and walking home.

“If I start this car up and drive home, will you keep your hands off this steering wheel?” I asked.

“Take me to the hospital! Take me to the hospital to see Jason, now!” she shouted back.

“It’s not an option. I’m not taking you anywhere after that episode,” I said. “If you want to get there you’ll have to get out of this car and get there yourself.”

I knew my boundaries and we had definitely reached them. She would have to apologize before I would drive her anywhere again.

I sat with my heart pumping. We were silent, for a few minutes, wondering what to do. Realizing I was serious about not driving her to the hospital, she said we could drive home and she wouldn’t touch the steering wheel while we did.

I looked seriously into her eyes to see if I could trust her to make it home safely. Deciding to take the chance, I carefully restarted the car, turned back onto the busy road and headed towards home. Danielle was crying.

Danielle: The whole way home my mom freaked out, yelling at me. I felt lonely and hopeless. I was incredibly upset and worried about Jason.

Mom doesn’t care about me.
I could feel my adrenaline pumping.
Mom thinks I’m crazy. She
says
I’m being disrespectful and irresponsible. Fine, I will show her. I can’t take this anymore.

It seemed there was nothing I could do. But as we pulled into the driveway, I spotted the pudding, which obviously was no longer needed.
Oh I’ll show her,
I thought.
She cares more about the freaking van than me.

Danielle grabbed the chocolate pudding. Swiping giant handfuls of the gooey desert with her bare hands, she began to smear the

chocolate pudding all over my lovely new vehicle. I tried to grab it back from her, but it was useless.

“There, take that, and that, and that,” she shouted with each new chocolate swipe. Within a few out-of-control moments, my windshield, upholstery, dashboard, steering wheel and face were covered in pudding.

My new vehicle was one gigantic chocolate-covered mess. I might as well have put a bunch of kindergarteners armed with chocolate pudding into that vehicle and told them to have a food fight. Few spots remained untouched.

I was devastated and at a complete loss of knowing what to do. I got out and walked into the house, wishing for a moment to regain my composure and to make some sense out of this disaster.

Danielle:
Well, if she didn’t hate me before she sure must now.
I was crying and shaking. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. I felt like I was watching someone else in my body. The emotional pain was very real. I paused for a moment.
She does hate me. She does. My own mom hates me. Fine, if you hate me, then I will just go kill myself.

Danielle came running up behind me shouting, “You hate me. It’s all over. I have no reason to live. Everyone hates me. I’m going to kill myself.”

And with those last words I was overwhelmed with sadness, disappointment, disillusionment and fear. I was devastated. I didn’t know what to do or say. I felt so alone, so helpless, so confused.

What was going on for this child?

Danielle: I was so hurt, so tired and so enraged, that I ran to our medicine cabinet and grabbed a bottle of painkillers. I opened the bottle and just as Mom came in the door, I began pouring them down my throat. She grabbed me and tried to stop me. I pushed her off and locked the door behind me. I swallowed two hundred extra strength Tylenols. As soon as I realized what I had done, panic and fear set in.

“Open up, open up,” I shouted desperately. “Danielle, don’t do this. I love you. Please honey. Let me in. Don’t do this. I love you.”

I didn’t care about anything except saving my kid.

Realizing that she had taken a whole bottle of pills and was now locked in the bathroom, I ran for the phone and dialed 9-1-1.

“Ambulance,” I shouted when the operator answered. “My daughter’s trying to kill herself.”

Danielle:
Oh no! Mom is calling the cops. I can’t let anyone know I took the pills. They might think I’m crazy.

Taking the pills was a mistake, but I decided to get to the hospital and fix it myself. I didn’t want people to think it was a suicide attempt. It was dumb, not suicide. I could feel my body temperature rising. I began to feel sick, yet was determined to get to the hospital on my own.

Danielle then came running out of the bathroom, grabbed the receiver from my hand and slammed it down before I had a chance to say another word.

She ran out of the house fast. I chased her, but I didn’t know what I should be doing.

I needed help. I didn’t see the point of running after her. She wasn’t going to allow me to help her. She was too big for me to manhandle. I couldn’t force her to come to the hospital.

I ran back into the house and phoned Brian’s cell phone. He was playing golf with Dave. He said they would come right home and help. I waited, overwhelmed.

Danielle: Fearful that the police or ambulance might show up at the house, I ran as fast as I could to hide in the ravine behind our house. Feeling dizzy, I tripped and fell into some blackberry bushes, where I scraped my arms and legs.

I was hurt and afraid.

I wanted my mom to come and help me get back home, but I wanted