PART 18 – The Questions That Began With an Orange Bottle Would Follow My Family Far Beyond the Night the Police Called

There was one thing I had never understood.

Why had Dad been discussing medication connected to my name two days before?

I had asked him.

He had dismissed the question.

He had mentioned an insurance mistake.

At the time, I had accepted that explanation.

But now I couldn't separate that conversation from what Karen had brought into the living room.

The timing was too important to ignore.

I had questioned Dad about medication.

Then Karen had appeared with a prescription bottle.

She claimed it belonged to me.

And Dad believed her without checking the label.

I still didn't know what the bottle contained.

I still didn't know why my name had been connected to a prescription.

I wasn't going to pretend I had answers I didn't have.

But I knew I hadn't been prescribed medication.

And I knew I hadn't brought that bottle into the house.

The memory of Karen covering the label bothered me.

I had noticed her fingers.

I had noticed that she kept the bottle turned partly away.

At the time, I was too frightened to think clearly about it.

I was concentrating on defending myself.

I wanted Dad to listen.

I wanted Karen to speak.

I wanted the argument to stop.

Now I understood why that small detail had stayed with me.

It was something I had seen with my own eyes.

It wasn't a guess.

It wasn't something someone told me afterward.

I had been standing right there.

I also remembered Dad's explanation about the insurance company.

He had spoken as though the matter was already settled.

There was nothing to worry about.

That was how he had made it sound.

But I had never been given medication.

I had never understood why a prescription was connected to my name.

And I had never received a proper explanation.

The question remained.

It was part of the story that had started before the storm.

I couldn't simply forget it because something worse had happened afterward.

There were other things I couldn't forget either.

The front door.

The porch roof.

The cold water inside my shoes.

The sound of the lock.

I had waited for Dad to open the door.

I had waited for Karen to admit she had been wrong.

Nobody came.

Eventually, I had walked away.

I had thought the road would lead me to my friend.

Instead, I had ended up beside a drainage ditch.

A passing driver had found me there.

That person hadn't known anything about the medication or the argument.

They had only seen someone who needed help.

And they had stopped.

I often wondered what Dad thought when he heard the officer say I wasn't breathing.

Perhaps he remembered my face.

Perhaps he remembered my voice.

Perhaps he finally understood that I hadn't been trying to challenge him when I asked for my coat.

I had been asking for something that could protect me.

I couldn't know what went through his mind.

But I knew what had gone through mine.

I had wanted to go home.

I had wanted my father to believe me.

I had wanted my sister to help.

Those were not unreasonable things for a seventeen-year-old girl to want.

Click here to continue reading: PART 19: The Last Thing I Remembered Before the Darkness Was the Door Closing, and I Finally Understood Why That Sound Stayed With Me