Angela James
You walk through the cash-only motel to the room where your daughter is holed up with her drug cronies.
“Let’s go!” you say. “Today’s the big day.” You aren’t surprised that she arranged a final hurrah. You do something similar each time you go on Weight Watchers.
Once she’s loaded up and you’re pulling out of the parking lot, she squawks that there’s a boyfriend she needs to see first. That they are never apart for a single day, let alone thirty! That, no, he isn’t the one that got her on needles! That was the one you liked!
You remain firm. She can call him from the facility.
Your hands unclench when you make it out of the cluttered downtown. When you’re on the highway, hurtling past strip malls and factories.
“I wouldn’t be caught dead in these!” she complains, waving grey track pants you had packed for her. She wants to buy something “decent!” When you remind her that she has no money, she pulls out a twenty of dubious provenance and yells that you need to stop at that TJ Maxx over there.
You figure it’s the least you can do after a long time of doing your least. She immediately runs to their restroom. You desperately hope fate wouldn’t play such a cruel joke as to let her OD now when treatment is literally hours away.
You huff and stomp outside the door, knocking every couple of minutes. “Honey? We have to go.”
To your relief, she emerges, pinned pupils and all.
You herd her to the tights section where she grabs black and purple ones from the two-for-one rack. The sales associate hesitates before taking the rumpled bill from her scabby hand.
You chatter while pounding down the highway, reminding her that this is the nicest of the government funded places. That she is damned lucky to get this spot. That they are only holding it until 2 pm.
When you announce that you are twenty minutes away, she wails that she needs a washroom. You remind her that the facility has plenty of washrooms. But she just got her period and needs privacy! You tell her that it will take less time to get to the rehab place than to find a public ladies’ room. She tells you not to look at her, then. That she will just put her tampon in right here in your car if you are going to be such a fucking bitch.
You arrive. The facility must have been a mansion back in its day. You shake hands and shove her into the admitting room where her bags are searched and her body patted down. You sit with members of the admissions team and complete paperwork. You are grateful that the social worker assisting you with the Adverse Childhood Events questionnaire keeps a neutral expression.
You accompany your daughter to her new room. Patting her mattress, you tell her that this place is so nice! You joke that you wouldn’t mind coming here to take a break from your Chardonnay.
Everyone thought she would ditch, but you got her there! Victorious, you arrive home.
You finally sleep the kind of sleep that only good mothers deserve. You even smile at your annoying cubicle-mate’s photos of her grandchildren the next day.
After work, you settle in to watch a marathon of Intervention episodes. “Those poor bastards,” you think, watching the addicts’ sobbing relatives. You think about your own stories and how, once all this is in the past, they will seem darkly humorous. The time when she pulled a ring off your finger while you were sleeping then spent two hours “helping” you look for it. How her face looked so determined as she stuffed her own hand into the pail of snotty Kleenex by your bed, saying, “It has to be here! It just has to!” How she would call you at two, three, and four o’clock in the morning, swearing she is standing in line at a grocery store and needs a small etransfer to complete her food purchase. How you recognized your collection of Precious Moments figurines for sale on a Facebook Marketplace ad the night after you relented and let her back inside your house. How her hand tattoo was even visible in one of the photos.
You get a call the next afternoon from the administrator. In a somber voice, she explains that they had to throw your daughter out for using. That one of her friends has already picked her up. That they suspect she smuggled in the drugs “on her person.”
You pour Chardonnay into a beer stein over ice cubes.
Tragedy plus time equals comedy, right?
You aren’t able to laugh yet. You can’t imagine making anyone else laugh either. You definitely can’t imagine that there will ever be a time when you will have it in you to bring the house down with the zany tale of how she blew up your hopes for her recovery by smuggling drugs on her, well, in her, you know, person.
A voicemail from your daughter says she is sorry but withdrawal is just too painful. One of her friends told her about a program, though, where they put you in a coma and you come out a couple months later all refreshed and detoxed so she thinks she would like to try that one.
You understand the appeal of this particular bit of junkie lore. You imagine how you too would enjoy a good coma.
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Angela James is a lawyer by day and a lover of flash fiction, Americana music and comedy. She has been published in various journals, including Cowboy Jamboree, Blink-Ink and Wrong Turn Lit and has received nominations for inclusion in Best Small Fictions 2024, Best Small Fictions 2025, Best Microfiction 2025 and the Pushcart Prize 2025 anthologies.