This is a continuation of yesterday’s post titled Park the Car. I’m participating in BlogHer’s NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) and this month’s theme is roots. This series of posts chronicles my relationship with the love of my life, referred to here as J.

J met my parents and my brother that night and he was a hit. Sitting there on the sofa beside my dad he asked, “So… when are you shacking up?” J and I had barely discussed it but I guess the chemistry between us was obvious. And I had not introduced them to anyone I’d dated since I was 19 years old. The only answer dear old Dad got was a coy smile but he knew.

We didn’t drop the bombshell about J’s past on them that night. He made clear that he wanted to tell them himself… not have them find out in any other way. But I wanted to wait. I wanted them to love him first, like I did, so they would understand.

A few weeks later my store was only days from shutting down for good and we’d found a quaint little fixer upper house to rent. We had met the owner and made arrangements with her to do most of the repairs ourselves in exchange for credit toward the rent and security deposit. J was working himself to death… full of excitement and an obvious desire to show me how capable he was. And despite our already deep connection, I had no idea at the time how dangerous this was for him.

We were so anxious to spend every minute together that we were camping out at the new place, long before it was truly inhabitable. One morning as I was leaving for work, J couldn’t find his phone. So I let him use mine for the day since I would be at work and have access to the phone there. I had trouble reaching him that day but chalked it up to my lack of a cell phone and let it go. But when I got the phone back from him that night, he had deleted all the men out of my phone, except those I was blood-related to. And, of course, him. He blew me off when I asked him about it, saying he let a friend’s son play with the phone that day while they worked on remodeling the bathroom.

A couple of days later, I went to pick him up at a friend’s house. I had met this friend several times before and, as we sat on her back porch, she fired up a joint, took a couple of puffs and then offered it to me. I hit it and passed it to J. For a long time I blamed myself for many of the horrible days that came after this… thinking that simple act caused him to relapse… forever changed our lives. But I didn’t know he was an addict. I had no concept of the power of addiction and no idea that was I about to learn his truth.

Then we borrowed my dad’s truck and lawn mower to get the outside of our new home into shape. He side-swiped a chain link fence. He was acting different… almost adolescent. When I attempted to pry an explanation out of him, he dismissed me citing anxiety over getting all the work done on the house. We had a few cross words but were still so new in our relationship that we were afraid to really fight with one another. We didn’t yet have the sense of security you need to have a real argument. At the end of the night, I felt better, snuggled up next to him and dozed off.

I awoke sometime after midnight to a rustling sound coming from the kitchen. When I reached out for him, he wasn’t there. I stumbled around the corner and saw him, shoulders deep in a trash bag. He had lost his “medicine.” It’s hard not to feel foolish when I think back on these days now… knowing what I know… having seen what I’ve seen. But I was ignorant, in the truest sense of the word. I helped him look. In the trash. In the yard. In my dad’s truck. In his pockets. In my pockets. Under the mattress. Everywhere. Finally he found them. Tiny blue football-shaped dream killers.

And there it was…

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