My Life, Deleted (22 page)

After Joan and Taylor flew in, Taylor headed over to Anthony's to avoid the scene with Grant she knew was coming.

Still maintaining that he wasn't using, Grant had persuaded us to let him go to Las Vegas with his girlfriend for the weekend because he'd told us she didn't use drugs, so Joan and I planned to talk to him peacefully when he got back.

That changed, however, after Joan cleaned the bathroom, where she found several pieces of a gray cottony substance, a small black nugget of what she presumed was black tar heroin, and the tip of an insulin syringe. Joan then searched her office and the bed Grant had been sleeping in, finding more cotton and some wadded-up squares cut from a plastic shopping bag.

“Look what I found,” she said, so upset she was shaking.

The syringe was the only one of these items that Joan had seen in real life, but she'd seen the others online and on TV. I, on the other hand, was clueless. “Where did you find these, and what are they?” I asked.

She tried to explain what little she knew about how Grant procured and used his drugs, saying the cotton was to filter out impurities when he shot up.

“This is what the heroin comes in,” she said, pointing to the plastic squares. “He's using in our house.”

Grant had obviously crossed the line. “We can't have this in our house,” I said, horrified by the implications.

“He's got to leave,” she said, just as mortified as me.

When he came through the front door two nights later, we asked him to meet us in Joan's office, where I stood with my arms crossed and Joan sat at her desk.

“Is there anything you want to tell us?” I asked.

Grant, who we later learned was still high from using that morning, was in smart-ass mode. “No,” he said. “About my trip?”

“No, about the drugs that your mother found while cleaning the bathroom.”

Grant paused for a moment, then copped to it. “Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I used drugs in the house,” he said.

“In our
house,
Grant?” Joan repeated incredulously. “We can't trust you, and you aren't allowed to stay here anymore. You need to get help.”

“That's okay,” Grant said, adding nonchalantly that his girlfriend would let him stay with her family until she got her own apartment.

His sarcastic attitude only made me angrier. “You are the stupidest kid I know,” I said. “We've spent nearly $75,000 dealing with your drug addiction, rehab, detox, and medical appointments. We've tried to help you, and you refuse to follow our rules in this house. I don't care if you become homeless. You need to leave and get your life in order.”

“Fine,” he said.

“Don't you even care that you're hurting us?” Joan asked.

“No, I really don't,” he replied, looking right at her with such insolence and disrespect that I was furious on her behalf.

Where did he think he got off talking to his mother like that?

I grabbed him by the neck and pushed him out of the bedroom and across the next room until I had him against the open door, which was flat against the wall. “It's time for you to leave
my
family alone. Get the hell out of here!” I yelled. “And don't call us.”

Grant just laughed, which only made me more furious. It really did seem like he could care less. “Say good-bye,” he said as he opened the front door. “This is the last time you're ever going to see me. I have enough heroin in my sock to overdose.”

Stunned by his last remark, my anger dropped a few notches. “I can't stop you from doing that, but we love you,” I replied just before he shut the door.

By now Joan was crying hysterically. Thinking logically, I figured his overdose threats were empty and manipulative and that he would simply find a ride to his girlfriend's house. But Joan was clearly caught up in her emotions, fearing that he might just follow through.

We had another rough night, with Joan worrying where he was, but she calmed down after she got hold of his girlfriend the next day, who said she'd gotten Grant a hotel room for a couple of nights. When he called to tell Joan that he was safe, she asked, “Are you going to hurt yourself?” and he said no.

Grant persuaded his girlfriend and her family to let him stay with them. We weren't happy, but we were relieved that at least we knew where he was sleeping, and it wasn't a park bench.

Joan's hysterical crying was just one sign that she wasn't handling things as well as usual. After being so strong for so long since my accident, she'd been showing increasing signs of stress and had been growing frustrated and angry with me more easily than before. These days, an offhand comment from me would send her into a tirade.

Since the accident I'd gradually been joining in more of the joking banter our family did with each other. Once I'd gotten past my sensitive stage, I'd learned this was all done in a good-natured, playful way. But sometimes lately I'd noticed that when I tried to joke with Joan, she would go off on me in a bitchy tone. Honestly, it was like waking up to two different people. One day she was nice and sweet, and the next she'd be so difficult I'd want to run away from her. Concerned that I was doing something wrong, I tried to lie low for a while, but I started taking the whole thing personally, attributing her moodiness to my inability to be a productive husband and provider for our family.

Is Joan starting to resent me for not being the man she once knew and married? Am I ever going to be that guy again?

Then I started noticing that she was also directing her irritability at Taylor, yelling at her for minor infractions such as leaving a knife covered with peanut butter on the counter. If she was screaming at our sweet and well-behaved daughter, I figured she must be under a tremendous strain.

When Joan and I talked about her mood swings and erratic behavior, she summed them up as PMS. Once I had a label to place on it, my first thought was,
I've heard of this, but how do you get rid of it?

Once again, TV helped me out. I often watched
Everybody Loves Raymond
to gain a better understanding of how families interacted, and one episode seemed particularly relevant to our current dynamic. Raymond's wife, Debra, had a bad case of PMS, so he bought her some over-the-counter pills and read to her from the box about the symptoms it was supposed to cure, including bloating, headaches, fatigue, and muscle aches.

“There's nothing in here for bitchy,” Debra noted sarcastically.

“You probably need a prescription for bitchy,” he replied.

I felt like Raymond was speaking directly to my situation. It was kind of a relief, actually. Here I'd thought it was me and our household dramas, but it was simply the three most dreaded letters in the male language:
PMS.
Now that I knew what it was, I began to notice it started right before and continued during her menstrual period.

After I'd started taking the Cymbalta, I'd felt the changes in my own mood. And after seeing the TV commercial for the drug, I wondered if maybe Joan was depressed too, grieving the loss of the husband she used to know. So, very cautiously, I broached the subject with her.

“Maybe Dr. Lanier can help you with some Cymbalta,” I said. “I've found it's been helping me cope with the stresses of life. Maybe you would benefit from it as well.”

Joan mentioned that she'd already tried some antidepressants for PMS in the past and hadn't seen much improvement, but she said she'd talk to Dr. Lanier. In July Joan began taking the medication.

Within a few weeks Joan's moods evened out somewhat and the time around her next period was much improved. But even then, some other thorny issues presented themselves.

After the news stories started coming out, I sensed that Joan was becoming increasingly jealous of the instant attention I was getting, of the opportunities to tell my story, and of my decision to launch a new speaking career, which was a longtime career goal for her, not to mention the repeated suggestions that I write a book.

Confused and frustrated, I was worried that we were headed for trouble if this continued. As much as I tried to include Joan in my media interviews, this gesture never seemed to fulfill her needs. I thought I was lost before in life, but there is no worse feeling than having a simmering uncertainty about what your wife wants and a nagging inability to figure out how to satisfy her.

Chapter 22

W
ITH MY FIRST HALLOWEEN
coming up, Joan and I committed to take part in a charity event put on by Save the Family Foundation of Arizona to benefit underprivileged children, and we were encouraged to bring Taylor and my nephews Noah and Aden along.

I was all for helping kids, but even after watching Halloween episodes of my regular shows on television and seeing the costumes and candy at Target, I still didn't get the idea behind this strange ritual, so Joan tried to explain it to me. “It's a holiday that allows you to be goofy, and you give kids candy,” she said.

To me the notion was bizarre, but I generally enjoyed doing anything that Noah and Aden enjoyed, and I figured I would comprehend it better once I saw it. No longer the old Scott, who questioned Joan's interest in participating in charity events, I wanted to be there
with
her, doing something to help. As an NFL alumni representative, I was going to meet the organizers and observe the festivities firsthand because my group was considering whether to support this charity in future events.

We met up at the venue, the Hilton hotel near the Phoenix airport. While Anthony and I waited outside the ladies' room, Joan and Taylor had the boys change into the costumes that my sister Bonnie had sent from Chicago. Three-year-old Aden was cold, so he pulled his red and gray nylon Transformers outfit over his clothes and put on his pointy-eared Batmanesque mask that covered his face from the nose up. Six-year-old Noah was a Ninja Warrior, wearing a plastic six-pack over his stomach and a stretchy hood mask with an opening for his glasses.

When the boys emerged they were beaming with pride, which made me feel excited right along with them.

“Awesome!” I said. “You guys look great!”

The event started in a room of parents and their three hundred children, who were loaded up with pizza and party food, including designer cupcakes as well as the homemade kind with smeared frosting. Considering these families had recently been homeless and were now trying to get their lives back on track, I figured this was probably the first time all year that they'd been indulged with goodies like this.

For those few hours we had a blast. In that hotel all their troubles—and mine too—were forgotten, receding into the laughter and the bubbly silliness of children having fun. It made me feel like a kid too, so this was an effective way for me to experience what it had been like for me
and
my kids, growing up. When Joan noted that these children seemed to prefer the homemade cupcakes over the fancy ones, I wondered if, like me, they stuck with what they knew because, with all the turmoil in their lives, they needed the comfort of the familiar.

One surprising thing I learned was that homeless people weren't just the drug addicts or the older men with straggly beards I'd seen on TV, a group I feared that Grant might soon join. I was surprised and saddened to see so many mothers with children in this group, a segment of society I'd never pictured having to live in a car or under bridges until the organizers told me otherwise.

As we took the kids on a trick-or-treat tour of the first floor, where every room had been decorated by hotel employees, I was impressed by the kids' creative ploys to get candy.

“Show us a trick,” a staff member told a little girl in a princess costume, who danced and pranced around to earn her treat.

Aden refused to go into any of the rooms with haunted-house themes because he was too scared.

“Don't you want to go inside and see?” I asked. “I'll go with you.”

“Uh-uh,” he said, stiffening his arm against the door frame to keep anyone from pushing him inside.

“It's just people with costumes,” Joan said reassuringly, but he still wouldn't budge, happy to let the staff bring him candy from inside. The fearless Noah needed no encouraging, however, plowing right in and exploring.

Melia Patria, the
Nightline
producer, followed me as I vicariously experienced the kids and their glee. She'd been trailing me with a camera for several days, from 9:00
A.M.
until 9:00
P.M.
, sometimes as late as 11:00
P.M.
, asking me for one more story before we turned in.

“Tell me about that,” she'd say.

During the four days Melia was with us, we pulled out the wedding footage that my sister Bonnie had found in her garage and let Melia capture my reaction as I watched it for the first time with Joan on the couch. It was grainy, only a couple of minutes long, and had no sound. It showed us walking out of the church and getting into the limo as people threw rice on us. I'd wanted to know how I'd felt that day, and the video answered that question: grinning ear to ear, I looked like the happiest guy on the planet. I only wished there was more footage to watch.

When Melia was done filming, she told us she would return soon with Bob Woodruff, the ABC reporter who had suffered a severe brain injury when hit by an IED in Iraq. This was quite an honor for me and Joan, because we'd seen him on television and read his book. We were pleased that he wanted to cover our story, assuming that he would be more compassionate after suffering a brain injury himself.

Even though no one but Joan wanted Grant to join us for Thanksgiving dinner, he came over and acted his usual passive-aggressive self. We captured the event with the TV camera that Melia had left with us to film any firsts for me, such as handing out candy on Halloween or stuffing the turkey.

Earlier that week Joan had asked me to do her a favor on the day after the holiday, which she explained was known as Black Friday.

“Honey, would you go to the store for me on Friday?” she asked. “It's a big sale day. This is a little different from what you usually do, but you'd really help me out because I can't be two places at once.”

“Whatever you want me to do, I will,” I said.

Joan wanted me to buy Taylor a sewing machine for college. I'd have to get up early to be there by 5:30
A.M.
, when the store opened, which I said was no problem.

While Joan and Taylor were still at the mall taking advantage of the clothing sales from midnight to 5:00
A.M.
, I left the house for Joann Fabrics. Aiming to arrive early and be at the front of the line, I was shocked to see two hundred crazed women already queued up, coupons in hand, discussing what they were going to buy. I was damn near afraid for my life; it seemed like these women would plow me over to get what they wanted.

“Why are you here?” asked one of less threatening ones.

When I told her about the errand my wife had sent me on, she laughed. “What a good husband, coming here and fighting this chaos,” she said. “I think your wife pulled a fast one on you, because you have no idea what you are about to see.”

The line started moving as soon as the front doors opened, and I felt like I was in a pack of hyenas chasing a rabbit. Once we got inside, pointy elbows were flying as the women competed for pieces of fabrics and silly Christmas decorations. I ran the other way as fast as I could, looking for an employee to direct me.

“Where are the sewing machines?” I asked.

“Follow me, sir,” she said.

Doing as instructed, I found the Brother electronic sewing machine, with all the bells and whistles, that Joan had circled in the advertisement. I grabbed the box and headed for the register with a coupon in my pocket for an additional 10 percent off. I didn't get very far, though, because a masculine-looking drill sergeant wannabe, whose jeans were too tight for her oversized frame, stopped me in my tracks. “You can't leave this area,” she said. “You have to pay for that here.”

“Okay,” I said sheepishly.

As she rang me up, I handed her the coupon. “You can't use that with a sewing machine purchase,” she scolded, clearly frustrated with me.

“My wife said I had to use it, and I better use it,” I replied.

“I'm sorry, but tell your wife it's not good on electric machines. It says so right on the coupon.”

With that, I paid and got the hell out of there, happy to have escaped alive. As soon as I got outside I called Joan, hoping against hope that the news helicopter hovering above me wouldn't catch my humiliated face on video as I stood outside a fabric store with a sewing machine under my arm. Joan answered on speaker phone, and I could hear her laughing.

“How was Joann Fabrics?” she asked. “Did you get it? Did you have fun?”

By then I was able to find the humor in the situation. “I think you took advantage of me by feeding me to the wolves,” I said.

She laughed again, as if she'd known exactly what she'd set me up for.

I wasn't sure if Joan pulled a fast one on me, but in the future I would be more savvy and honor her Black Friday shopping requests only if they were for manly places, such as electronic stores, where Joan said I used to go.

Gearing up to meet Bob Woodruff was nerve-racking, but the anxiety soon faded once we started sharing stories about our brain injuries and memory losses, as if we were comparing battle wounds. Even though his were from an actual war, I felt like my body and my mind had been waging their own battle.

Bob explained that his pain had been much more physical than emotional, but he too had suffered headaches for a long time and lost part of his sight. Joan and I had read about his pain, how he'd dealt with his new disabilities, and the difficulties he'd faced returning to the career he'd always loved. Although I couldn't remember running an aviation company and didn't know if I would ever have a desire to do so again, I hoped that he would give me some insight into how he'd managed to persevere.

As we talked it soon became apparent that, like me, the love of his family was what had gotten him through the nightmarish recovery we'd both experienced. I noted that, also like me, Bob had tried to keep a positive attitude and to work through the pain to reach his goals.

While the crew was setting up to shoot some footage of us walking toward the fountain in the backyard, Bob and I shared a few private moments, talking man to man. He said he had retained his wealth of knowledge, but he sometimes had trouble remembering the right words to say. I'd lost all my knowledge, I told him, and had a similar word retrieval problem.

“I don't know if I ever would have made a full recovery if I didn't have my memories to fall back on,” he said. “That's what really helped me to focus on getting back to who I was. I wouldn't want to trade places with you for anything.”

His last words paralyzed me as I felt the shock of their impact creep through my skin.

How bad off am I, really, that this guy, who had a big part of his head blown off by a roadside bomb and has gone through so much physical pain, wouldn't want to be me?

I knew he didn't mean to be negative or hurtful. I was sure he only wanted me to understand how far he'd come in his own recovery. As wounded as I felt, I tried to put his comment aside and focus on his drive and determination, which were truly inspirational to me. I too was on a quest to make it back and be successful once again in whatever I chose to do. If I spent too much more time thinking about it, Bob's words would have set me back months in my recovery. But at the time, it felt like they already had.

It had been five months since we'd celebrated my forty-seventh birthday, but Joan and Taylor thought it would be amusing to get me another birthday cake to commemorate the first anniversary of my accident on December 17. I guess I couldn't blame them. Whenever I didn't know something or made a mistake, I'd throw out my “get out of jail free” motto: “Give me a break; I'm not even one year old yet.”

That night after dinner they turned out the lights and brought out a chocolate cake, topped with a flaming #1 candle and Happy 1st Birthday spelled out in red icing. I had to laugh at the gesture.

“You guys are funny,” I conceded.

They sang “Happy Birthday” to me, and even though I was now an old pro at it, I wasn't about to sing it to myself.

“Does it seem like a year?” I asked.

“When you don't know something or when it's something we all know you knew, it feels like it just happened,” Taylor said. “But other days, when nothing comes up, it seems like a long time ago.”

We debated the differences between the old and new Scott, my fresh feelings of shock about society, including how people treated others with such hostility and anger and how much and how fast some people ate.

I'd had similar conversations with Mark, who told me I was much more mellow but much less self-confident and assertive since the accident. Before, he said, “you never took no for an answer. No matter what, you'd find a way to accomplish it. That's gone.”

I didn't know if I'd really felt that way before, but I certainly didn't feel I possessed those personality traits now. What I did know was that the more knowledge I gained, the more confident I felt. Meanwhile, there were a whole lot of things I still didn't know and struggled to understand, including concepts the old Scott once comprehended.

Joan said I wasn't a “creative thinker” anymore. Before, I was more jaded and bitter from the hard knocks the business world had thrown at me, but I was good at coming up with innovative marketing ideas, such as changing our marketing focus to the jet debit card—what Joan called “thinking out of the box.”

Today, I felt like I lived
in
a box, and yet it felt comfortable in there. Following a routine and doing the same things over and over helped me cope with daily life, with its constant bombardment of new information and countless choices. For example, I'd liked eating buffalo wings before, but I ate them frequently now because they were a comfort to me—something safe I
knew
I liked.

Today, I also needed people to show or prove things to me in concrete terms before I could understand or believe them. Intangibles and abstract concepts that I couldn't see, touch, or smell made me agitated because I couldn't get my head around them.