In the bigger picture, Ronnie’s presence in front of his house was a problem. Diller didn’t have his money, nor was he likely to for quite some time. What’s more, he had zero intention of trying to get it. For the last six months, he had been saving every last cent for what he called “the Project”. As of a couple of weeks ago, his big plan had finally clicked into place.
Diller didn’t talk about his mom much, mainly because without context people didn’t understand. Hell, even with context most people didn’t understand. Unless you’d been there – been inside their story – you couldn’t fully appreciate it. It wasn’t that their situation was unique, but still, even without realising they were doing it, people made judgements, and Diller didn’t want his mother being judged.
Monica Diller was a great mom. Growing up, Diller had been aware that they didn’t have much, but it hadn’t mattered. Every day he’d go to school with a juice box and a sandwich, and sometimes the juice box had been reused and refilled with water, and that was fine. Diller liked water. From the get-go it had been just the two of them, and like she’d always told him, that was all they needed.
Looking back now at a child’s memories reinterpreted through an adult’s eyes, his mother had not really had any boyfriends. On one hand it was surprising, as she was a good-looking woman who could light up a room with her effervescent personality. Diller guessed she’d been too focused on being a mom. Besides, where would she find the time? She’d worked two jobs – one as a cleaner and another at a food-distribution warehouse – and that, combined with looking after her son, had left her precious little time for anything else, including sleep. Not that she had complained.
Diller’s favourite sound in the universe was her laugh. It was one of those big, joyous, full-body laughs, filled with warmth. The kind of laugh that was always with you and never at you. When he’d been young she’d read him stories, and he’d taken to acting them out, filling every part. She’d howled with laughter and applauded. In hindsight, that’s where his obsession with acting had started. It hadn’t been an easy life, but it had been a good one.
Then, when Diller was nine, his mother had fallen from a ladder as she was trying to hang a curtain. He thought back to that day all the time. He’d been in his room, reading a book. She should have called him to hold the ladder. Why hadn’t she called him? On such simple moments, lives can turn. It hadn’t looked like much at the time, but her back had been bad and had gotten worse. Eventually she took a shift off work and gone to the free clinic. Spinal stenosis was what they finally diagnosed. The recommendation of rest was dismissed. There was no more room for rest than there was money for an operation. Monica had put a little aside for a rainy day, but this was a monsoon, and so the doctor had prescribed pain meds to help her cope.
Diller had heard it described as the “opioid sinkhole”. It was an apt description. At a certain point, the OxyContin became too expensive and his mom had swapped to other opioids that provided more bang for the few bucks she had. That was how a working mom became a heroin addict. Through it all, she had held it together. Diller knew, but he was kept away from it. She would do everything to be a good mom. She would find a balance and on it went, the three of them living through this – Diller, his mom and the wolf.
That was the name he had given it. Day after day, he had to watch as his mom fought to control it. Some days were good, some days bad, but the wolf was always there. That laugh he loved started to be heard less and less as Monica’s life became less about joy and more about survival. Between the pain and the wolf, she had worked as much as she could. Getting herself out of bed on mornings when she could barely move. The wolf eased the pain, only for it to demand its pound of flesh later.
Diller watched on and could do little. He’d left high school early and gone looking for work. His mom would have been horrified, but he’d taken to stealing. It had always felt wrong, but he’d not seen any other choices. Their apartment had gone by this point and, as a temporary measure, they’d moved into one of a row of abandoned tenements set for demolition. That had been six years ago. Even then the money couldn’t stretch to cover everything.
Diller took more and more responsibility for providing. He worked when he could find it, and when he couldn’t, he did what needed to be done. Through it all, his dream of acting had been mostly put aside. Mostly.
He’d met Smithy when he had joined an acting group after seeing an ad. Diller had found one evening a week to dream a little and he’d loved it. Being someone else had been a beautiful release. The sheer pleasure of being surrounded by people dreaming the same mad dream, bonded together by a shared hope at which the rest of the world would sneer.
Smithy had pulled Diller aside and told him he was good, really good, and he could seriously do this. The thought had been nice, but trying to make it as an actor without any formal training and no money behind you? That was less like trying to win the lottery and more like trawling the gutters, looking for a winning lottery ticket that someone might have dropped. Still, in spite of it all – and while doing all he could to provide for himself and his mother – Diller had tried.
He had always been ashamed of the stealing. Hating himself for having to stoop so low. He’d never told Smithy this, but the reason he was so invested in his friend giving up gambling was that it had also been the day Diller had decided to give up stealing for good. If Smithy could stay on the straight and narrow, maybe he could too. Then, he and Smithy had helped their friend Bunny out with a situation, and Diller had come into some money. Not enough for him to make “the Project” a reality, but enough to make it at least seem possible. Not acting. That was his selfish thing. Maybe if he got past this, he could take a real run at that. First of all, his big dream, “the Project” – meant finally they would have to kill the wolf.
His mom had tried everything to kick her habit, but nothing had worked. What little support that had been available just hadn’t done the trick. He remembered the cold-turkey days. Brutal minute after brutal minute, watching the wolf howling. There were some state-funded rehab places, but perversely, to get into a lot of the schemes you needed a criminal record. Monica Diller was, through it all, an upstanding citizen. The help had never been enough. Then, he’d met Shawna.
She was an old friend of his mom’s. In fact, she had babysat for Diller when he was a toddler. They had fallen out of touch when they’d had to give up their old place and move into the tenement. Shawna was a nurse in a rehab facility. She had bumped into Diller’s mom on the bus and, try as she might, Monica hadn’t been able to hide the signs of her addiction from a trained professional. Shawna had asked around, and a friend of a friend had passed on the message to Diller that she wanted to see him. They’d gone for a walk in the park and Shawna, who had always been painfully direct, had got out of him the full, unvarnished truth of his mom’s predicament. Once he had got over the sense of disloyalty, it had been good to talk, even if that was all it had been to start with. Cedarbrook, where Shawna worked, was a good facility with a high success rate in helping people kick the habit. But it wasn’t cheap. Good help never is.
The problem was, Monica Diller had been living with the wolf for so long that getting clean was going to be a long process. Shawna’s advice confirmed as much. Monica would need to do ninety days residential, and that would cost money – a lot of money. Diller had taken his windfall, then taken work doing whatever he could, and Shawna had talked to her employers, asking for a family and friends discount. Finally, they’d struck a deal. He had enough to get his mom into Cedarbrook and he’d find the rest.