Skinny Love

November, 1979

November 1, 1979

Roger
Lennon cried for almost a week without stopping. Well, she stopped to sleep for a few hours, but she would be up at two or three in the morning, climbing into our bed and sobbing because she was afraid- she was afraid of John coming to find her and take her back home. I hadn't been to visit him since we got the kids, but I could only assume that seeing a parent overdosed on drugs would be terrifying. At my doctor's clinic, I had seen photos of people that overdosed, and it was the scariest thing I had ever seen- I was afraid as an adult, and I couldn't even begin to imagine how it was being seven years old and seeing that.

I held her close to me that morning while she sniffled into my chest- she alternated between full on sobbing and delicate sniffles into our clothes, but she always had tears in her eyes when she saw us.

On the other hand, Remy had seemed to have lost their voice. I hadn't heard them talk since they arrived, and even Hudson pointed it out a few times because he wanted to play with his cousins. It worried me, because Remy was usually so bubbly, and they always had something to say, but now it was radio silence and it was rather terrifying.

That morning, Lennon slowly rubbed over my stomach while Olivia went hard against my skin- she was always hyper in the morning, and she was getting worse now that she could feel how upset Lennie was.

"Do you want to talk about it now, Lennon?" I asked, quietly, and she quickly shook her head. "Babe, you're going to have to go to a doctor soon if you don't tell anything to uncle Bri and I." I hated to threaten her like that, but we were going to have to take her to a psychologist if she didn't start talking- both her and Remy would have to go. "Can you just tell me about when you found daddy?" I whispered and her little sniffle turned into a choked sob. "Was it scary when you found him?" She quickly started nodding, and I bit my bottom lip- maybe that was a stupid question.

She took a deep breath, trying to keep the sobbing quiet, and I kissed the top of her head a few times before brushing her hair down- John always did that to calm her down. I remembered it from when she was a baby, and the only way he could get her to stop crying was to play with her little tufts of hair- I assumed that she still liked it, because her crying stopped a bit and she made little hiccupping noises against my chest.

"He just kinda looked like he was sleeping." She whispered, her voice sounding torn and broken. I didn't know if he had overdosed on heroin or cocaine, because I heard that they had done both- and Brian had said something about pills, so there was something else in there. "And he looked so little when he was sleeping." She added and I felt vomit rising from my stomach. "But when I went to wake him up... he didn't wake up, and he was really, really cold- but daddy's always cold, so I didn't know if that meant he was just having a nap or not." She explained, fiddling with the bottom of my shirt.

"You don't have to keep going, Lennie. I don't want it to scare you." I whispered, but she shook her head.

"Then Remy told me to listen to his heart, because his heart is always really fast, but when I listened there was none- or maybe it was just really slow and quiet, I can't remember." She murmured, and I nodded while I rubbed her back. "And Papa wasn't home, so I went to the phone and I called the police, because he said to call the police if something bad happens- because they're famous, so they get help faster." She shrugged, then she curled up a little more. "And the police said I was really brave, then I had to open the door for them so they could come and get daddy, then they had a lot of people come into our house and he was taken away by doctors- but the doctors had to cut his neck and put a tube in, and that made Remy cry." She continued and I just nodded again, biting my lip while I tried to keep tears in. "Then the police told us that we had to go with him to the hospital and we had to sit there while we waited for uncle Brian to come." She finished and I quickly wiped my eyes before she saw me.