We were standing around the cheese and cracker table on Christmas.
Nothing fancy.... a couple fabulous dips, some sharp cheddar and a half-empty box of Carr’s water crackers. The kind of table people gather around because nobody knows what else to do with their hands. The conversation was easy and going well considering I was with my ex and her mom. We talked about the Shepkids. We talked about the weather. Old stories that still worked, the kind that make people smile without effort. The kind you tell when you are grateful nobody is digging. Then the conversation zigged and zagged, like conversations do, and it landed in 2010. That was when my ex-wife said it.
"That was when you were 'incapacitated'."
The word didn’t fail.
It hung.
It took aim.
It hit me harder than Speckman ever did in an Oklahoma drill back at Dear Old Cathedral.
Her eyes were steady when she said it. Not dramatic... Not cruel, but mad, hurt, and sad... all braided together. That word carried weight for her. It carried memory and it carried cost.
She left it wide open. I could have shut it down and maybe steer back to weather and cheese, or I could walk straight into it.
I walked straight into it.....
I was between jobs in 2010. My position in the bond room had been eliminated, and for the first time in my career, I was unemployed. George was four and Fritz was a newborn. I took unemployment and became a stay-at-home dad. A short-term plan that stretched longer than expected. Somewhere in the middle of that hiatus, I pulled a full Burgermeister Meisterburger. I stepped over a toy on the stairs and ripped my quad clean.
Now I wasn’t just unemployed. I was unemployed and in a cast.
I slept on the pull-out couch in the living room. My ex suddenly had to carry a baby, a toddler, and an incapacitated husband. The tension started the moment I came home from the hospital. What I thought helped, actually made everything worse. The Vicodin prescription Hinsdale Orthopedics sent home with me. Three refills of ninety pills for a total of 270. It was perfectly legal at the time. It was perfectly normal and it was perfectly reckless. Today, you might be lucky if they give you ten.
I had worked on the trading floor in the late ’80s and through the ’90s. I saw addictions up close... cocaine, booze, ecstasy, weed. I also saw careers die. There were funerals for people that were still young. I didn’t think I was an addictive person, but if you give anyone that much of a drug that quiets pain and anxiety at the same time, you are going to find the soft spot.
I loved my Vicos.
I loved them with breakfast. I loved them with lunch. I played with George and rocked Fritz while I was clouded by this powerful opioid. They paired well with vodka, gin, bourbon and especially beer. As my rehab continued, the pills became my helper.
While my body healed, something else quietly slipped. I turned my attention into being a father and I stopped being a full-time husband.
I moved from the couch to the bedroom floor, sleeping with the Shepley brothers. Nights were about bottles and diapers, not conversation. The smiles faded and the hugs disappeared. Kisses became rare and the Vicos made sex nearly impossible.
Add in a move to a better school district, the weight of not working, and you can cue Earth, Wind & Fire’s "After the Love Has Gone." You could hear it without the radio. It became the theme song of our marriage.
For her, that word, "incapacitated" holds all of that. For me, at the time, it was shits and giggles. I was numb, I was medicated, I was detached.
Then the last bottle ran out and the brace came off. The crutches disappeared and so did the love. Here is the strange grace of it, when the last Vicodin was gone, I didn’t go searching for more. I didn’t spiral deeper, but the damage didn’t care. I hadn’t just ripped a muscle above my knee. I also ripped up my marriage.
I was tired of sitting around and being a loser. I went back to the Board of Trade one last time, the way I did when I was a snot-nosed kid looking for a shot. I walked around the bond room. It was empty, grim, filled with men staring into the end of something. Then I walked into the grain room, where there was still noise, still life. I met my boss and started immediately. I have been with the same trading company for fifteen years now.
One good thing came out of that hiatus, but at a high cost.
My wife and I fell out of love. The magic didn’t explode; it evaporated. We became guardians of the Shepkids. Partners in logistics only. We became Co-parents. No longer lovers and no longer friends. Just two adults carrying painful history.
... and all of it came flooding back from one word at a Christmas table.
"Incapacitated."
This isn’t a Christmas ghost story. It has no redemption arc or gifts of the Magi. There isn't a Red Ryder BB gun to shoot your eye out with. Just a chapter from the opioid prescription era, where a legal bottle quietly changed the trajectory of a family. No amount of money, reputation, success, or late apologies can reverse what’s already been lived. The past doesn’t negotiate and it doesn’t refinance. It just sits there with the ledger closed, daring you to tell the truth about it.
Today the tree comes down and maybe one last eggnog. Life keeps moving, whether we are ready or not.
