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“Well, at least you have your health, Robert – you don't have real things to worry about like me.”
“Tristan, because I take care of my mental health, I don't have to drink myself into early stage renal failure.”
Capt. Robert Edward Ludlow Sr. contented himself with that retort to Tristan Green, the other grandfather of Eleanor (11), Edwina (8), and Lil' Robert Ludlow (5) through Mr. Green's daughter and Capt. Ludlow's son. There was quite a lot more he might have said … but the love of Christ, Eleanor, Edwina, and Lil' Robert restrained him.
Capt. Ludlow well understood that addicts tend to get into relationships with addicts. His children used drugs and so wanted partners on their level. The difference was the vices of the respective families: the Greens were social drinkers gotten out of hand, and their children had just gone to the next level. Capt. Ludlow had to hold his tongue on that as well, since he knew his Ludlow Bubbly was more than 200 years younger than the Ludlow Winery owned by his cousins. Not that the Greens could afford Ludlow wine and did not drink anything as weak as soda … yet.
“Look, Tristan, if you promise to go into treatment, I'll personally keep you in bubbly that won't kill you. I love our shared grandchildren that much.”
“Look, Robert, you make good soda, but that's not what I need to keep me going. The memories I have – the things I've seen!”
Capt. Ludlow was a 33-year Army veteran, and before that had seen a triple murder in childhood and after that had buried his own children, but because Tristan Green had not even been able to face that same day of burying his daughter fully sober, the captain again held his tongue. Every man's burden was his own; no comparison was righteous.
“I keep flashing back to that funeral, too,” the captain said, instead. “I don't think I'll ever get fully over it, but one of the things about getting mental health treatment in addition to treatment for addiction is that we can learn to grow strong again around our wounds once they have healed.”
“Well, you paid for all that for your children and mine, and it didn't work!”
Capt. Ludlow saw red, because Mr. Green had done nothing – but still moderated his still-devastating response.
“They didn't want it, Tristan. They did not love you or me enough.”
Mr. Green gasped at the surfacing of that truth.
“That's the problem with addiction – it's idolatry, and our children decided to die for their god. Yours is alcohol, and you are going to damnation for it, because you do not love your wife and your remaining children and your grandchildren enough. You are being derelict in your duty to God as a husband, father, and grandfather for your god, Tristan – you don't want better, and as long as you want your god, more than you want good, right, and your family you will continue to be doomed and damned. Christ can save you, and treatment can help you, but you don't want them either, and that's why you will follow your daughter to the grave as an even bigger fool – an old fool.”
Silence.
“No one has ever dared to talk to me like this!” Mr. Green howled.
“Better late than never,” Capt. Ludlow said.
Then Capt. Ludlow got cussed out … briefly, because his basso profundo laughter undercut it into silence.
“Tristan, I'm a 33-year Army man. You need to get into treatment here in Lofton County so you are sober around enough veterans to learn enough to impress me in the attempt to cuss.”
Silence … and then Mr. Green started laughing.
“Robert, you are nuts!”
“The difference between us is that I know, and so I am in treatment. See, Lees, Ludlows, and Slocum-Bollings don't have Green vices. I went into the Army because it was a more peaceful path than we often get on.”
Capt. Ludlow heard Mr. Green jump.
“Yeah, Tristan. Now you know, twelve years after you did nothing to encourage your daughter not to make three children with my son. Now you know, two years after never thinking: 'How did Robert get all my grandchildren and the four other ones away from all these different people all over the country into his custody so fast?'
“We're not the same, Tristan. My son had to be on drugs to deal with your daughter, and your daughter had to be on drugs and you too drunk to notice that mine was not the family to casually link up with. But because none of y'all were sober, we're here now, and while I'm not going to dig up my son and your daughter to beat their remains to a pulp like I think of doing every other day, you're in reach, and you keep calling to say dumb stuff to me. Do you understand now why I'm in mental health treatment and you need to get saved and sober up? You may catch me on the wrong day, Tristan – and what's my Army nickname again?”
Later that day, Capt. Robert Edward 'Hell to Pay' Ludlow called his eldest granddaughter, eleven-year-old Eleanor, and used his most heavenly tones.
“My darling, your grandfather Tristan is out of the hospital, and he and Grandmother Isabelle have checked into New Beginnings Resort for their alcohol addiction. Keep praying. We may not lose them after all.”
Eleanor broke down crying with relief, and then ran to tell everybody … and Capt. Ludlow wept on the other end of the phone silently, because it was for her happiness that he extended his love for her, and the love of Christ, to Tristan and Isabelle Green.
Col. H.F. Lee, guardian of Eleanor and the other Ludlow grandchildren while their Ludlow grandparents were away, called his cousin a little later.
“New Beginnings is expensive, R.E.,” he said. “I know you came across with the deposit. I have your back, for the love and sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, and also Eleanor, Edwina, and Lil' Robert, all of whom would have the Green grandparents saved and healed.”