by Amy Hatvany
“Just tired, I think,” I said, clearing my throat. Which was true. My head throbbed. I needed Advil and I needed it fast. “See you in a few.” I hung up with a sigh and shook Charlie awake. “Come on, baby. We need to get you to school.”
I managed to get him dressed and out the front door in less than fifteen minutes.
“You forgot to give me breakfast, Mama,” Charlie said in the car.
“Shit,” I said, reaching over to my purse and rooting around as I drove. My head was heavy and I had to fight to keep my eyes open. I found a slightly squished cereal bar beneath my wallet and handed it back to my son.
“It’s all mushy,” he said.
“It’s all I have,” I snapped. I heard the crumpling of the foil wrapper and then immediately felt like crying for yelling at my son.
We pulled up in front of the bright yellow church that was converted ten years earlier into one of the most highly rated north Seattle preschools on record. Charlie raced to the front door and I walked slowly behind him. Lisa’s pert, pretty face appeared in the window before she came out to greet us in the hallway.
“Hey, Charlie,” she said, mussing his hair with her fingers. “Everyone else is already in circle time. Why don’t you go join them?”
I smiled and crouched down, wobbling on the balls of my feet as I did so. “Come give me a hug, baby,” I said, and Charlie jumped over to kiss me good-bye. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
After Charlie was gone, Lisa looked at me, concerned. “He seems like he’s okay,” she said, “but I’ll call you if he doesn’t feel well enough to stay.” She paused. “Did he eat?”
“Part of a cereal bar,” I said. I clutched my forearm over my stomach, hoping I wouldn’t be ill. I needed to leave, anxious to stop at the store and pick up more wine. “He didn’t have much of an appetite.”
“You don’t look like you feel very well, either,” Lisa said. Her eyebrows pulled together as she spoke.
I made a half-coughing, half-laughing sound. “I don’t, really. I might be coming down with whatever it was he had last night.” Liar, I thought. You’re just a huge, disgusting liar.
“Do you want me to call Martin and have him pick up Charlie so you can rest?”
“Oh, no,” I protested, waving my hand in front of my face. “I’ll be fine. I just need a little sleep.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice still hesitant. “Call me if you change your mind.”
“Thanks.” I got in my car, thinking there was no way in hell I wanted Martin to know the shape I was in. I drove to the other side of the freeway to the liquor store, not wanting to return to the market I’d been to the night before, fearful the same checker might still be working her shift. I didn’t want to be doing this. A violent war waged between my mind pleading no and my body screaming yes. My body won the battle every time.
Once home, I hurried into the kitchen and uncorked one of the four liters of Spanish merlot I’d bought, explaining to yet another checker about the imaginary dinner party I was hosting that night. I also stashed another gallon of vodka in the freezer, thinking I would leave it there and not touch it unless I ran out of wine. I would never have to leave Charlie alone again.
At the sound of the cork popping out of its tight confines, my mouth moistened. I poured the wine into my coffee mug and took three long, hard swallows, holding my breath until I felt the familiar warmth spread throughout my muscles. Tension unknotted itself in every fiber of my flesh. Thus momentarily relieved, I glided over to the kitchen table and fired up my laptop. I wanted to sleep, but I needed to work.
I opened Google, planning to begin research on the celebrated chef at the Dahlia Lounge. I thought I might be able to sell a quick and dirty profile piece on him to Seattle Gourmet. But instead of typing in his name, I found myself typing in the words, “Do I have a problem with alcohol?”
A long list of links popped up, and I clicked on one that indicated it contained a questionnaire. As I sipped tiny, measured amounts from the mug of wine I needed to make last for the next two hours before I went to pick up Charlie from school, I took the quiz.
“Have you ever decided to stop drinking for a week or so, but only lasted for a couple of days?” Yes. More times than I can count.
“Have you ever switched from one kind of drink to another in the hope that this would keep you from getting drunk?” Yes. The previous week I’d decided to only drink beer, reasoning it had a lower alcohol content than wine, and ended up drinking a twelve-pack in a single afternoon.
“Do you tell yourself you can stop drinking any time you want to, even though you keep getting drunk when you don’t mean to?” Yes. Over and over again.
When I clicked on the results, it said I had a problem and should consider seeking help. Discomfort snuck its way back into my body with every breath. I took the test again, switching my answers around, trying to make the computer prove there was nothing wrong with me. But no matter the answers I selected, no matter the number of times I tried, the results were clear. I didn’t understand how this could be. I wasn’t a partier—I didn’t drink in high school or college. Why was this happening to me now?
Staring at my hand wrapped around a coffee mug filled with wine, I felt utterly detached. I thought that particular appendage might belong to someone else. This couldn’t actually be me, sitting here drinking at 10:30 in the morning. This wasn’t me, a woman who left her child alone in the house.
Stop it, I thought. But then my arm lifted and before my mind could protest, the wine was on its way down.
Later that day, after picking Charlie up from school, I leaned against the counter in my tiny kitchen, bottle of merlot in my grasp. My son stood in the arched doorway, his almond-shaped eyes growing wide as he watched the scarlet fluid flow into my favorite moss green coffee mug. I tensed the muscles in my arms to control the tremors. I didn’t want Charlie to see me spill.
“That’s not coffee, Mama,” he said, hugging his worn, blue baby blanket tighter to his chest.
I averted my eyes from my child and gulped down two long swallows. It only took a moment for that familiar feeling to wash over me, like hot honey pushing through my veins. I closed my eyes, trying to hold on to it, knowing it would not stay.
“Want to watch TV?” I asked with a watered-down smile. We did this too often, lying on the couch with the curtains pulled, me drinking, my son entranced by cartoons.
“Okay,” he said. He turned around and padded into our living room. Charlie crawled up onto the couch and patted the cushion next to him. “Here, Mama. You sit next to me.”
“Where else would I sit, baby?” I asked, taking another pull on my wine. I took lurching, unsteady steps out of the kitchen and over to the front door, making sure the stainless-steel chain that Charlie couldn’t reach was secured. That way, in case I passed out, he couldn’t wander outside.
Dropping to the couch, I snuggled Charlie against me with one arm and gripped my drink at the end of the other. Already a seasoned pro at getting electronics to do as he commanded, he turned on the TV. The racket of banging and whistling side effects filled the room and my son settled back comfortably into the crook of my arm.
I closed my eyes. Only for a while, I thought. Only until he wakes up all the way. Then we’ll go to the store. Or the park. My breath came in short, cutting bursts, so I took another swallow, knowing the wine would slow my galloping pulse.
I pushed myself forward and filled my cup again. My son was watching an infomercial on some sort of kitchen gadget. “You want cartoons instead, sweetie?” A part of me knew I was slurring, but I told myself Charlie wouldn’t notice. He had a bit of a lisp himself.
“Yes, please,” he said. His eyelids were heavy. So were mine. I switched to the Cartoon Network and turned the volume down. I snuggled us beneath a blanket, my legs outstretched onto the coffee table. My eyes closed. Just a few minutes, I thought. Just a few minutes to rest.
“We’ll go to the park later,” Charlie said, making a statement ra
ther than asking me a question. “You’ll take me later.”
Violent guilt stormed inside me. The alcohol dilated my usually watertight emotions and opened a floodgate of tears. My child knew full well we would stay in the house with the blinds closed. I’d broken enough promises to him for him to know the truth.
Feeling my sobs, Charlie twisted around to look up at me, worry etched his fine features. He brushed the damp curls away from my face.
“What’s wrong, Mama?” he asked, resting one pudgy, moist palm on my cheek. “Did you have a bad dream?”
“I’m just so sad, honey,” I said, weeping. “Very, very sad.”
He used the silky edge of his blanket to wipe my face. “Don’t cry,” he said. “It’s okay. Don’t cry. I will take care of you.”
His words only made me cry more. It was not his job to comfort me. A mother should protect, not fall apart. I hated what I’d done; I hated who I was. I wasn’t sure I could do it anymore. So I did the only thing I knew would erase how I felt—I opened another bottle of wine.
I didn’t take Charlie to school the next morning. I was much too drunk to drive and I knew it. I could barely stay conscious. I lay on the couch, knocking back a swallow of wine every time I came to enough to lift the bottle to my mouth. I told myself to stop, but felt powerless against the compulsion. My hand reached out like it was under someone else’s command.
Charlie sat with me, watching TV. But the next time I struggled awake, he was gone.
“Charlie?” I called out, my tongue thick and unmanageable in my mouth. “Where are you, baby?”
“In the kitchen, Mommy,” he said. A few seconds later he was standing next to me. I peeled a single eye open and saw he had a yogurt in his hands. What time was it? When was the last time I’d fed him? My vision was too blurry to see the glowing blue digital numbers on the DVD player’s clock. I wasn’t sure if it was day or night.
Charlie touched my face. “Are you okay, Mommy?” he asked. “Please wake up.”
I fell back into oblivion. My cell rang several times, but the sound was muted, as though traveling through water. My body was leaden, weighted to the couch; I couldn’t have stood up to answer the phone if I’d tried.
More time passed, and then, suddenly, there was a pounding at the door. “Cadence?” Martin said. He knocked again. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think.
“Daddy!” Charlie cried. “Mommy’s sick.”
“Go to the back door, Charlie,” Martin’s voice instructed. “Can you unlock it and let Daddy in?”
No, I thought, struggling to convince my body to wake up. It would not cooperate. My eyes refused to open. I floated in and out of awareness, trying to balance on the slippery edges of unconsciousness.
I heard the back door squeak on its hinges. The sound of footsteps. Martin’s hand on my shoulder, shaking me. “Cadence, I’m taking Charlie with me,” he said. “I’m going to pack a bag and bring him to my house.” His words were muffled, but I could still detect his disgust. It soaked through my skin and melded with my own.
I still couldn’t open my eyes. The front door slammed shut and I drifted back into the dark, far, far away from the truth.
Several hours later, I awoke with a start, my heartbeat chugging in my chest like a freight train. I groped for the bottle of wine on the table, opening my eyes just long enough to see it was empty. Kitchen, I thought. More in the kitchen.
I rolled onto the floor and crawled into the kitchen, pulling myself up to the table where there was another liter of merlot. The last liter. If that didn’t do it, the vodka in the freezer would.
Charlie. The thought of my son pummeled me, and it all came rushing back. Martin, pounding on the door. Taking Charlie away.
“No,” I creaked. “No, no, no.” Oh God, he’d taken my son. What was I going to do? I had to call Martin. I had to make this right.
It took me three tries to get his number punched into my cell phone correctly. It rang once, then went straight to voicemail. “Martin,” I said, trying to make my voice sound as calm as possible. “I took a medication that reacted with a glass of wine. That’s why I was on the couch.” My words were soupy and loose. I could barely understand them myself. “Please. Bring Charlie home.” I hung up, knowing he would not call me back, knowing I was a liar.
Oh dear God, what had I done? I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live in a world where I’ve hurt my child. He deserves better than this. He deserves better than me.
With my hand around the neck of the bottle before me, my gaze moved to the counter where the bottle of Advil sat. I wondered how many it would take to end this. To end me.
The shrill of my cell phone made me jump. I grabbed it and answered, thinking that against the odds Martin might be calling.
“Cadence?” It was Jess. “Are you okay? Martin called me and said he had to come get Charlie.”
I began to sob, in huge, body-racking movements. “He took him, Jess. He’s gone. How did he know? How did Martin find out?”
“The preschool called him when you didn’t show up with Charlie.” She sighed. “What are you doing, Cadence? What the hell is going on?”
“I’m looking at a bottle of pills,” I said in a sudden wash of calm. What I needed to do was clear. “And a glass of Spanish merlot.”
“Cadence, don’t you dare,” my sister yelled into the phone. “Don’t you fucking dare! I’m on my way over, do you hear me? I’m on my way right now.”
I sat numbly, waiting with my hand on the glass, floating in and out of awareness. Before I knew it, my sister was through the back door. “Did you take anything?” she asked, snatching both the bottle and the glass of wine and pouring the contents down the kitchen sink.
“No,” I said, weeping.
“Where’s the rest?” she demanded, grabbing my chin and making me look at her.
“What?” I asked, blinking heavily.
“The rest of the alcohol, Cadee. Where is it?”
“Vodka. In the freezer.”
She let go of my chin and strode over to the refrigerator, slinging open the freezer door. She rooted around for a minute, then pulled out the gallon of icy, clear booze. It went down the sink, just like the wine. “Is that it?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She stormed down the hallway, then returned with a bag stuffed with a wad of my clothes. “Here,” she said, throwing a pair of flip-flops next to my feet. I slipped them on.
Wrapping my arm over her shoulders, she half dragged, half carried me to her car.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I climbed into the passenger seat. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Her expression morphed into a strange mix of sadness and fear, but she didn’t respond. She slammed my door shut, raced around the front of her car, and hopped behind the wheel.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“The hospital,” she said. She didn’t talk to me about my drinking. She didn’t say she knew why Martin took Charlie away. All she said was, “You’re going to be fine.” Over and over she repeated this to me as I rocked back and forth in the leather front seat of her Lincoln SUV, my heart racing, sobs shredding every breath.
“This is not me,” I whispered through the tears, “this is not who I am.”
“Yes,” my sister said. “It is.”
Nine
The emergency room at the University of Washington Hospital was a surprisingly busy place the late-January night I won the stare-down with that bottle of pills. It took almost an hour for a nurse to get to us, and when she finally did, Jess ended up answering most of her questions. It had been several hours since I’d taken a drink, but I was still pretty looped. The nurse gave me a dose of something called Librium, which she told Jess would help calm my anxiety. I told her I was pretty confident I’d need more than a single dose.
“Someone will be here to take her up to the fourth floor soon,” the nurse said, ignoring my comment. “You can wait with her here, but you can’t go upstairs.”
“They’re coming to take me away, ha ha,” I murmured. “To the funny farm, where life is beautiful all the time . . .”
“Shh,” Jess said. She pushed my hair back from my face. Her blue eyes shone. When she blinked, a plump, perfectly formed tear rolled down her cheek. As the intern arrived to wheel me to the psych ward, Jess cupped my face in her hands and kissed my forehead. “Please, Cadence. Please. Get better.”
“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes. I didn’t know how that was possible. My drinking was out of control. Martin took Charlie. Sorrow spiraled into my bones like a thousand tiny metal screws. It was agonizing. Any movement made me want to cry out. Save me, please. Please, please, make this pain go away.
Once upstairs, I lay on the gurney in a hallway because the room they said was open was still being cleaned after the last patient had used it. What happened to that patient? I wondered. Did she get well? Do crazy people suddenly become sane? Am I crazy?
A tall, adolescent-looking doctor came to stand next to me, a clipboard in hand. “Hello, Cadence. I’m Dr. Wright.”
“You barely look old enough to drink,” I said. Though I had begun to sober up, I was still rummy and slurring my words. “Are you sure you’re a doctor?”
“I’m a third-year psychiatric resident. So yes, I’m a doctor. I’m going to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right with you.”
“Fine.” I felt deflated. Empty. My entire body was numb. Who cares if this man was a child. What difference does it make? It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Charlie is gone.
“Okay, great. Can you tell me why you’re here?”
“I drank too much.”
“What’s ‘too much’?”
“A couple of bottles of wine a day.”
“How long have you been drinking that heavily?”
“Heavily?” I felt vaguely stupid for repeating the word, but my thoughts were clouded. I was having a difficult time getting my brain to function the way I wanted it to. “About a year, I think.”
“And before that? How much did you drink?”