Best Kept Secret

by Amy Hatvany

  Martin takes a deep breath. “The calls were always late at night. She would cry and tell me she was scared, but she wouldn’t tell me what she was scared of. And it was odd, because she isn’t someone who cries a lot. Her words were slurred and she’d repeat herself over and over. I’d usually have to hang up on her.”

  “Are you sure you don’t remember any of those calls?” Mr. Hines asks me.

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” I look at Martin. “I guess I more remember the feeling of them.”

  Martin’s head whips around at the same words he used to describe his memory of his father on our first date. His eyes flash, but he doesn’t say a word.

  I drop my gaze to the floor. Quiet, fractured memories drift through my mind. Memories of things I’d said to Martin with my phone in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Memories of tears. But the specific conversations were just out of reach.

  “Is it possible you blacked out during them?”

  My stomach twists and I stop shaking my foot. “Yes. I suppose it’s possible.” Probable, actually.

  “Did you ever ask Charlie about his mother’s drinking?” Mr. Hines asks Martin.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Martin nod. “After Christmas, I asked him if he had seen his mommy drinking out of a wineglass. He told me yes. I asked him if it was a lot, and he sort of shrugged and wouldn’t look at me. I told him it was okay that he tell me and he said ‘yeah.’ ”

  “Yeah, what?” Mr. Hines pushes.

  Martin sighs. I recognize the sound; he’s not exasperated, only tired. He’s not enjoying talking about these things any more than I am. “Yeah, she was drinking a lot. He told me she was sleepy a lot, too. And had headaches.”

  Tears burn in the back of my throat. I swallow twice, hard, trying to keep them down. The muscles in my chest feel like they’re trapped in a vise. I take a couple of deep breaths and then turn to look at Martin. “If you were so concerned,” I ask, “why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you sit me down and talk to me about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Martin says. “I guess I trusted you on some level. That you’d keep a handle on it. You’ve always held everything together.”

  “Did you think you might be imagining it was happening?” Mr. Hines asked Martin.

  My ex-husband shook his head. “No, not imagining. More thinking that it wasn’t every night. She wasn’t a heavy drinker when we were together. Or before that, as far as I knew. I thought maybe it was something she’d do a couple of times and then stop. Like maybe it was some kind of weird phase she was going through.”

  “But she didn’t stop.”

  “No.”

  I am quiet, trying to breathe. My face is on fire.

  “Are you all right?” Mr. Hines asks me. “Is hearing these kinds of things difficult?”

  “Of course it is,” I say, my voice low. What a stupid question.

  “A little frightening, too, I imagine, not remembering things that you’ve done.”

  I nod. I hate this. Incomprehensible demoralization.

  “When did you decide you had to act, Martin?” Mr. Hines asks. “When did you begin to worry Charlie might be in danger?”

  “When his preschool teacher made a couple of comments to me about Charlie being late a lot and then being out sick a few days in January.”

  I feel him look over to me, but I can’t meet his gaze. The tightness in my chest rises, pushing up through my throat until the tears trickle down my cheeks. I can’t stop them. I keep my eyes on the floor, still listening.

  Martin sighs. “Cadence hadn’t said anything to me about it, which I thought was strange. She usually let me know if he had a cold or something like that if I was going to have him for the weekend. The teacher also said something about Cadence looking like she’d been fighting something off for quite a while. Like she had the flu. I knew she looked more tired than I remembered seeing her before, but it made me more aware, I guess, when the teacher pointed it out, too. Like I should be looking out for something.” He took a deep breath. “And then the teacher called me one morning and said Charlie wasn’t in school again. And that Cadence had called before and didn’t ‘sound right.’ So I got in my car, went to her house, and took him away.” His eyes leave me and direct their attention back to Mr. Hines.

  I’m afraid I might throw up. Oh God. Who is this woman they are talking about? It can’t be me. It can’t. And yet I know it is. I rip open the gauze and I see the truth. I’d never been so drunk—I knew I couldn’t drive. I thought it was better to keep Charlie home with me. I remember my son letting his father in the door. I remember being so drunk I couldn’t protest when Martin took him away.

  I remember a few hours later, wishing I were dead.

  “What happened then, Martin?” Mr. Hines asks.

  “She called and left me a message on my phone. She said she’d taken some kind of medication and had a bad reaction to it. She was completely drunk.”

  I remember doing this. I remember the desperation I felt—the sheer unadulterated desperation. It was close to the sickening shame I feel now.

  “And then?” Mr. Hines asks.

  Martin rolls his shoulders back like he’s trying to alleviate tension in his neck. “Her sister called me the next day and told me Cadence had admitted herself to the psychiatric ward and would be going into treatment for the drinking. I told her I would keep Charlie, of course. And then I called my mother and asked her to watch him while I figured out what to do. She suggested I call Child Protective Services and get their advice.”

  I’ll bet she did. I attempt to wipe the tears from my face. I’ll bet she offered to make the call herself.

  “You’ve been quiet, Ms. Sutter,” Mr. Hines says. “Are you okay?”

  I give a quick nod. Sure, I’ve been sitting here weeping, reliving the most horrific night of my life. But I’m fine. Just great.

  “Do you have anything you’d like to ask Martin?”

  I take a deep breath, not wanting my voice to splinter when I speak. It does anyway. “Why did you have to call CPS? Why didn’t you just wait for me to get into treatment and then talk to me? We could have found a different way through this. Charlie could have stayed with you while I was in treatment and then come back home. Or we could have worked out some other kind of schedule, so you’d feel more comfortable that I was better before he came back. You don’t need to take him away from me.”

  Martin attempts to look impassive, but I can see the emotion wrestling around behind that mask. “I wanted to talk to a professional. They recommended I file for custody. I did what I thought was best for Charlie. I want to protect my son.”

  CPS and his lawyer have told him that the correct response to an ex-wife’s drinking problem is to file for custody. Nothing I say will change his mind.

  “What if we were still married and I developed this problem?” I ask, still ridiculously optimistic I can frame it to him in a different way. “Would you have immediately picked up and left me and taken Charlie away? Or would you have helped me get through treatment and find a way to manage it with our family still intact?”

  “Our family’s not intact,” Martin says. His tone is guarded.

  He might as well have slapped me. I suppose whatever mistakes he has made are now irrelevant. In his mind, my drinking trumps them all.

  Still, we hold each other’s gaze for a moment. I see two distinct moments from our life together: his wide smile the first night we met, then the light in his eyes when I told him he was going to be a father. My heart aches.

  “I would understand it better if I had done this more than once,” I finally say. “If I was going through treatment for a second or third or fourth time. Or if I wouldn’t go at all. But I’m not. I screwed up. I take total responsibility for what I’ve done. I’m also starting to understand that my problem with drinking isn’t only about alcohol.”

  “Really,” Martin says, doubtful. “What’s it about then?”

  “I g
uess it’s more about how I think. How I’ve learned to push down any kind of negative feelings. Some people get addicted to food or shopping or work or sex. I got addicted to alcohol.”

  “I’m sorry, but I think that’s kind of a copout,” Martin says. “Like you’re not responsible. I think it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, I have a disease that made me do this.’”

  “You think this is easy? You think anything about what I’m going through right now is easy? You’re trying to take my son away from me. None of this is easy.” My voice escalates; I pause for a moment before continuing. “I’m not making excuses, Martin. How many times do I have to tell you I’ve owned up to what I did wrong? And now I’m doing everything I know how to to get help and never let it happen again. Trying to take custody away from me is just making things worse. For everyone. Charlie included.”

  Mr. Hines clears his throat. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean my son isn’t used to being away from me. I mean he has to be struggling with why everything has changed.”

  “Do you talk to him about it?” Mr. Hines asks.

  “In a way,” I say. “I tell him his daddy just wants some extra time with him right now. I think he’s too young to understand a complicated concept like custody. I don’t want him to feel like he has to choose between us.”

  Mr. Hines nods, and I hope this means he approves of how I’m handling the issue with Charlie.

  “What about you, Martin?” he says.

  “I’ve told him I want things to stay like this, his living with me, but there’s a very smart man who’s going to help us decide if it’s the right thing to do.”

  Oh, please. Brownnose, much? It takes all my strength not to roll my eyes to the ceiling.

  “Is there anything else you’d like to say to Martin?” Mr. Hines asks me.

  “Like what?” I don’t take my eyes off Martin, who won’t look at me. The tips of his ears are red—proof positive I’ve ticked him off. I didn’t set out to make him angry, but part of me can’t help but be a little bit happy I did.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

  I look back to Mr. Hines. “No. I don’t think there’s anything else I need to say.”

  I can’t defend myself after what I’ve done. There’s nothing I can say to change my past behavior or how Martin reacted to it. He only hears what he wants to hear. He only hears what allows him to continue to be right.

  “How is Charlie doing with all of this?” Mr. Hines asks Martin.

  Martin breaks out his jocular grin. “He’s great. I’ve kept his routine as close to what he’s used to as possible.” He goes on to recount Charlie’s summer day camp activities and play dates at the park.

  I close my eyes. I can’t do this anymore. There’s nothing left to say. I gave Charlie that routine. I am his mother. It was my job, and I lost it.

  Twenty-four

  Though he told me not to expect to hear from him unless something significant came up, when there’s no immediate word from Scott about my joint meeting with Martin and Mr. Hines, I become even more twitchy and unsettled. Working at the restaurant and getting the house cleaned up and ready to sell does help, but there are still too many hours in the day where my mind wanders into dangerous places. I worry that my mother’s silence means I’m not going to like what she has to say. I worry that treatment won’t make a difference, that Mr. Hines has already made up his mind and is simply going through the motions to make his decision look impartial.

  “You don’t know that,” Nadine tells me when I call her and tell her my fears. “And you can’t control what he’s thinking or what decision he’s going to make. The sooner you come to peace with that fact, the better. When I get as wound up as you are right now, the only thing that works for me is getting out of myself and doing something to help another alcoholic.”

  “Help them how? Like clean their house? Or make them soup?”

  “Sure, if you want. Or, you can just pick up the phone. Listening to what someone else is going through is a great way to quit moping around.”

  I’m not moping, I think, but then realize she is right, which irritates the hell out of me. It dawns on me that I’ve spent a lot of my time over the past couple of years feeling sorry for myself for one reason or another—sorry that my career didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to; sorry that my marriage ended and that I couldn’t stop drinking. Poor pitiful me.

  I decide to send Martin another e-mail about Charlie’s birthday party. E-mail feels safer than talking with him on the phone; something about the sound of his voice makes it difficult for me to keep my emotions under control. Charlie’s birthday is only six weeks away and if I’m going to convince Martin to hold our son’s party at Bouncy Land, I’m going to have to do it soon.

  Dear Martin,

  I understand that you and Alice want to have a low-key birthday party for Charlie this year. I just feel like we should maybe respect what Charlie wants, too, and he told me he wants to have his party at Bouncy Land. I’d also really like to make his cake—he wants the same chocolate mud cake I’ve made him every year. The one with all the gummy worms on it? It’s kind of a tradition.

  I’m not trying to start an argument with you. But with all that is going on, I just want to give Charlie the birthday party he deserves.

  As usual, I get Martin’s prompt response.

  Cadence,

  I talked with Charlie after our last e-mail about this. He told me he wants a backyard pool party at his omi’s house. So that’s what we’re going to do. Again, if you want to bring the goody bags for the other kids to take home, that would be great. But my mother is going to make the cake. I really don’t feel like we need to discuss this anymore, okay? See you later.

  This is nuts. Why is he being such an ass? I suppose, like everything else right now, I have to find a way to let it go. Now if someone could just tell me how the hell to make that happen, I’d be fine.

  Discontent and frustration weight me to my chair. Though I know I should, I don’t want to go to a meeting. Andi’s voice plays in my head: When I don’t want to go to a meeting is when I probably need to be there most.

  I decide to do what Nadine suggested and call Laura instead, see if I can help her in some small way. I don’t understand why I’m sober and she’s not. We went to the same treatment classes, we did the same assignments. We wrote about our “losses” and “yets”—things we lost due to drugs and alcohol and things that we have yet to lose, but will if we drank or used again. Was her list of losses not significant enough? All I wrote for my list of losses was a single word: “Charlie.” The fear of that loss becoming permanent has been sufficient to keep me from drinking. Maybe Laura didn’t feel like she had anything left to lose.

  She squeals happily when I ask if I can take her to dinner, telling me she’ll be waiting at the curb. Punching the address she gives me into my GPS, I follow the lulling, computerized instructions to a neighborhood not too far from Northgate Mall. The beginning of dusk drapes a misty purple curtain around me as I drive along; the feathery arms of towering evergreens fall black against the quickly fading sky.

  I see Laura standing on the parking strip in front of a pale yellow, two-story Craftsman, as she promised she would be. She climbs into my car, leans over to hook a skeletal arm around my neck, hugging me to her. I catch a whiff of alcohol on her breath. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe I just imagined it.

  “Hey, lady,” she says. “It’s so good to see you.” Her voice is thin, tired, a mere shadow of the robust girl I first met at Promises. I am only a little over a decade older than Laura; still, I always feel rather maternal around her—something about the hard-ass but false shell she presents to the world, I think. Some part of me feels compelled to warn her against the long-term hazards of maintaining that kind of bravado.

  I smile. “You, too.” I glance at her out of the corner of my eye as we drive away from the curb, attempting to surreptitiously assess her emaciated appearance. She wears a fitted,
short-sleeved lavender T-shirt, exposing enough skin for me to see a collection of angry, abusive bruises splattered across her forearms. They stand out like piles of ripe berries smashed against a snow white blanket. The left side of her face, right beneath her eye, is swollen and stitched in a two-inch, crisscrossed, black-bloody line. I make a low, whistling noise. “What happened? It looks painful.”

  She shrugs, fiddling with the controls of my stereo. Her fingernails are chewed to the quick; bloody, ragged skin frames each one. “I don’t remember, really,” she says. “The docs in the ER say someone beat the hell out of me.” She laughs, an empty, joyless sound. “Obviously. It looks worse than it feels.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I say quietly.

  “Don’t be,” she says. “You didn’t have anything to do with it.” She attempts a cheery grin. “Where do you want to eat?”

  “You choose,” I say. “You look like you could use a steak.” And a couple gallons of ice cream, I silently muse. Daily, for a couple of weeks, at least. If she’s been drinking, maybe the food will help sober her up.

  “I could use ten steaks,” she agrees. Her tone is flat, a pummeled thing.

  It doesn’t take long to find a steakhouse back near the mall. As we walk inside, the low, soothing moans of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue album pour out of artfully hidden speakers, rich and smooth, subtly muting the conversations of the other diners. Heavy velvet scarlet curtains line the walls, dim-lit candelabras and flickering hurricane candles only serve to add to an atmosphere of quiet intimacy.

  I’m glad for this atmosphere, conducive to private conversation, even though I’m not entirely sure what to say to her. And yet, I want to ask her what happened. How did you get here? I’ll say. Tell me what I should do to keep from ending up in the same place.

  “So,” I begin, haltingly. “How are you?”