“Why didn’t you ask for help?” I ask. “It’s what you and Dad always tell me to do when I’m stressed out.” Not that I’ve listened lately.
“I guess I—” Mom briefly meets Monica’s eyes. “No, there’s no guessing. The reason is that I didn’t want to worry you two. I didn’t want you to see me as weak. Or a bad role model.”
“I’d never see you as weak—” Dad starts, at the same time that I jump in.
“Mom, you’re a great role model.”
Mom waves her hands around to encompass the entire room, then the grounds of Pine Knolls out the window. “A great role model? Anna the Alcoholic?” She snorts. “Hey, look at that. It even sounds good.”
“Anna.” Monica gives Mom a look. Apparently therapist looks and Mom looks are quite similar. I wonder if they give each other lessons.
Mom sighs. “I know, I know. I’m in here now. I’m an alcoholic. I can’t change that and I never can.”
Never is a really long time. “Does that mean you’ll always be an alcoholic?” It’s what they told us in school. It’s what Dad talked to me about and what Libby and I fear.
It doesn’t make sense, though. Shouldn’t Mom know now that alcohol is bad for her? How could she still want it? It’s like when I was a little kid and touched a hot iron. After the burn I got, I sure didn’t want to do that ever again.
This whole experience hurts more than that burn ever did.
“I’ll always be an alcoholic.” A tear drips down Mom’s cheek. “I don’t want to be, but I know that ignoring it will only make things worse.”
“What do you mean?”
Mom crosses her legs, then uncrosses them. She pulls her legs up on her chair and sits on them. She wiggles around like she has ants in her pants. “I could leave here and say that I’m better. After all, I haven’t had a drink in thirty-five days.”
Dad reaches out and gives her a hug. “That’s amazing, Anna.”
Mom smiles. “It is. It’s been a struggle, but I’m at the point now where I don’t want to drink anymore. I don’t want my mind to be the way it was. I don’t want to act the way I did.”
I cross my arms. “Good. Because the way you acted stunk.”
I expect Monica to say I’m being rude. Or for Mom and Dad to yell at me for disrespecting them. No one says anything, though, and Monica even nods for me to keep talking. This therapy thing isn’t so bad.
“It did.” Mom nods, and actually cracks a smile. “It totally stunk. I was rude and I lied and I was basically a mess.”
“A total mess,” I agree. Am I lying now, too, though?
Mom winces. “I deserve that. And I hate knowing that my daughter saw me that way. Like I said, I want you to admire me. Which is why I came in here, even though I felt like I was deserting you.” She wipes another tear away. “I still feel like that.”
“I felt like that, too,” I say softly. “For awhile. Well, sometimes I still do.”
Another wince. I’m the total worst. I keep going, though. Honesty, right?
“And maybe that feeling of betrayal will never go away,” Mom says slowly. “Just like for me, no matter how much time I spend in recovery and how many days I’m sober, there’s always going to be a part of me that’s vulnerable to wanting a drink.”
“Always?” I ask.
“Always,” Mom says. “But vulnerable doesn’t mean that I will. Or that I want to. It just means I need to be careful.”
Now Dad speaks up. “That’s why your mom is going to be going to meetings, honey. Every day, in addition to the sessions with her therapist. She’s going to keep on top of this so that if she ever gets tempted to drink, either because of work or something else, she has an outlet. Someone to talk to.”
“But what about us?” I can’t stop myself from asking. “Can’t you talk to us?”
Mom smiles. “Oh, honey. I know I can always talk to you. I really do. But this isn’t your responsibility. It’s my problem to take care of.”
“But what if I want to help? What if I can help?” I grip my hands together tightly. “I’m doing everything I can, I promise.” A sob gets caught in my throat. “I’m trying, but it’s so hard. I’m doing everything all wrong!”
“Oh, honey!” Mom reaches out and takes one of my hands, squeezing it gently. “You don’t have to do anything. This is my responsibility, not yours.”
“But I have to help you get better! I have to make life normal when you come home. I have to … I have to…” I bury my head in my hands, my tears and snot soaking my skirt.
“You have to what?” Mom and Dad ask at the same time.
I shake my head, misery covering me like a blanket.
“This is a safe space, Veronica,” Monica says softly.
Is it? Is anywhere safe when alcoholism will be lurking around every corner for the rest of our lives?
“We want to hear what you have to say, honey.” Mom squeezes my hand again.
“Absolutely.” Dad looks confused, but his eyes are kind. I guess it must be weird to have to spend the whole month alone with me and suddenly realize that I have some big secret.
A secret that could ruin everything.
I guess I have to trust them, though. Trust Mom and Dad. Trust myself.
I take a deep breath and let it all out.
Thirty-Six
“I made the All-Star team.” Mom and Dad start to say something, so I hold up a hand to stop them. I can’t deal with another round of congratulations right now. “Wait. Let me finish.”
“Let her finish,” Monica adds. “This is her space now.”
I nod at her gratefully. “I made the All-Star team,” I say again. “But … I don’t know if I want to play.”
Mom’s eyes are wide. What am I doing? I should stop talking.
I can’t, though. My thoughts feel like a snowball rolling down a mountain, picking up more momentum by the second.
“I love playing. I really do.” I look at Mom, begging with my eyes for her to believe me. “I’m proud that I was good enough to make the team. I just … don’t love playing on that team. There’s so much pressure and Coach Ortiz is always yelling and if I play, I’m going to be so busy and I … I … well, I really liked singing this year.”
I feel like holding my hands over my eyes and peeking out like I’m watching a scary horror movie. My heart is pounding loud enough. I keep eye contact, though. I need to see how they really feel.
“You did seem to enjoy Chorus Club,” Dad says slowly.
“I loved it!” I exclaim. Why isn’t Mom saying anything? Did I mess everything up?
I talk faster to cover up my nervousness. “If I do the All-Star team I won’t be able to keep doing Chorus Club. And I want to. My new friend Libby and I have been practicing for the talent show, and, yeah, at first we wanted to win so we could afford softball, but now I just want to win because it’s been so much fun.” I take a deep breath. Mom doesn’t look mad. She looks confused, though, and twists around to look at Dad.
“Can’t afford softball? Why can’t we afford softball?”
Dad avoids Mom’s eyes. “It’s nothing you have to worry about, Anna. Really. I’m just being cautious.”
“No, I want to know.” Mom places her hands on each side of her, like she’s bracing herself. “Is this why you don’t want to play, Veronica? Because of some money issue?” She stares at Dad until he looks at her. “What money issue is this anyway? How could you make a decision like that without me?”
“Because I couldn’t talk to you!” Dad raises his voice, then takes a deep breath before continuing. “You’ve been in here, leaving me to figure everything out on my own!”
Mom shrinks back into her seat as Monica finally speaks up. (It took her long enough.) “Hold on a second. Let’s all communicate calmly.” She stares at each of us, one by one. She has a fierce therapist look, one that makes us all sit back and quiet down. “Veronica, let’s hear from you first.”
“Um.” I feel like I’m in f
ront of the class making a speech. “Dad said that it might be too much for me to do the All-Star team.”
Mom raises her eyebrows. “And he made this decision based on what?”
She’s doing that thing where it seems like she’s asking me something, but she’s really blaming Dad. It’s an advanced Mom trick. Monica’s on to her, though.
“Anna, if you have a question for Dan, please direct it to him.”
Mom sighs and turns toward Dad. “Why can’t Veronica play softball?” She sounds like she’s speaking from a script. I hope Dad knows his next line, because I sure don’t.
“I just thought that it wouldn’t be the best idea for us,” Dad says slowly. “Life will be busy now, Anna. Between your meetings and you maybe not going back to work and my jobs and me managing you—”
“Wait just a minute.” Mom holds up a hand like she’s a traffic cop waving a big red stop sign in Dad’s face. “Jobs, plural? Managing me? Me not working? What’s going on?”
“I got another job,” Dad says quietly. “At the hardware store. I was thinking that you might not want to go back to work, since you said that environment was part of what made you sick. This is my way of making your transition easier.”
Mom’s eyes soften, but her mouth is still a hard line. “Well, that’s very nice of you, Dan, but you forgot to talk to me first.”
“I’m just trying to take care of you, Annabelle.”
Whoa. Dad broke out Mom’s full name again. He must be really serious.
“By deciding things for me?” Mom’s voice wavers. “I am still an adult, even if I’m in rehab.”
I look at Monica, my eyes wide. I feel like I’m in church, eavesdropping on someone’s confession. Should I even be here anymore?
Dad shuffles his feet against the carpet. Shoofa shoofa shoof. “I know that we’ll be busy and I’m afraid of what will happen if we add an All-Star team schedule on top of everything else.”
Mom sighs. “We can handle this, Dan.”
“But what if you get stressed out and need me and I’m halfway across the state at one of Veronica’s games?” Dad asks. It feels like we’re in a big game of chess, always worrying about what the other player is going to do next as we move our pieces cautiously across the board.
“What if I’m there?” Mom counters. “I need to be able to handle myself. To not rely on you for everything. And we can’t sacrifice Veronica through all of this. My alcoholism has affected her enough.”
The three adults turn to me, like it’s my move. I’m not sure what piece to use, though. They say they don’t want to sacrifice me, but am I sacrificing myself? What do I really want to do?
“And yes, I know that I couldn’t be reached,” Mom adds after a second. “But you could have waited for me. You know I won’t be in here forever.”
Dad scoots his chair closer to Mom’s. “I do know that.” He sighs. “It just doesn’t feel like it sometimes. We miss you, Anna.”
“This month has lasted forever,” I allow myself to say. “Not that it’s your fault, Mom,” I add quickly.
“Well, it is.” Mom’s eyes are sad, and her voice catches. “But I’m working to fix myself and figure out what I need. And right now, I do want to go back to work. I do,” she emphasizes at Dad’s concerned look. “I just…” She looks at Monica, who gives her an encouraging look. “I don’t want to be partner after all.”
Dad exhales, his chest visibly deflating. I can almost feel the released tension evaporate in the air. “Oh, thank God.”
Mom snorts. She giggles. Dad does, too, and before I know it, they’re both doubled over with laughter.
“Working those hours was a lot,” Mom says when she finally catches her breath. “Along with the pressure to be a face of the company.” She shakes her head. “I can’t do that anymore. It doesn’t allow me room for anything else. That’s what I had to escape. That’s why I turned to alcohol.”
Monica raises her eyebrows.
“Okay, it’s not the only reason,” Mom says. “But it was a trigger. Something that made me want to drink. Something that I realized was getting in the way of my happiness.”
Dad reaches out and gives Mom a hug. “I’m proud of you, Anna. You are a great role model.”
Dad turns to me like he expects me to echo his words. And I want to. I do agree with him, after all. But Mom’s words are still ringing in my head. It doesn’t allow me room for anything else.
Does Mom feel the same way about work that I do about softball?
“Honey, you can still play if you want to. Really.” Mom’s smile is warm. It’s the most relaxed I’ve seen her all day. In months, actually. I guess that’s what honesty does. What recovery does, too. “You don’t have to convince yourself that you’ll find something better in singing. We can afford the team.”
I can play.
A few weeks ago, those three words would have caused my heart to grow three times its size. Now, though, I’m numb.
I made the team.
I have permission to play on the team.
But do I want to? Would it allow me room for anything else?
“I don’t want to play.”
I expect Mom to fall on the floor. I expect Dad to faint. I expect our family to fall to pieces.
Everything has already fallen to pieces, though. The shards and pieces have been lying around me for months now. I’ve been stepping around the sharp edges so I don’t cut myself. I’ve even had to put a few Band-Aids on.
Pieces can get put back together, though. Claudia’s mom once told us about this Japanese technique of mending shattered pottery, where they fix the cracks with shimmering gold. That way, when something is broken, it’s even better once it’s fixed. The cracks are always still there, but the mending actually makes things stronger in the end.
More beautiful, too.
Maybe if I crack things some more, that strength will come to us.
“I don’t want to play on the All-Star team, I mean.” I look at Monica’s rug when I say it, following the pink-and-yellow swirly pattern until the bright colors start to hurt my eyes. “It’s a lot.” I peek up at Mom and Dad, ready to bring my hands to my ears to block their yelling. They’ll shout something about how I made a commitment to softball and it’d be irresponsible to break it. How they bought me new cleats just a few months ago and why didn’t I make this decision before?
How I’m a big old quitting quitter who quits.
They don’t say any of that, though.
Dad just smiles. “Sure.”
Mom nods. “I’m okay with that.”
Wait, what? I look back and forth between them, waiting for the anger to appear. For the early exclamation of “April Fool’s!”
They’re serious, though. They don’t care.
“You’re … fine if I just play rec league? And do Chorus Club, too?”
“Absolutely.” Dad crosses and recrosses his legs casually, like this totally isn’t a big deal.
“But…” I look at Mom. “Softball was our thing. You were a superstar. Won’t it be weird for you if I don’t play? Won’t that hurt you? If you come back and things aren’t how they used to be?”
“Oh. Oh.” Mom’s eyes widen. “Hurt my recovery, you mean?”
I nod.
Mom brushes her bangs out of her eyes again. Maybe therapy is making all of us see more clearly. “Honestly, honey, I don’t want things to be the way they used to be.”
I tilt my head to the side. “But isn’t that why you came in here? To fix things?”
“To fix things, yes. But not to send us back in time.” Mom sighs, then gestures to herself. “Past Annabelle let her alcoholism take over her life. Past Annabelle couldn’t deal with her emotions. I don’t want to be that woman anymore.”
“Oh,” I say softly. Next to me, Dad’s eyes shine brighter than they have in months.
“We don’t need to bond over softball to be us. Not at all.” Mom smiles. “I loved softball. I still do love it. But my ti
me playing softball is over.”
“Exactly!” I exclaim. “It’s my time n—”
Mom holds a hand in the air. “Wait. I’m almost done.”
I listen.
“I love playing softball with you. But not because you’re good at it—which you are—but because you’re my daughter, and I love spending time with you.”
I smile. Mom smiles back.
“I love you being happy even more, though. And if softball doesn’t make you happy anymore, then I want you to find what does. I want to bond with you in a new way.”
I remember playing catch with Mom when I little. Last year, even. Softball was fun back then. No one was watching me, rating my skills, and telling me to give up the rest of my life. I threw, I caught, and I hit. I smiled, I laughed, and I ran.
It was all so simple.
“Softball does make me happy,” I finally say. “But other things do, too.”
“Then do those things. Love those things,” Mom says firmly. “Because I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
“Life can be stressful, huh?” Mom asks softly.
I can barely get the words out behind the lump in my throat. “Maybe I should thrive off the pressure, or whatever. But I don’t. Is that wrong?”
Mom stands up so that she looms over me, and gestures for me to stand, too. Then she wraps me in a hug so big it could encompass the entire world. “It’s not wrong at all, honey. It’s the same thing I’ve been realizing myself.” Mom tilts my head up so I meet her eyes. “This world puts a lot of pressure on us—to be everything, to do everything, and to always be the best. I think sometimes we forget that we don’t always have to be superstars.”
“You don’t have to be anything,” Dad adds. “As long as you’re Veronica.”
“And you tell us the truth.” Mom hugs me again.
“Just like we’ll tell you the truth. And we’ll trust each other.” Dad gives Mom an apologetic look. “I’ll trust you, too, Anna.”
Life in the Balance Page 17