“Why did you have to LEAVE?” She wriggled out of my arms, planted her hands on her hips, and scowled at me.
“Because I needed to get some help. Sometimes mommies need a time-out.”
“Hmph.” Ellie looked as if she’d heard these lines before. “Well, you’re all better now, right?”
“She’s getting better,” said Dave. “Mommy can spend the day with you, and then I need to take her back.”
Ellie’s eyes filled with tears. “Why do you have to go BACK? You aren’t even SICK. You look FINE.”
“Remember what we talked about, Ellie?” And here was my mother. I blinked at Casual Ronnie; my mother without her lipgloss, without foundation and mascara, with her hair—I could barely believe it—pulled back in a ponytail, dressed in jeans (jeans!), with an apron (another item I’d never seen or imagined her to possess) wrapped around her waist. A pair of sneakers on her feet, where I’d only ever seen high heels or jeweled sandals, her fingernails clipped short, filed, no polish. “The doctors are taking good care of your mom, and she’ll be home as soon as she’s ready.”
“But there is nothing WRONG with her!”
“Ellie,” said Dave, “why don’t you go count the apples and make sure there’s enough for everyone to get one?”
Ellie gave us a darkly suspicious look before stomping off toward the dining room. “We’re bobbing for apples,” she called over her shoulder.
“Isn’t that more of a Halloween thing?” I looked around, with a feeling of dread gathering in the pit of my stomach. There was an old-school portrait of a donkey taped to the dining-room wall, along with a metal bin full of water with a bowl full of apples beside it.
“I thought we’d play party games,” my mother said.
“Party games,” I repeated. It didn’t sound like an awful idea, and maybe it wasn’t, unless you knew that these days, in our neighborhood, a typical six-year-old’s birthday party might include an outing to the local bowling alley, where the lanes were equipped with bumpers and at least some of the snacks would be gluten-free, or a scavenger hunt at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, followed by a make-your-own-sundae bar.
I followed Ellie into the dining room and found her sitting in the corner with an apple in her hand. “Hey, El,” I said, and began to sing. “ ‘I did not live until today . . . how can I live when we are parted?’ ”
“ ‘Tomorrow you’ll be worlds away,’ ” she sang, eyes wide, one hand over her heart, teenage Cosette falling in love. “ ‘And yet with you my world has started.’ ”
“ ‘One more day out on my own,’ ” I sang. “ ‘One more day with him not caring.’ ” I tried not to look at Dave, who was standing in the kitchen with his back to me as Ellie sang, “ ‘I was born to be with you!’ ” She stretched out her arms and I lifted her up, holding her against me, singing, “ ‘What a life I might have known.’ ” I tickled her ribs and she wrapped her arms around my neck, cheeks pink, a picture of delight. “ ‘But he never saw me there.’ ” I peeked over her head. Dave was watching us—maybe, I hoped, preparing to launch into the Valjean/Javert section—but before he could start a car pulled up the driveway and Hank emerged from the backseat.
“MY PARTY FRIENDS ARE HERE!” Ellie shrieked, vaulting out of my arms and hitting the ground at a sprint. I got one last whiff of her scent, a final instance of the sweetness of her skin against mine. Then she was gone.
“Happy birthday, Ellie,” Hank said shyly, wiping his nose and handing my daughter an enormous, elaborately wrapped box with pink-and-white-striped wrapping paper and pink-and-silver ribbons.
“Wow,” I said as Mrs. Hank smiled indulgently at her son. She wore dark glasses, skinny jeans, and a silky sleeveless top. “Looks like someone blew his allowance.”
“He’s in love,” Mrs. Hank affirmed, leaning over to offer her smooth cheek for the pro forma air kiss. “Meanwhile, you! You look amazing!” She eyed me up and down. I tried not to flinch under her scrutiny and wondered exactly what she was seeing. I had Aubrey’s work in my favor, but my clothing options weren’t great. I was wearing the best of the limited choices Dave had given me, which meant jeans that were too loose and a T-shirt that was too casual to look right underneath Shannon’s cardigan. The good news was that I’d been taking every yoga class Meadowcrest offered, plus walking around the track with Shannon and Aubrey. That, and the sunshine, and the water I’d been drinking, and the absence of drugs meant that my skin was tanned and clear, and my eyes were bright.
“Amazing,” Mrs. Hank repeated. I wished I could remember her first name. It was Carol, or Kara, something in that family. We’d had coffee together, and chatted at PTA meetings, with most of our conversations revolving around Hank’s allergies and Ellie’s sensitivities. “Are you doing a cleanse?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“Allison?”
My mom called me into the kitchen, where she stood with a tray of cupcakes in her hands. Homemade. Oh, dear. Ellie had probably told her cupcakes but had failed to tell her to get them at Sweet Sue’s. Their cupcakes were incredible, dense and rich, topped with swirls of icing in flavors you could never hope to duplicate at home, dulce de leche and salted caramel and panna cotta. My mother had baked treats that I bet came from a box, with frosting I was certain came from a can. I wondered how that conversation had gone, with Ellie telling my mom about the bakery and my mother somehow convincing her that baking from scratch would be better and more fun.
“Can you help me with the punch?” my mom asked.
Punch. I didn’t say a word as I poured ginger ale over a block of melting sherbet in the cut-crystal punch bowl Dave and I had gotten for our wedding and, if I remembered right, had never used. My mother’s transformation was astonishing. She was exuding the kind of quiet confidence I couldn’t remember from my own childhood, when she’d been either brisk and brittle, rushing me out of rooms, or as giggly and giddy as a young girl, waiting for my father to come home.
“This is some affair,” I said, as she arranged the cupcakes next to the punch bowl.
“Ellie and I planned it together. She helped me bake the cupcakes, and we went online and found all the party games. We downloaded the donkey!” My mother seemed very pleased with her achievement.
“That’s great!” For a minute, I wanted to tell her about the talent show, and I felt a pang of unhappiness as I realized it was probably over by now.
“How are you feeling?” My mother’s eyes were on the cupcakes as she waited for my answer.
“Physically, I’m okay. Mentally . . .” I sighed. I couldn’t think of how to explain what I was feeling. Most days, I barely knew myself.
Mrs. Hank came breezing into the kitchen, along with a few other mothers whose names, thankfully, I knew. Holly Harper was Amelia’s mom, and Susan van der Meer belonged with Sadie. “How can we help?”
My mom picked up Mason jars filled with marshmallows and penny candy and carried them into the dining room. Mrs. Hank turned to me with a conspiratorial look on her face. “Listen,” she said, “we promise we won’t tell a soul.” I felt the muscles in my torso clench. Somebody knew. Somebody knew, someone had found out, someone had told, and now all the moms knew exactly what was wrong with me . . . and they wanted details.
“But here’s the thing,” Mrs. Hank continued. “My high-school reunion’s coming up, and Holly’s got an—”
“Anniversary,” said Holly. “And it was Jeff’s big idea to go back to Hawaii. He’s got this picture of me from twenty years ago in a bikini, and then he went online and actually found the goddamn thing on eBay—I should have known he was up to something when he asked what size I wore, and of course I lied, because, seriously, like I’m going to tell him the truth?”
Laughter all around. I laughed, too, and wondered how fast they’d grab their little darlings and dash out of my house if I told them what I’d been lying to my husband about.
“Just tell us,” Carol/Kara
whispered. “If it’s a trainer . . . or one of the food-delivery things . . .”
“Oh, guys, really. I wish it was some big secret. But I just haven’t been that hungry lately.”
There was a beat of incredulous silence while the three of them just stared at me. Holly Harper started laughing first, and then the other two joined in.
“Oh! Good one!” said Kara/Carol. She mimed wiping tears from the smooth skin beneath her eyes. “Okay, seriously. Is it a juice fast?”
I opened my mouth to provide another jokey denial, and for a single terrifying instant I was sure that what would tumble from my lips would be the truth, the tale of what had really happened, possibly in the rhyming lyrics of one of the talent-show songs: Vicodin, and lots of them! OxyContin, pots of them! Chewing pills up by the peck . . .. Allison was bound to wreck!
“Allison?” My knees trembled in relief as Janet came into the room, a wrapped gift box in her hands. By the time she crossed the kitchen she’d assessed the situation, setting down her gift and grabbing me in a hug. “How are you?”
“She’s thin,” said Susan van der Meer, in a tone just short of accusatory.
Janet kept one arm around me as she turned to face my interrogators. “Her dad’s been sick,” she said. “Allison and her mom had to move him into assisted living a few weeks ago.”
I saw surprise on their faces, heard sympathetic murmurs. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Susan, and Holly said, “Isn’t it the worst? We went through it last year, after Jeff’s mom had an aneurysm.”
“Excuse me for a minute,” I said. I made myself breathe until the dizziness went away, then led Janet up the stairs and down the hall to my bedroom. She closed the door behind us, then looked me up and down.
“Okay, you look . . .”
“Thin!” I said, and started making some shrill noises that approximated laughter. “I’m thin, can you believe it! What’s my secret? Do you think I should tell them, or would they just fall over dead from the shock?” I sank down on the bed and put my face in my hands. “I went rogue,” I confessed.
“Wait, what?” Janet ducked into my bathroom. I heard drawers and cabinets opening and closing. A minute later, she came out with her hands filled with concealer, brushes, my flat iron, and a comb.
“I don’t actually have a day pass. They told me I couldn’t go. It was some big red-tape nightmare. I was supposed to have a certain number of sessions with my counselor, only they didn’t even assign me a counselor until I’d been there almost a week, and then she left, and they weren’t going to let me leave . . .”
“Okay. Deep breath. You made it. You’re here now. Want some water?”
Downstairs, I could hear the door opening, and my mother, suddenly transformed into the gracious lady of the manor, greeting Ellie’s other grandmother, Doreen. If I’d stayed at Meadowcrest, if I’d gone to the talent show, then to Circle and to Share, the party would have gone off without a hitch. I wasn’t indispensible. I wasn’t even sure Ellie would have missed me.
“We should go downstairs.”
“Here. Wait.” Gently, Janet dabbed a sponge dipped in foundation on my cheeks and chin. She tapped powder onto a brush and swiped lipstick onto my lips, either undoing or redoing Aubrey’s work. “When are you getting out?”
As I started to explain the logistics, there was a knock on the door.
“Allison?” called Dave. “We’re going to get started.”
All through the afternoon, through the games, through the cupcakes and ice cream and the inevitable gluten-free versions that the allergic and intolerant kids’ mothers had sent, I felt like a fake, like this was a show someone else had written, and I’d been assigned the role of wife and mother. And, louder and louder, like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe short story, I could hear a voice whispering, Pills. While I negotiated the rest of the night with Dave, assuring him that I was free until eight o’clock, pleading with him to take me to Han Dynasty for dinner “so I can eat something that tastes like something” before he sent me back, I thought, Pills. Handing out the goody bags, packed with candy necklaces my mom and Ellie had strung and handwritten notes that read “Thank You for Coming to My Party,” I thought, Pills, pills, where am I going to find pills?
The plan, which Dave reluctantly agreed to, was to drive Ellie to Hank’s house for dinner with Hank’s family. My mom would get a break, Dave would take me out for Chinese food, we’d have our talk, and then, depending on how the talk went, either he’d drive me back to Meadowcrest or I’d convince him that I could come home.
By the time Dave, Ellie, and I got to Hank’s house, I could almost taste the familiar, delectable bitterness on my tongue. I got out of the car as soon as it stopped, led Ellie inside, and asked Mrs. Hank—her name, I finally remembered, was not Kara or Carol but Danielle—if I could borrow a tampon. She waved toward her staircase. “Master bathroom. Everything’s in the cabinet under the sink.”
Up in the bathroom, I locked the door, put a tampon in my pocket, then opened the medicine cabinet above the sink. Beside the half-used bottles of antibiotics and Advil and Tylenol PM, there were Percocet, five and ten milligrams, both with refills, and an unopened, unexpired bottle of thirty-milligram OxyContin, prescribed for Hank’s father.
“Mommy!” I heard Ellie yell from downstairs.
“Hang on!” I called back, and began opening the bottles, shaking a few pills into my palms, stashing them in the pockets of my jeans.
“Mommy?” Ellie sounded like she was right outside the bathroom door. For once, she wasn’t yelling.
“Just—” Hang on, I was about to say, when I caught sight of myself in the mirror. My eyes were enormous and frantic. My face was pale, except for two blotches of red high on my cheeks. I looked like a thief, like a junkie, like Brittany B., who’d come to Meadowcrest from jail after she and her boyfriend had robbed the local Rite-Aid . . . and all I could think of, all that I wanted, was for Eloise to go away, to go to Hank’s room or the playroom or the basement or the backyard, anywhere that I could have five minutes and get myself a little peace.
What happens if you get caught? a voice in my head whispered. It seemed like a crazy thought—there had to be dozens of bottles in here, all of them (I’d checked) with refills on the labels. No way would Mrs. Hank miss a few pills, if I selected judiciously. There’d be more than enough to carry me through rehab, if I decided to return, or through my first few days home.
And then what? my mind persisted. Then I’d have to go back to my old rounds, my old sources, days of counting pills, worrying and wondering if I had enough . . . and, if I didn’t, how I’d get more.
“Mommy?” Ellie sounded like she was crying. “I am sorry if I am a bother.”
“What?” I sank down to the floor, my ear pressed against the door, a bottle of Percocet still in my hand.
“If that’s why you went away. Because I am a bother.”
It felt like a knife in my heart. “Oh, El. Oh, honey, no. You’re not a bother to me. I love you! I’ll . . . just give me a minute, I’ll be out in a minute, and we can talk, I’ll explain about everything . . .”
I put the first pill under my tongue and got that first blast of bitterness. Then it hit me. This was it: the moment they talked about in those stupid AA handouts and alluded to with those mealy-mouthed slogans, delivered with an earnestness suggesting they had been freshly minted in that moment. Half-measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. One is too many and a thousand is never enough. It didn’t matter that my turning point didn’t involve turning a trick in the back of a car, or looting my parents’ retirement fund, or sticking a needle in my arm. This was it. My hand in a stranger’s medicine cabinet, my little girl on the other side of a locked door, needing a mother who only wanted her to go away. Congratulations, Allison Rose Weiss. You’ve finally made it all the way down.
I spat the pill out into my hand, then flushed it down the toilet. I put the pills back in the bottles. I put the bottles back i
n the cabinet. I sprayed about half a bottle’s worth of air freshener, in case it turned out Mrs. Hank had a suspicious mind.
Outside the door, Ellie was standing with her hands in her pockets, pale-faced, in her pretty party dress, the one we’d picked out online the month before, with her sitting on my lap and me scrolling through the pages, still struggling with her “th” sound, her little finger pointing, “I will have lis one, and lat one, and lis one,” and me saying, “No, honey, just pick your favorite,” and her turning to me, eyes brimming, saying, “But they are ALL OF THEM MY FAVORITE.”
I bent down and lifted her in my arms.
“Do you need to take a nap now?” she asked. “I will be quiet.”
If anyone ever asked me what it felt like the instant my heart broke, I would tell them how I felt, hearing that.
“No. No nap. I’m okay.” And I was. At least physically. Sure, I wanted the pills so bad that I was shaking. I could still taste that delectable bitterness in the back of my throat, could already feel the phantom calm and comfort as my shoulders unclenched and my heartbeat slowed, but I could get through it, minute by minute, second by second, if I had to. Even though I suspected I would remember that bliss, and crave it, for the rest of my life.
I took Ellie downstairs to play with Hank. Dave was in the kitchen, talking about the Eagles’ dubious fortunes with Mr. Hank. “Honey, can I talk to you for a minute?”
I took him by the forearm, walked him out to the driveway, and told him the truth, watching my words register on his face—his wrinkled forehead, his mouth slowly falling open. “You did what?” Before I could start to explain my talent-show exit strategy again, he said, “No. You know what? Never mind.” His hand was on his phone. I turned away, my eyes brimming. I wanted to ask if I got any credit for honesty, if it meant anything to him that I’d told the truth, however belatedly . . . but, before I could ask, he was connected to Meadowcrest.
“Yes . . . no, I don’t know who I need to speak with . . . I thought my wife had a day pass, but now she’s telling me she didn’t . . . Allison W. . . . Yes, I’ll hold.”
All Fall Down: A Novel Page 31