Walking on Broken Glass

by Christa Allan

  I watched, through the curtain of water that framed my face, as he reached for the white towel. It slithered off the bar on the shower door, caught between his two hands. He clutched it and leaned against the linen armoire.

  Carl waited. Waited for me. Again.

  The pelting drops couldn’t dissolve the revulsion that snaked from my bare feet into my stomach and wound its way to my throat. I grasped the handle; the water stopped. Only heaviness of the inevitable separated us.

  “If you’re going to that place for a month, then you’re taking care of me first.” The edge in his voice ripped the stillness.

  I accepted my defeat.

  6

  The drive from our house to the Brookforest Center the morning of July 4th was an eight-mile Jerry Springer episode. All bets were off once the suitcases landed in the car.

  Carl opened the passenger door of the Range Rover for me, but the intensity of his closing it practically propelled me into the driver's seat. Before he slammed his own door, I grabbed the dashboard and braced myself for another carnival ride.

  “You’re determined to do this, aren’t you?” He hit the brake pedal. “And you’re leaving all the dirty work for me. I’m the one who has to call your dad. Call my parents. Did you do that? Of course not.” A horn blew behind us, and Carl used primitive sign language to communicate with the driver.

  He ranted from the red light to the green light and beyond. I didn’t answer. I focused on collecting pictures. With every block we passed, I opened and closed my eyes like a camera lens. Click. The duck pond. Click. Starbucks. Click. Rows of crepe myrtles and pear trees. Click. Joggers. Click. Carl. His mouth opened and closed and opened and closed. Click. My reflection in the car window. A diluted Monet water-color of auburn hair, olive skin, green eyes, rose-shaded lips. Papa Hemingway was a part of all he met. I was reflected in all I passed.

  “Are you even awake?”

  Who wouldn’t want to be the audience for a one-man performance of my wrongdoings and shortcomings?

  One mile to go. One word. “Yes.”

  Minutes later, the car lurched into the parking area like a bulldozer had plowed into the back. My head almost separated from my neck. I thought my admission would change to the emergency room where I’d be treated for brain trauma. So, Mrs. Thornton, were you an alcoholic before or after the dashboard permanently waffled your forehead?

  “Is it safe to open the door?” I’m poised to take off my seatbelt, but Carl still hadn’t turned off the car. He looked like a figure in the Wax Museum: a splotchy red-faced unhappy one.

  “You are coming in with me, aren’t you?” I wondered if he intended a drive-by, and he’d reappear in thirty days. “Pretend you’re dropping me off for summer camp.” I slid forward to grab my purse off the floor where it had landed during one of Carl's Daytona speed-racing turns.

  “You know,” he shifted into park and turned the key, “you always do that.”

  Wax figures don’t last very long in this heat. I wondered if he’d considered that. “What do I always do?”

  “Make jokes when there's obviously nothing funny going on,” he said.

  “That's why I make jokes. Because there's nothing funny happening.” I scooted out the door before he had time to restart the car and headed for the entrance.

  We lived in one of those shiny ad-attractive, oil-corporation-planned, Stepford communities not yet gobbled up by the city of Houston. One could be born and die in Brookforest and never know an entire world waited beyond the front-and back-gated entrances. Schools, hospitals, entertainment, supermarkets, offices, gas stations, all demurely tucked into lush wooded spaces.

  Careful zoning assured residents they wouldn’t be unduly offended by the sight of golden arches rising from stately pine trees or flashing signs altering the moonlit, star-studded sky.

  And, with what I came to appreciate as tremendous foresight on the part of these urban planners, accommodations had been made for a treatment center for the addicted and psychologically impaired residents. Of course, like any monument to the dark side of society, an innocuous sign only inches above the manicured landscaped parkway simply stated, “Brookforest Center.” One had to then maneuver two winding miles edged with evenly spaced pink and purple azaleas to find the three-story, white-washed brick and glass building.

  We managed to enter the lobby without injury to self or spouse. The receptionist led us to a waiting room—a meat-locker cold waiting room, which explained the butcher-wear of the staff. Shivering in my mint-blue polished cotton skirt and white linen blouse, I hoped I’d remember to ask Molly to bring my denim jacket or a hoodie.

  Carl didn’t speak. We sat like two strangers who stared at the wall, expecting the movie to begin anytime. I reached into my purse for my cell phone so I could send a quick text message to Molly. Before I could find it the Admissions Counselor walked over to escort us to her office. Ms. Antoinette Wattingly could have doubled as Oprah's sister, her taller sister. Right away, I’m impressed by a woman who can pull off a pair of Tory Burch leopard suede ballet flats. Well-paid staff, maybe? Fortunately, Carl's designer shoe radar was incapacitated. But not his suspicion radar. If he knew what those little cuties cost, Ms. Wattingly and her leopard ballet flats would be dashing out the doors after us.

  Once the intake process started, Carl stopped cooperating. He informed Ms. Wattingly that drinking every afternoon and on weekends couldn’t be indicative of alcoholism or else half the civilized world would be lining up for treatment.

  “Well, perhaps they should be, Mr. Thornton. Now if you’d look over and sign these papers.” She slid the insurance release papers across her polished walnut desk. “Leah came to us. We do not solicit clients. Obviously, your wife thinks that her consumption of alcohol is problematic.”

  Carl signed the papers, then growled, “What's problematic is my wife being gone for thirty days, my life undergoing an upheaval, and my money funding this place.”

  The disgust in his voice injected itself into my spine. My body reacted with the familiar stillness that protected me most nights. Even Ms. Wattingly shifted. Both of us now sat straight-backed in the overstuffed chairs. She stared at Carl. I stared over Carl's head into my future.

  “Your wife's been gone a lot longer than the thirty days she's about to be away from you. She's just realizing this and maybe you will, too, once you’re coming to family sessions.”

  The industrial stapler jawed its way through the paperwork and cracked the immense silence that swallowed her office. I avoided eye contact with Carl. In fact, I wanted to avoid any contact with him. I cheered Ms. Wattingly on, relieved to allow her to be my voice.

  “What family sessions? And how many of these am I supposed to attend?” Carl shot me that look that screamed, “Oh, one more surprise?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t ask for a syllabus. I just showed up for the course. But right now, my anxiety and I wanted a hall pass. Maybe they could keep Carl, and I could leave.

  “Mr. Thornton, I realize this is difficult for you. You didn’t want this, but here you are. Your wife is not running from a problem. In fact, she's running straight into it, by choice. Brookforest does not want repeat business. Without family support, Leah may not stay sober.”

  “So now it's my job to keep her sober?” Carl barked.

  The “her” slapped my dignity in its face. I crossed my legs and turned to Carl, “Please don’t talk about me as if I’m not even here.”

  His jaw jutted forward in that way it always did before he launched into one of his tirades.

  Ms. Wattingly tapped her pen on the desk. I wondered if she wanted to tap Carl, hard, right on the top of his shaved head. “You know, maybe it's time for Leah to finish her intake on the floor with the nurse. In the meantime Mr. Thornton, I’ll have our Family Services Coordinator give you an overview of your involvement for the next month.”

  She rolled her chair back and then stood behind her desk as she punched a button on her telephone. �
�If Leah's suitcases are out of the car, I can have someone from the night staff pick them up. Hand me your purse, Leah. We’ll need that too.”

  I reached between the chairs where Carl and I sat facing the desk. Carl's hand wrapped itself around mine.

  “I don’t need help getting my own purse.” The edginess in my voice startled even me.

  “I forgot. You can make your own decisions, right?” Carl said.

  Ms. Wattingly walked around her desk, reached for the only Marc Jacobs purse I’ve ever owned in my life, and handed it to the nurse at the office door. This must be what parents felt when they turned their kids over to a babysitter.

  “Leah, you’ll be going with Jan; she's the charge nurse today. Now's the time to tell Carl good-bye. He and I will finish talking later.” She stepped out of her office and closed the wood-paneled door.

  Carl stood and looked down at me. “Are you even going to stand up to tell me good-bye?”

  I didn’t bother with one of my usual snappy comebacks. I was too tired to engage in verbal volleyball. Besides, I couldn’t afford any withdrawals from my almost depleted emotional reserves.

  I unfolded myself from the chair and faced Carl. My five-foot-two-inch self never seemed as short as it did then. I lifted my face to meet his gaze.

  “I know you don’t understand. I know you’re mad. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  I wasn’t sorry, but I knew it's what he wanted to hear.

  He wrapped his arms around my waist, tugged me toward him, squeezing so tightly his shirt buttons mashed into my cheekbone. He smelled like woods and oranges. I circled my arms around him, more to steady myself from falling into him, and closing what little space there was between us.

  “I know. I’m sorry too,” he said. “I don’t want to be away from you. I’m going to miss you at night.” He leaned over to kiss me, and his hands traveled under my blouse. Damp and clammy on my bare skin, they moved up my sides. His fingertips grazed my bra.

  “Don’t. Not now.” I jerked myself away from him and almost fell sideways into the chair.

  He couldn’t have known he’d just provided the strength I needed to place myself into the care of Nurse Jan.

  Journal 2

  Drinking wasn’t a conscious solution at first. One night, after dinner with friends and too much wine, I lazily offered myself to him.

  My reckless advances amazed us both. I could do and say things that otherwise would turn me inside out. I could give him what he wanted. I detached my soul from my body, and watched as my soul retreated to the safety of a hollow space in my heart. Then my body would comply with the orders I issued.

  The day after, he’d be grateful, like a child released from a punishment. He’d repeat and replay the acts and conversations of the previous night.

  I detested listening to him. I convinced myself someone else said and did those things. But I could see that sacrificing my body to him at night softened his anger and relaxed his frustration during the day. Made it all so much easier to deal with.

  I started, then, to make drinking my salvation.

  The performance required practice and careful timing. Too sober and I couldn’t dissociate myself from the drama. Too drunk and I’d risk vomiting. I’d swing my leg over the side of the bed and hope one foot on the floor would stop the room from swimming. But too often, it didn’t relieve the heaving, and I wobbled to the toilet to hang my head there. I consoled myself that I’d remember little of it the next day.

  None of that mattered to Carl as long as I made sure I returned to bed. It became a complicit arrangement between us. He knew I drank so he could, as he said, finally be a husband. And I knew that he knew.

  He didn’t physically abuse me. He didn’t drink too much. He didn’t use drugs. He didn’t gamble. He didn’t have affairs with other women. But I wished he had given in to one of them.

  I wished he’d give me a reason to leave. No, really, I wished he’d give the world a reason. Some visible, tangible, obvious reason. At times, I begged him to find relief outside of our bedroom.

  He always refused. Not because he felt loyal or committed or even religious. He wouldn’t because he knew it was what I wanted.

  7

  The interminiable admissions process made me wish I’d kicked off my morning with Grand Marnier in my coffee instead of a flavored creamer.

  First, there was the tour. It all sounded like, “this is that, and that is this” to me. For most of it, I suspended my peripheral vision, dreading the sight of a familiar face. Then, I spent hours fluttering through papers requiring my signature and eternal promise to release everyone from responsibility for me. Except myself. Jan rescued me after the last round of signing. “Ready?”

  “Probably not.” If I’d waited for ready, I’d still be home.

  Nurse Jan steered me through the brocade wallpapered halls, softened every six to eight feet with rivers of deep blue chintz curtains that puddled lavishly on buttercream tiled floors. When we reached the doors that separated the newly sober from the nearly drunk, she punched a series of numbers into the black-buttoned pad on the wall. The monster doors slowly obliged, opening their wide steel arms to my world for the next thirty days.

  The fluorescent lights hummed overhead as we walked the short distance from the now-closed doors to what looked like a nurses’ station. Two semi-adults perched on stools, flipping through charts. How embarrassing. I’m being held hostage by people who don’t look much older than the ones I teach. They had already known we were on our way because of the closed-circuit cameras in the hallway. What a bizarre experience to stand there and watch myself watch me.

  Chart Reader 1 stood, smiled, and extended a hand. “Hello. My name is Matthew. I’m one of the interns. Glad you’re here.”

  He was tall, but he had one of those triangular builds that reflected hours of muscle building. An over-compensator, I figured. He had a firm, friendly grip. Not like one of those well-water handshakers, the ones who felt compelled to pump my arm like they expected water to spurt out of my mouth.

  “Me too. Glad I’m here, I mean. Well, I’m not glad I have to be here, but that's another story, right?” I stared at his long blondish hair pulled back in a ponytail, wondering why white men bothered to let their hair grow long. I mean, they weren’t going to braid it or corn row it or French twist it or pigtail it or ever want an up-do.

  “Right,” he said, a grin playing around his mouth. Matthew wore a white button-down collared Oxford, khaki pants, and deck shoes. And, I think, for someone who looked ready to step into an L. L. Bean catalog, he seemed a bit too happy to see me. I should ask later if they get paid per admission.

  He relieved Nurse Jan of my suitcases and wheeled them into the belly of the center station. Chart Person 2 said, “Welcome,” took a set of keys from Matthew, and headed off down the hallway.

  “Jan and I need to review some last-minute paperwork. We’ll finish going through your suitcases, return your purse, and then show you your room. There's a waiting area over there,” Matthew said and pointed to the right, “where you can watch television while we do this.” For the tiniest moment, I felt a swish of random panic. I’m really here. I’m really alone. Matthew must have seen that shadow dance across my face because he stopped the symphony of zippers as he opened my bag and whispered to Jan who moved to rescue me from myself.

  “You might be more comfortable over here.” Jan's voice thawed my frozen moment as she took my hand and guided me to a room on the other side of the one Matthew had pointed to. She flipped the nearby light switch. “This is the patients’ rec room,” she said, with a Vanna-like sweep of her arm.

  Rows of ceiling lights crackled on, like bright kicks in a chorus line, revealing a new section of my house away from home. The lavish decorating never made its way past the monster doors and into this oyster white rectangle of a room. Tired olive green, square-cushioned, pseudo-leather sofas separated by bow-legged tables rested against three of the walls. Each table held
an assortment of game boxes and magazines. The one coffee table in the room supported stacks of paperbacks and half a dozen ashtrays of various amoebic shapes. A television on an A-frame metal stand and a card table with four chairs took up space on the fourth wall. No creamy tiles here. Cigarette burns like pockmarks covered the stiff, grass-green layer of worn carpet.

  The room, of course, opened to the center station, so we didn’t have to go far. But now my panic had evolved into self-pity. I had to acclimate myself to this utilitarian space that begged for an HGTV makeover. Plus, the gray haze of stale cigarette smoke remained suspended in the room. I’d need an oxygen mask to sit in it for more than five minutes.

  My feet parked themselves at the threshold and refused to move in the direction of Jan's outstretched arm. “Is there a no-smoking room? And where are the patients? Am I the token alcoholic for the month?” With each syllable my voice rose, despite Jan's reassuring pats on my shoulder.