I opened my book. The chapter title was “How It Works.” I know how alcohol works, so what's the “it”? I was on my way to finding out.
Jill's mother volunteered to read, her voice strong and resonate.
“So, our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arrive out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn’t think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible.”
She paused and looked at Kevin, who nodded, and she continued. “And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help.”
“Thanks, Shelia. Let's stop there,” Kevin said.
Great. God's going to fix my alcoholism. Maybe Carl should’ve checked me into a church for treatment.
“Usually we cover a lot more ground, but it seems we have some first-timers here tonight. That little bit …”
I quickly diverted my attention to the book I’d snatched back from Theresa. No way was I going to risk being picked out of this group. Besides, what I just heard was definitely not about me. As if I caused my own troubles. This God who's supposed to help? Isn’t this God the one who took my baby? How many times at Alyssa's funeral did I have to brace myself for yet another dunderhead's rendition of, “Honey, God missed Alyssa so much in heaven He took her back to be with Him”?
By the end of the afternoon, my raw hands were my red badges of tolerance, stung from the insistent patting of otherwise well-meaning people. My heart was enraged, subjected to hearing Alyssa's name cradled in the mouths of those who’d never kissed the dimple in her shoulder, who’d never felt the warm weight of her in their arms. I blasted a poodle-haired, tomato-faced little man who said God wanted Alyssa because she had finished her work on earth.
“Finished? Finished? You call forty-two days of life finished? So, why are the rest of us here? What are you saying?” I didn’t care that with each question I pummeled him with, I grew louder. I didn’t care that I sprayed his round, seedy face with gin-laced spit. I didn’t care that the alcohol I’d gulped in the bathroom gurgled in my gut. I went for the kill. “So, what does that say about you? Why isn’t God finished with you, old man? Maybe you’re still here because God doesn’t care about you. If God cared about you, you’d already be in heaven, right?”
Molly reached me before Carl's mother, Gloria, did. She steered me to the bathroom, locked the door, turned on the faucets full force, and let me scream every profanity I knew. Probably even some I invented that afternoon.
Molly saved my life then too. Molly was saving my life today in this room.
I missed Molly.
Why couldn’t she be an alcoholic too? Then we could go through this together.
Some wisp of thought curled itself around me. “Why can’t you be sober? You could experience that with Molly.”
Oh, my. Did I just have a mini-blackout, and I’ve been sputtering like an idiot? Did Theresa answer me? No.
Kevin had stopped talking. “Go, ahead.” He pointed to a raised hand at the table.
“Hi, my name is Jesse, and I’m an alcoholic.”
Here we go again. I couldn’t bring myself to join the chorus, so I just mouthed, “Hi, Jesse.” Too many people here for anyone to notice if I was playing by the rules.
Jesse closed his eyes as if what he wanted to say was written inside his lids. His mouth and his eyes opened at precisely the same moment like they were on the same switch. Both appeared wide and shockingly soft for a man who looked like he lifted trucks for a living. He picked his thumb with his forefinger as he spoke. He didn’t lift his eyes from the book. “That part about being selfish. About how it could kill us.”
A hush grabbed the room by its throat. We waited for the unspoken that would release us. Jesse glanced at Kevin and then as if tugged by the groaning of his heart, Jesse bowed his head. His words drifted up toward us. “I never really thought of myself as selfish. I’m in construction. I work hard. Gave my wife enough money to pay bills, take care of the kids. Figured, what's wrong with me going out drinking with a few of the men after work? I deserved it. I was the one sweating all day, every day.”
Jesse paused.
I wiggled my toes inside my shoes. If they gave pedicures during these meetings, things would seem to move a whole lot faster. This guy's a bit too whacked out about having a few good old boy nights. Why should anyone apologize for wanting to hang out with their friends? I glanced at my nails. Hmm. Maybe manicures too.
Theresa shifted her cargo to the edge of the sofa, and I almost toppled over in the process. Her entire body focused on Jesse. I made an effort to pay attention.
“Well,” he continued, but his soft voice had a jagged edge to it. I recognized that sound. “I told the guys I was passing up going to the bar this one night because I’d promised my little boy I’d take him to his baseball game. But you know one beer doesn’t take too long. When I got home that night, nobody was there. It was almost eleven o’clock. Next thing I know, I’m on the floor, and the doorbell's ringing.”
I plugged my ears with my fingers. I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear this. But I did. Theresa and her musky perfume inched forward and left behind the smell of rotting carnations.
The man next to Jesse, whose skin looked like sand cracked and fissured by an unforgiving sun, put his hand on Jesse's shoulder. His fingers reminded me of gnarled tree roots.
“I’m mad ’cuz they woke me up,” Jesse said. “I opened the door screaming, ‘You got a key …’ There's a man standing on my porch with the Sheriff's Department. He told me he’d get me to the hospital. That my son would be fine.”
For a moment, I allowed myself to breathe. See, his little boy's fine. He learned his lesson. Please stop there. Please make this be it. But I already knew enough about AA to know we wouldn’t all be sitting in this room if there were happy endings. And now, Jesse's heaving shoulders and the downcast eyes of everyone who sat near him made me want to fly out the front doors.
Jesse's voice strangled. “I didn’t even ask about my wife. I was so relieved to hear about Ryan, I didn’t even ask about Cindy. Sheriff told me when we got in his car. Told me the woman who ran the light hit the driver's side head-on. Cindy didn’t have a chance.”
No one moved. The sinners listening to the confession of a fellow sinner. No escape clauses here.
Jesse grabbed tissues from a box passed to him. “I was supposed to die. Not her. I’m the one broke my promise to my kid. Now I’m the one who killed his mother. You know, I thought drinking would kill me. But it killed Cindy.”
He stopped to blow his nose. Mr. Gnarled Hands gave Jesse a one-armed hug.
“I’ve been sober almost a year. Only way I could stay that way was with God helping. And I’m gonna stay that way—one day at a time—’cuz Ryan deserves a dad who's sober.”
Journal 7
Carl wanted a baby. He talked about having a son, about how much time they would spend together, about how he would teach his son to respect him. We’d been married only two years, as many years as I’d been teaching.
At first, Carl didn’t mention the subject of babies very much. As two years turned into three, he became more insistent. He’d see a baby and ask me, “When? When is it going to be okay with you?”
All I could answer was, “I don’t know.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want children. I didn’t know how to tell him that the thought of being a mother terrified me. I wasn’t sure I could give up my life. I didn’t know how to be a mother.
Months later, I discovered his mother doubted me too. Carl's parents were having dinner at our house. They were outside grilling steaks, and I went inside to finish setting the table. I was in the pantry l
ooking for napkins when I heard Carl and his mother walk into the kitchen. I almost called out to tell them where I was when Carl's mother said, “I don’t understand why you’re so anxious for a baby right now.”
I held on to the napkins and waited. Carl said, “Well, Mother, I’m surprised you’re not ready to be a grandmother.” Ice coughed out of the refrigerator dispenser.
“Carl, dear, for one thing, Leah already has, um, let's say, ‘ample’ hips for a woman her size. Having a child isn’t going to help that any. And, another thing, she's just doesn’t seem ready to give up that teaching thing of hers.”
I quickly stepped into the bathroom behind the pantry. Flushed the toilet with the door open to make sure they’d hear and think I couldn’t have heard them. I walked out, smiled, and played the good wife and daughter-in-law.
After all, it was my father-in-law's birthday. And I’d planned a surprise gift—for all of them.
I was pregnant.
19
The first time I called Carl from rehab, we sounded like a couple of robots. “How are you? Fine.” “How are you? Fine.” Mutual silence. I imagined him in the charcoal leather recliner, armed with the remote, channel surfing. He told me he’d called my dad, and my dad was going to call my brother. “Oh, and I told my parents where you are.” His voice flat-lined.
I pressed my hand to my chest and tried to massage the pain away. “Everything else?” Just please say yes. Don’t rip me open.
“Great. Everything's great.” I knew he was lying. He knew that I knew.
“I don’t have much time to talk. I can have visitors on Sunday. Are you coming?” A deep breath. Hold.
“Do you want me to visit?”
Exhale. “Do you want to visit?”
Silence. Wrong answer.
“Guess you still haven’t learned how to answer a simple question with a simple answer. Guess that's next week, huh?”
Ignore that. Ignore that. Just say what he wants to hear.
“Sure. Sure. I’d like for you to visit.”
“Then I’ll see you on Sunday. Do you need anything?”
More than you know. “No. Not a thing.”
“Why can’t I have time off for good behavior?”
“Leah, if you’d get your head out of the freezer, I might be able to hear you.” Matthew finished charting and was hanging out in the patient rec room waiting for Cathryn to relieve him. Everyone else vacated to settle their basketball competition. I wasn’t all that interested. Besides, as usual, no one wanted me on the team. Some things about high school just never went away.
“Aha. Finally!” My search for the mini ice-cream sandwiches over, I held one out to Matthew. “Bribe?”
“Peace offering?” He took it and started unwrapping it.
“It's not a Christmas gift from Neiman's, Matthew. You can tear the paper. For someone who puts his hair in a ponytail every day, you’re really precise about the silliest stuff.” I’d almost finished mine, and he was still peeling paper.
“Maybe I can delay gratification,” he smirked.
“Anyway. Speaking of bribes and delayed gratification. Do I have to have visitors? I’m willing to delay that.”
Matthew finished off his ice cream sandwich in two quick bites. “Most people actually want visitors. You’ve been here almost a week now. Don’t you want to see a civilian?”
Six days already. I’d survived a week of firsts, but I wasn’t sure I was ready for first visiting day. I had rooted myself just enough to feel like I had something under me. Seeing those familiar faces would be like hurricane-force winds that could tear me right out of the ground. I needed more time. “Seeing them isn’t so much the problem. It's talking to them,” I said, wondering how long I’d have to leave my head in the freezer to get sent to the infirmary.
“Talk to who?” Cathryn walked up, tossed her purse on the sofa, and flopped her leggy self next to Matthew.
“Whom. Talk to whom.” I slapped my hand over my mouth. “Cathryn, I’m sorry. Habit.”
She laughed. “Got it, Miss English Teacher. I guess you can fix us every now and then since we’re working you over all the time.”
“The whom,” Matthew said, turning to Cathryn, “would be her husband and her friend who’re scheduled to visit tomorrow.” He stood up, patted Cathryn on the top of her head, “Good luck with that.” He nodded his head in my direction.
“Thanks,” I shot back. “See if I dig for ice cream sandwiches for you again.”
“Nice try on the guilt trip, but I’m not buying a ticket,” Matthew said, waving good-bye as he walked over to the counter, grabbed his backpack, and headed to the elevator.
“Is Matthew cutting his hair or does it just seem shorter now that I’m used to seeing it?”
“Why are you trying to change the subject?” Cathryn's mouth smiled, but her eyes were two blue bullets aimed in my direction.
“Since no one was answering me, I didn’t think we had a subject.”
“No, I don’t think his hair's shorter.” Cathryn tucked a rebel lock of hair behind her ear and looked at her watch. “Time to punch in.”
I followed in her wake as she strolled over to the center station, her perfume drifting behind her.
White Linen. My mother wore it for years. After her funeral, their house overflowed with people Dad invited for lunch. We couldn’t fill the emptiness in our hearts, but we were going to fill our stomachs. My brother told me to find Dad and tell him he’d better start praying he could turn water into wine because the bottles were emptying faster than the food trays. I was grateful for an excuse to de-hostess myself and escape from the swarming nests of conversations. I’d started self-medicating the pain with Robert Mondavi, one of Mom's favorite wines, in the limousine on the way to the funeral home earlier that morning. The constant drone of people's voices and the scent of apple pies and seafood gumbo had become suffocating.
Weaving through knots of aunts and uncles and vaguely familiar cousins to find my father, I passed someone wearing Mom's perfume. An explosion of memory. “Mom?” I thought I had whispered. She had to be there someplace. Where? “Mom?”
My Aunt Sheila materialized in front of me. She lifted my wine glass out of my hand, parted the sea of faces, and led me outside. For months after that, the scent of White Linen paralyzed me.
Now I trailed behind the scent, fully aware my mother would never appear. And not here, for sure, with meals on trays. I didn’t learn until after Mom died the reason our family never ate at cafeterias. They didn’t serve alcohol.
“Let's go to dinner early. The basketball crew's going straight there, so we’ll just meet them,” Cathryn said.
“I just had ice cream. For a change, I’m not all that hungry.” By next week I wouldn’t have to eat the ice cream—I could just apply it directly to my thighs. The three meals a day plus desserts were beginning to equal wiggles in new places on my body.
“So get a salad. We can talk about your new crisis. The new volunteer won’t check in for an hour. I can’t leave you here alone,” she said.
“Right. I might impale myself on a sharpened pencil while you’re gone.”
“Or bash your brains out with that novel you thought you were going to read.” She grinned and headed to the elevator.
Cathryn stirred her iced tea with her straw. She bowed her head to pray. After the first couple of days, I began to think praying over the food wasn’t such a bad idea. She looked up, fanned her napkin out on her lap, and buttered her wheat roll. “Can you please explain to me, why, if you didn’t want visitors, you asked your husband and friend to visit?”
“I liked the idea of visitors. And I didn’t actually invite them. I just didn’t tell them not to come.” The omission defense theory. Rationalization worthy of a sixteen-year-old. Now I understand my students trying to explain to me that I didn’t tell them they couldn’t work together on their papers.
I pointed at Cathryn's dinner. “You know, I’ve never fried chicken at ho
me. Carl said it made too much of a mess. And the fried smell stayed for days.”
“Is that why you don’t want to see him? Because of never having fried chicken?”
I dissected the veggies in my salad. They weren’t very perky today. “Now that would be dumb. Of course not. Watching you eat reminded me of that. Does everything have to mean something?”
“It usually does. Look, let's …” the rest of her sentence fell off into the voices of the crew returning from basketball. Theresa pounded Vince's back and chanted, “Oh, yeah, we beat you. Oh, yeah, we beat you.” I couldn’t hear Vince's comeback, but whatever it was, both Theresa and Annie laughed.
“Annie laughing. Now that's not something you see everyday,” I said.
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