Drunk Mom

by Jowita Bydlowska

  I explore a little. I’m always amazed by all the new alcohol that has come out since I got sober. I check out the new diet beers and Scotches and vintage wines that share a birthday with me.

  And vodkas!

  All these flavoured vodkas: orange, tangerine, grapefruit, raspberry, strawberry, blueberry, vanilla, blackcurrant, chili pepper, cherry, apple, cinnamon, cranberry, peach, pear, passion fruit, pomegranate, plum, mango, white grape, banana, pineapple, coconut, mint, melon, rose, buffalo grass.

  I go for the plain. Vodka-flavoured vodka.

  At the cash register, Frankie smiles at the store clerk and I feel paranoid again, paranoid enough to mumble something about having a party. She coos to Frankie and nods to me while giving me the correct change. I want her to scream that she should report me to Children’s Services or something, but, really, I don’t want her to even notice that I’m here.

  Around the same time, in the fall, I move my drinking times counterclockwise. I occasionally drink when it’s still light out. I suppose I miss summer. I miss its light and the carelessness of it, the bike rides, the way you can just throw out a bottle without worrying about wet fingers getting stuck in the freezing cold metal mouths of garbage bins. It is perhaps because I miss summer that I go on a sparkling-wine kick. It’s also because I still have it in me to pretend that I’m not drinking things like straight vodka on a regular basis that I decide I should drink sparkling wine in order to slow down a bit. It tastes better than beer, it has a low alcohol content—but not too low—and it smells kind of like juice. I also imagine that it will put me in just the right mood—not too sloppy and not too blacked-out. It will put me in the champagne mood, which is where I would like to be at all times. It will put me right back in the summer.

  The popping cork is, of course, a problem. And the bottles are big, thick and clunky. I bring them home, but I’m so nervous about being caught. Early on, a bottle is discovered on the deck, by the boyfriend, and he brings it wordlessly to me, as if it was a baby I had abandoned on the deck, his eyes are that serious.

  Why were you on the deck, were you snooping around? I shout.

  He doesn’t shout. I’m the shouter in the family. We are a family.

  Snooping for what? He tells me to calm down. He says I will wake the baby. I calm down. Then I make up some lie about how the bottle must be left over from an a deck party—maybe when Frankie was born and all those people were coming over with booze—and he pretends to believe me.

  After that one bottle is found, I drink my sparkling wine away from the house. I develop a new ritual.

  My ritual involves going to the grocery store first to get formula, followed by a visit to the liquor store to get sparkly, and then getting a bottle of Sprite in a convenience store. Next, I march to the nearest grocery store or coffee shop and lock myself in the bathroom. I have the perfect excuse too for staying in there for a long time: I always ask about a changing table.

  In the bathroom, I first fill a couple of baby bottles with formula. Next, I empty the bottle of Sprite into the sink. Then I gently tap the cork of the sparkling wine and twist it while holding it. It always makes the loud, hollow popping sound, of course, but nothing so crazy you’d have to make up stories. I usually remember to flush the toilet at the same time, just in case.

  What a loud shit I just had.

  The baby is fascinated by what’s going on—all those purposeful movements, the opening of formula cans, the popping of the bottle, and liquids being poured in, out and in while I talk to him.

  I tell him that he’s a very, very good baby. This is all for you, baby, I say and I go on with my performance until the bottle of Sprite is filled up again. We can go now, I announce, and we go.

  I imagine a pimply-faced teenage grocery store employee discovering the empty formula cans, the bottle of Prosecco in the trash, forced to suddenly think all kinds of suspicious, troubling thoughts about her boss.

  After the bathroom I can go for a nice final walk in the cold, taking big sips out of my Sprite with stiff, freezing lips until I’m ready to go home and do whatever I do there. If it gets too cold I smuggle it into a coffee shop. In the chaos of strollers, coats, hats and boots, nobody ever notices the little sips.

  People wandering around like me—are they, too, locking themselves in the bathroom, mixing their concoctions? Are they looking to discreetly throw out their empties? Are they hiding things in the linings of their purses and strollers and coats?

  Can they tell I do it too?

  How could you tell?

  Because if you were to look at the evidence tape you’d see me and I look nothing like a drunk. I look good. In fact, if you’d known me before I relapsed, you might even think that I seem better than ever, and that motherhood serves me really well. Example? I’ve lost some weight. You can see my cheekbones.

  Still, I keep looking for cues in others. When I’m out on my walks, I watch other moms. The city is filled with them, rain or shine—the days belong to new moms. We are an army of stroller pushers. We all push equally—the healthy-looking yoga ones and the ones who are like rock stars with tattoos and lipstick, the butchy ones, and the ones who, like me, treat these daily outings seriously and dress up for the occasion in fur vests, killer dresses and hats. And I just know that many of them are carrying empties in their diaper bags. And some of them are walking around with open cans of beer or sparkly wine mixed with Sprite secured in the stroller’s cupholder. Or they’re cooing to babies in coffee shops while taking discreet sips out of their bottles of Sprite.

  Right?

  I look in their faces and a lot of them smile back the way first-time moms do to one another when we recognize our common plight, new children and all the pushing.

  I look for signs of secrets, but I can’t read anything into all these smiling stranger faces.

  And this makes me feel as though I’m the only one. This makes me feel so alone. And so superior the way a secret makes you feel, even if it’s a bad secret, even if it’s killing you.

  I stop and take a big sip from my bottle of Sprite to calm my nerves.

  NEW HOME

  Besides drinking and thinking about how lonely I am, I devote my free time to further self-care. The baby is still sleeping a lot, and I try to keep busy so I don’t drink too much during the day now that I’ve begun that scary phase. For now, I manage to count between drinks and never go beyond my limit. I’m a day sipper, an evening drinker. I’m a night drunk.

  To kill the time that stretches between my drinking rituals, I get regular haircuts and facials. I shop. Being a mother now, I finally feel entitled to small luxuries. I buy my first fur, first Marc Jacobs.

  I tell myself this is because I deserve it. I had the Pain. Twenty-three hours of it and eighteen staples in my stomach to prove I’ve earned my place in the pantheon of being a grown-up. I’m a grown-up. I’m just like the other mothers I pass.

  But it’s not about being a mother. And of course, I’ve decided, I’m nothing like the other mothers because of my awful secret.

  The truth?

  This is not about deserving some luxuries. It is not about being a grown-up at all. But it is with the grown-up stuff that I’m covering the rot. Underneath all this dress-up I’m falling apart. I’m gluing together all the pieces that are falling off with all that nail polish and fur and other crap. Nothing stays put. Even though it looks put.

  There are less gracious looks, like the one in the middle of a snowstorm, one of those dark winter months, December, that doesn’t want to ever go away.

  Again, me with the stroller. The baby inside it, warm and cozy in the blankets. Me with a lost glove, frozen right hand clutching a can, big Sorels with laces wrapped around the ankles, winter jacket flopping open: this late at night, I don’t feel cold anymore. I’m fine. I sing. I walk.

  I forget how I got to nightfall because I left the house relatively early. After I left the liquor store, I had lunch at some bar. It was still light outside. And when we
came out of the bar, the sun was still hitting the snow, making everything look like an overexposed photograph.

  How is it that it is suddenly late and I’m woozy with drunkenness?

  The baby wakes up and I coo to him. I love you so, so much, I tell him. You’re awesome. He is just so awesome. You’re the awesomest baby in the world, I say to him.

  I want to eat him. Instead, I find a bottle of formula and stick it in his wet, rose-red mouth. He sucks on the bottle energetically, his huge brown eyes—my eyes—roaming all over my face.

  I look down at my boots, sloshing through the melting snow, and the remains of the day still sparkling, reflected in all that dirty water around my feet.

  My phone rings and rings and when I pick up it’s my boyfriend textmessaging me from the new house where he’s waiting for us. I don’t text him back.

  Forward to a random side street.

  Now I’m pushing through the snow, which is falling harder and harder. The day is completely gone, and with it all its light. Everything is cooler, quiet, dimmer. But despite the cold, I’m hot in my big drunken Sorel boots.

  I open my sweater under my coat. Even better. There’s that open tall can of Heineken in my hand too. The streets are empty. I’m singing again. Or maybe the whole time.

  I’m singing because I’m really happy. We are walking toward our new house. I’ve never owned a house before. I don’t really own one now but it’s the closest I’ve got to it. My boyfriend owns it and I’m going to be living with him.

  This is why I’m happy.

  I have a few more cans in the diaper bag, enough to last me until we get to the new house. This is also why I’m happy.

  The snow is getting bigger, thicker, there’s more and more of it, coming down from the sky and blowing at me from the sides. I hear my phone ringing somewhere on the bottom of my purse.

  I have to stop singing because it’s hard to in this wind, but I remain happy. I’m pushing the stroller through all this windy whiteness, and in my head I count the cans in the diaper bag: There should be four left. With this open one it’s four and a half, although more like four and one-third.

  Then we are a little bit lost or maybe a little bit closer to our goal. Who can tell? The goal, the new house, is somewhere to our left; we should be turning at some point. The phone rings and I almost answer and consider asking my boyfriend if he could tell me where we are.

  It is snowing even more now, so I stop and secure the plastic stroller cover over the stroller. I close it tight to make sure the baby is okay in there, dry and warm.

  I have some trouble moving my right hand. It seems to be frozen around the can. I have no way to unbend all the fingers. I’ll unbend them later. For now, I stick the hand with the empty can in my coat pocket to warm it up.

  The good thing about all this snow is that you can hide things in it so easily. My warmed-up hand lets go, I drop the empty can, kick some white over it; it’s gone. Nobody sees it. Nobody is out in this weather. Except for me—the happy woman with the stroller.

  Eventually, we stop at a laundromat. There’s a man inside and he grunts in response to my request to let us sit down and rest. Through the plastic I see that the baby is asleep inside his cozy fish tank on wheels.

  It’s so thick with snow outside, the street lights look like ghosts.

  I buy a ginger ale from a vending machine to appease the laundry man and also to mask the smell. I don’t know if it will mask the whole day, but it’ll have to do.

  I have one more can left in the diaper bag. Only one can? The liquor-store map pops up in my head. We are a good twenty minutes away from the liquor store at the nearby plaza. It’s way past eight now. In this snowstorm I won’t make it before nine, when the store closes. I’d make it by myself but not with the stroller. Maybe this is a good thing.

  I open the Heineken in the diaper bag and the ginger beer simultaneously, to combine the sound. I take a small gulp from the ginger ale can, a huge gulp from the other can. I take my big furry hat off and swoosh my hair around. Next, I loudly bring down the can of pop onto the table so that the laundry man can see that I’ve no bad intentions and am just taking a little breather here, drinking my pop before I continue on through the snow.

  My boyfriend calls again and I answer and in the straightest voice I can manage, give him updates like a correspondent: We’ve already turned the corner at the main intersection, yes. We are a few blocks away. I believe. We’re almost home.

  Where are you right now?

  Right now? Right now I’m in the laundromat.

  He says something, not sure what because the connection is weak, so I hang up. I get up and stick my head out and squint to see the name of the street. It’s the name of my street. Our new street.

  The phone rings again. It’s my boyfriend and he’s saying something again, who knows what.

  I say I’ll see you in five and hang up.

  I leave the laundromat.

  I take a long, filling gulp from the last can and drop it and kick it into a snowbank. Drunk, I’m a disgusting litterbug.

  Then we’re home.

  We’re home.

  Home is a forest of boxes. Our entire lives are packed up inside. It’s random: picture frames with pillows and a coat in one box, a set of champagne flutes in a cardboard divider, a squeaky soft toy and my bathing suits in a plastic bag in another.

  Did you have a little drinkie tonight? my boyfriend says.

  So he can smell it on me after all.

  This is our game: He can tell and I can tell that he can tell but I’ll say no, and he’ll say, No? Are you sure? And I’ll say, No, I am sure, even though I know that he knows that I know that he knows.

  Are you sure?

  I’m sure.

  He’ll ask one more time, probably. This time, I will bare my teeth.

  He will back away, Okay, okay. Sorry. Just checking.

  Checking what?

  Nothing. Forget it. I’m sorry, I’m just high-strung because of the move.

  The baby is home and safe, but I don’t recall when we took him out of the stroller and where we’ve left him. He could be in one of the boxes, for all I know.

  I want to move furniture.

  It’s too late, my boyfriend says.

  This house needs more space, I declare.

  My boyfriend—I have no idea where he is at this point. He doesn’t register. Maybe he’s in one of the boxes too, with the baby. No matter, I’m driven by the need for space but mostly by the need for destruction. The need comes on sometimes when I’ve been drinking too much. I’m usually a quiet drunk—always pretending not to be drunk—but tonight I feel fired-up from all the walking and singing and all that snow.

  I discover my dresser buried underneath a pile of boxes. I try to pull it out but it’s stuck. Fucking thing.

  I’m filled with energy and anger, thawing in the warmth of the house. It’s a physical reaction, this rage, but it’s also caused by knowing I’m this drunk. Right now I’m extra-disappointed in myself. The disappointment is constant and I get drunk because of the constant disappointment, but usually I am quiet about it. Not tonight. Tonight I am so disappointed I can barely see.

  I kick the dresser and something gives, a leg buckles down or something. The whole thing is suddenly sitting legless, on the floor, and it’s puking up drawers.

  Fucking ridiculous thing.

  My boyfriend’s voice says to leave it alone, we’ll deal with it tomorrow. The baby must be upstairs because I hear his thin wail somewhere above me and I scream, My baby, as if someone was murdering him—and someone is, possibly—and I plough through the boxes to rescue him. My boyfriend follows me up the stairs because he probably knows what I know: that he knows.

  The baby is fine, sleeping, quiet.

  Just a nightmare, I tell my boyfriend, and he nods, knowingly.

  Let’s just go to sleep, he says, and I almost agree but then I remember: the dresser.

  The disappointment comes u
p again.

  I explain that if I don’t deal with this fucking dresser right now I will explode.

  I don’t know if my boyfriend hates me right now but just in case he doesn’t, I’ve got enough disappointment to make up for it.

  He lets me deal with the dresser. Or do whatever. He goes to sleep or something. He disappears, again, along with the dresser and the boxes and the baby, in the vortex of my blackout.

  There’s one flashback of me dragging the dresser on the sidewalk, away from our new house. The drawers are in it, I think; in this flashback I see myself pushing them back inside the dresser’s mouth once, twice, again. The dresser is a bomb about to detonate. I drag it far, in the snowstorm, drag it to the end of the street—white falling, then it’s dark again.

  In the morning, on my way to the convenience store, I see the dresser. It’s sitting right on the corner of our street. Its top is covered in a thin layer of new snow. The drawers are gone. I wonder if I took them out or if someone else did.

  I say nothing about the dresser or the missing drawers as my boyfriend and I walk by it later on that evening. He says nothing about it. I have no way of guessing the level of his own disappointment.

  AT THE COUNSELLOR’S

  Shortly after our move, my doctor’s office calls to remind me about an appointment with a counsellor. I don’t remember making this appointment, but every time I pile up clean underwear on the carpet in the corner of my bedroom I remember the dresser. The lack of the dresser suggests in its symbolic way that I probably could use another person to talk to.

  The counsellor, Bobby, has patterned green socks. Everything about him suggests gentleness, but the subtle flamboyance of his socks makes me a little suspicious. I know it’s crazy, but his socks make me distrust him.