by Anne Lamott
“She said dully.”
She smiled at James. “No, I mean it. One day I consciously realized that I was trying to break myself down, so that I’d hit bottom and have to quit. Because I didn’t think I could do it otherwise. And I told myself that there would be a day—an inevitable, unavoidable day—when it would come to a head, and I would have to begin to recover from—this. Alcoholism.”
The word drowned out the Scarlatti horns. They both held their breath.
“Whoa, shit!” she exclaimed, looking around, bedazzled. “I’m having a hot flash.” She looked intently at James. “lllcoholism.”
He nodded.
She smiled at the glass of wine and took a big sip. “You know,” she said fondly, to the wineglass, “alcohol has been one of my very best friends. I used to look forward to drinking in the afternoon in the same way that I looked forward to seeing you again each night. God.” She set down the glass and scratched her head. “I knew there would be a day that was ... conspicuous, when I’d have to quit, but it’s been more like a conspicuous couple of weeks. Starting with the day Rosie stole the money, when she and Sharon found me passed out ... and then, you know, Thackery, and Leon,” and the puppy. “I mean, Jesus. What do I need, a burning bush?”
James smiled. “Oh, Elizabeth.”
She got up, with her wineglass, and went to turn off the stove. “These sausages are probably way overdone. Rosie should be home any minute—she’s been at the fort with Sharon all day.” She picked up a fork, opened the oven, poked a potato, and turned off the heat. “Poor Sharon, and Rosie....”
The front door opened and slammed, and they turned toward the sound of heavy, hunchbacked trudging.
“Speak of the devil.” They heard her climb the stairs. “Will you go tell her that dinner is almost ready?”
Five minutes later, he reported back that Sharon was moving. That Mr. Thackery had been transferred.
Elizabeth exhaled wearily and dried her hands on a dishtowel. “Well, I’m not surprised.”
“I smell a rat.”
“Mrs. Thackery told me that he might be getting a transfer and promotion. And I told her that even if they moved I’d be double-checking as to whether or not they were getting intensive therapy.”
“Well, Rosie’s bummed, but good.”
“I bet she is. I’ll go see if she feels like eating. Or talking. I guess it’s all right to leave the sausages in the water. Will you make a quick salad?”
“Sure.”
She took a sip of wine and left the kitchen.
“Can I come in?” There was no response, so Elizabeth opened the door and found Rosie lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling like a recent corpse.
Oh, Rosie.
“I heard the bad news. I thought you might feel like some company.”
Rosie rolled her eyes angrily, as if it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard.
“There’s not much I can say that will make you feel better. But at least they’re only moving a couple of hours away.”
“Chhh.”
Elizabeth reached over and mussed up her soft, wild hair.
“Do you want to be alone?”
“Yeah.”
The losses in her daughter’s life, now and prospective, descended on Elizabeth’s chest like a leaden x-ray apron.
“Okay.”
“Don’t go.”
Elizabeth sat back down on the bed and lifted Rosie into her lap.
“How would you feel if Rae moved away?” Rosie asked.
“I’d feel like shit. I’d be sore at the world. And at her.”
“You said everything would be fine.”
“It will. But it will be sad for a while.”
“Then there’ll just be some other sad thing.”
“Well, sure, but—sometimes you get a long stretch of good days between the sad things.”
“Yeah, but who cares about them when you’re having one of the sad things?”
“You’ve just got to remember sometimes you’ll be on an upswing, everything’s coming up roses, and sometimes you’ll be on a downswing, a broken heart or depression, but although you never believe it at the time, you’ll start an upswing again.”
“But Mama, it was my fault that Sharon has to move.”
“Oh, Rosie, listen. It wasn’t even the tiniest bit of being your fault. It’s Mr. Thackery’s profession, his character, his problems—completely. Honest to God.”
They heard James coming up the stairs and stopped talking.
“Hi,” he said at the doorway.
“Hi,” said Elizabeth. James came over to them and sat at the foot of the bed. Rosie pulled at a coil of hair, unwound it, and pulled her head sideways, as if it were on a leash.
“Listen, I know how you feel,” he said. “Remember my best friend, Denny Hoods, who used to lift me up to the water faucet?” Rosie nodded but did not make eye contact. “Well, we were inseparable from the time we were five until his family moved away, when he was thirteen. I was heartbroken.”
“Oh, yeah?”
He nodded.
“Did you cry?”
“Hey, man I told you, boys didn’t cry. What we did was, I went over to his house the day he was leaving, and we wrestled on his lawn—not affectionately at all. We were red-faced and rough. Then for the next couple of weeks I skulked around the house, punishing my parents; laying all these creepy trips on them.”
“Then what happened?”
“I made a new best friend.”
Rosie scowled sadly. “Yeah, but I won’t.”
“I promise, on my honor, that you will.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Let’s go eat,” said Elizabeth.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Then keep us company,” said James.
Rosie picked at her food. James looked away every time Elizabeth poured herself another glass of wine.
“I think I’d better call Sybil,” Elizabeth announced as she made a leaning, wobbling stack of dishes and silverware. “Make sure they’re doing something about it.”
“Don’t call tonight, Mama.”
“Why?”
“Because, you know: there’s all this stuff happening at their house already, like getting ready to move and stuff.”
The dishes clattered in Elizabeth’s arms as she turned to go. “Yeah, I know, but moving doesn’t get them off the hook.”
“James,” Rosie whispered when Elizabeth was out of the room. “I don’t want her to call, she’s tight.”
“I know she is. But she’ll pull it off.”
“God, I’m so sick of this.”
“Yeah, so am I. So is she. We’re quitting tomorrow.”
“Oh, yeah, give me a break.”
“Honest to God, Rosie.”
“She’s quitting tomorrow too?”
James nodded. Rosie stared off into space.
“So tell me. Has your husband begun therapy yet?”
“Well, no, not exactly.”
“Sybil, either he has or he hasn’t.” She poured an inch of burgundy into her wineglass.
“He has agreed to, Elizabeth, and we’ll go, as a family, when we’re settled in Palo Alto. And in the meantime, there’s absolutely no chance of his doing it again.”
“And what guarantee do you have?”
“I have his word.”
“His word isn’t good enough for me.”
“Oh, Elizabeth, I know how you feel—you’re right, of course—but ... for the next two weeks, he’s going to be working overtime trying to get his office ready for the move, training his replacement, and I’ll be here supervising the packing—there’s going to be very little free time.”
“Sybil. His word is not assurance enough for me that it won’t happen to Sharon again.”
“Elizabeth, please. You have my word, we’ll get counseling ... but in the meantime—”
“In the meantime, one of us is going to contact the Child Protection Agency, explain what his p
attern has been and about your moving, and ask them what to do. Will it be me or you?”
“Elizabeth?”
“I’m dead serious. Notify the right people up here, now, explain that you’ll be moving, and give them your new address. And ask them what they suggest.”
“ But—?”
“I mean it. Tomorrow.”
“All right. I will.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow, in the evening.”
“No, don’t. He’ll be home.”
“In the late afternoon, then.”
“All right.”
“You were good,” James said from the doorway.
“Thanks.”
“Shall I give you a hand with the dishes?”
“Not tonight. Go keep Rosie company.”
He nodded and went to the living room.
She poured another glass of wine and tackled the dishes; in the other room, James put on a record, Dylan, “Blood on the Tracks.” Soapy dishes slipped through her hands, clusters of bubbles slithered down the side of her wineglass, and when the existential western soap opera “Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts” played, she sang along with the refrain, watching herself wash dishes as she would watch television.
She could hear James and Rosie talking, but not what they were saying. To her, they were real, authentic, flesh and blood, she did not quite have this sense about herself. Is Elizabeth the woman washing the dishes, or the mind that hovers above this woman, watching her wash the dishes?
“Listen. ‘Tigers in India eating villagers-sixty—five dead to date.’ Sixty-five dead to date, James.” Rosie looked up at him with a listless terror.
“Wow.”
“Oh, Rosie, don’t read the paper before bed. You know it’ll give you nightmares,” said Elizabeth, coming into the room.
“But I couldn’t help it. It was just sitting here.”
“Come sit with us, Elizabeth.”
“Oh, the window seat gets crowded. I’ll sit on the couch.”
Now Dylan was singing “Shelter from the Storm.” James was reading the pages he’d written that day, marking them up with a pencil.
“Come here, sweetheart. It’s almost time for bed.”
“Noooooo,” Rosie wailed.
“Yes.”
“But I’ve been good I haven’t even been bugging you.”
“Come here. I want to hold you.” Rosie got up and walked to her mother, head down and shuffling. Elizabeth reached out and drew Rosie to her side, as an elephant draws a trunkful of hay to its mouth. “I’m not making you go to bed as punishment, baby. It’s because I care about you. You’re a little, growing person, and you need sleep, like you need good food.”
“I’ll never be able to fall asleep.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know. Because I’m starving to death.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Yeah?”
Rosie nodded.
“Okay, then. Do you want a bowl of ice cream?”
“Yeah.”
“And then you’ll go to bed?” Rosie nodded. “James?”
“None for me, thanks. I’m going to lose a few pounds.”
“Oh, James. You’re just right.”
“I want to be lithe, and sexy, and evil.”
Elizabeth smiled at him.
The Fergusons went to the kitchen. Elizabeth got Rosie two scoops of peach ice cream, and another glass of wine for herself, and they sat side by side at the table. Rosie took a tiny bite and savored it. Then she mashed the ice cream against the side and bottom of the bowl, stirred it, whisked it into a thick liquid state, and began to eat it drop by drop.
“Come on, sweetie, don’t dawdle. It’s nearly ten.”
“God! You don’t have to rush my eating!”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
Rosie lay awake in the dark, staring at the ceiling. Outside, lit by the moon, tigers milled around the rosebushes, licking their lips, prowlers in the garden. Little Black Sambo. Nothing to worry about; they’ll be butter soon, for the pancakes her mother Black Mumbo will make. Amber eyes, tiger stripes—suddenly one of them leaps into a bush, emerges with Mr. Thackery, yelling and bloody, between its teeth. The vision filled her head, and she stared, awestruck.
She dreams of tigers at an outside circus, jumping through hoops of fire. She is sitting ringside, with James and Sharon, when suddenly they hear the drone of approaching planes. “Bombers,” says James calmly, and the planes get nearer and louder. Elephants trumpet over the sound of the engines, the sky is red with the flames of distant bombings, and they sit waiting quietly in their seats for the end of the world.
Elizabeth ricocheted off the wall twice when she finally went upstairs to bed. She lay down fully clothed and closed her eyes, felt her mind swirling through quicksand, felt the bed spin. She had passed out by the time James joined her and did not wake up when he rolled her over to undo the buttons on her skirt. He pulled it off, dropped it on the floor, and let her lie on top of the covers in panties and a shirt, while he stripped down to nothing and crawled between the sheets beside her.
He read Greene’s The Human Factor for an hour or so, glancing from time to time at his softly snoring lover. He closed the book, put it on the floor beside the bed, got up, and went to the bathroom, where he filled a glass of water and got the bottle of aspirin out of the medicine chest. He carried the water and pills to Elizabeth’s bedside table, put them down, and went to the window, where he stood staring for a long time at the night sky. He turned to look at Elizabeth, handsome, serene, and dead to the world. He heard an owl, crickets, cicadas, a distant siren, wind in the trees, and went to lie down, smoking in the dark with a cold glass ashtray on his chest, beside the black-haired woman who might one day be his wife.
Rosie awoke an hour later and sat up in bed, terrified of nothing in particular. The old house was settling down for the night; downstairs a floorboard groaned—was that a footstep on the stairs? She held her breath and strained to hear. He’s coming upstairs to kill them all: it’s Norman Bates, dressed as his mother, holding a long sharp knife; or it’s a crazy laughing black man with a gun; or it’s Mr. Thackery.
Crrrreak.
She scurried under the covers down to the foot of the bed, pulling her blankets and sheets into a pile on top of her, so the killer would think “Hmmm, no one to kill in this room.” After a while, the sounds on the stairs ceased, and she came up for air, alone in the dark. God! Rosie scrambled off the bed, holding her breath, and turned on the light. She tiptoed toward the door, looking as frail and feverish and ethereal in her white flannel nightie as a pre-tubercular Dickensian orphan. She walked down the hall to her mother’s room.
“Mama?” she whispered, outside the closed door. “Psssst. Mama?” No one answered. She cleared her throat and slowly opened the door. “Pssst?” Neither James nor her mother responded.
The room smelled of wine and tobacco; she was safe. She tiptoed to Elizabeth’s side of the bed, lay down on the carpet, and was soon breathing peacefully.
Elizabeth whinnied at dawn.
“It’s all right,” James said. Rosie woke up.
“Whaaa?”
“You were dreaming. Chasing rabbits.”
Elizabeth groaned.
“What were you dreaming?”
Elizabeth groaned again. “I don’t remember.”
“There’s water and aspirin by your bed, if you need it.”
Rosie watched her mother’s arm reach out above her. Bugeyed, a Little Rascal, about to start whistling, she watched the arm and a glass pass back toward the bed, listened to her mother drink water.
“Oh, I don’t feel well at all, James.”
“This will be your last hangover.”
“God, I get to stop drinking today.”
“Yeah.”
In the lulling silence, Rosie smiled, crossed her fingers.
“What if I can’t do it?”
“I know you can. Think of how good you’ll feel, clear-headed,
healthy. Less guilty, less sick.”
“I guess that doesn’t sound so bad.” She laughed softly, groggily. “I quit smoking, you know.”
“I know. If you can quit smoking, you can quit anything.”
“Oh, James. I don’t know if I can do it.”
“One way to find out.”
“God, I am so fucked up.”
“Yeah, but on top of that, you’re perfect.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“You are, for me. I’ve been waiting for you all my life. I want to grow old with you. We could spend the rest of our lives getting to know each other.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, we should get married.”
“Oh, God, I don’t know.”
There was a long pause. Say yes, Mama, say yes! The pause continued.
“Elizabeth? When did you first notice that you’d lost interest in me?”
Elizabeth laughed. “I never will, I promise.”
James exhaled loudly.
Rosie heard them kiss. After a long while, she could tell by their breathing that they were asleep. Rosie got up and tiptoed out the door.
Her bedroom was lit by the sunrise. She took off her night-gown and put on her shorts. Her T-shirt was so cold against her chest that for a moment she thought it was wet, and the voice within her head said, Mama’s gonna quit!
CHAPTER 22
Sober for two days, Elizabeth felt that her windows had been washed: her mind and eyes were clear again. It was a miracle, to not have the drinks that she craved.
The phone rang, and she went to the hall to answer it. James, at his typewriter, looked up and listened:
“Hi. How are you doing? ... What’s the matter? ... No. Oh, shit. What did you say? ... Oh, no, Rae, you’re kidding me! You gotta call him back and tell him you’ve reconsidered ... Because! The guy is a jerk and an asshole, and you’ve worked so hard to get over him! ... I know you’re lonely, but you were lonelier when you were with him; you spent all day every day swallowing golf balls.... Of course he misses you. You were the best thing that ever happened to him. But he didn’t want you.... Oh, good, now he does, right. Wonderful.... Ohhhh, gee, was he crying? My heart bleeds for the guy. I hate that kind of man! Who makes you console him for needing you! God. Call him back, then call me.... Because! He makes you feel clingy and neurotic and obsessed, and lucky to get whatever little morsel of time he can give you. Because, Rae, as long as some man is making you feel that way, you know who you are; if somebody makes you feel insecure and needed and abused, you exist; otherwise, if a man made you feel loved and wanted and deserving. of being loved and wanted by a great person, you’d have a massive identity attack.... Oh, come on, sweetheart. If I could find a great man who loves me and wants me, you can. There’s a good one out there waiting for you. Don’t settle for a selfish, boring little boy.... Okay. Call me back. We’re going to the city tonight—me and James and Rosie. Come with us. We’ll eat in North Beach and then go see a movie. Something funny. Rosie’s pretty low, too.... Oh, she’s upstairs in her room, brooding. James is working. I’m about to go work in the garden. So—call him up, all right? Then call me back.... Oh, Rae. It always feels that way, that you’ll never fall in love again, that no one great will ever fall in love with you, but I promise. It’ll happen.... Look, I spent my whole life looking for a friend like you. I’d given up. And then we found each other. Or rather, you found me, and weasled your way into my heart, and now you’re part of the family. And James is part of our family too, and when a good man comes along for you, he’ll be part of our family too. Okay? I promise.... Good, okay, call me back. Be brave. I love you, Rosie loves you—”