by Zoe Fishman
“And I’m grateful, because it’s been a really special experience.”
Teddy paused, took a deep breath. He looked out at his parents again, who smiled up at him.
“I love movies because almost always, there’s a neat, happy ending, tied up in a pretty bow. That’s what I think everyone wants, after all, to escape from the fact that life not always, almost never, is like that.
“In real life, people die. In real life, people are sad, sometimes forever. In real life, people make big mistakes that have big repercussions, and sometimes those repercussions are impossible to untangle. It’s all a big, messy muck. And happy endings are a fantasy.”
Teddy kept his eyes trained on his paper.
“But everyone, it seems to me, has their own muck. And the muck can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be. Muck should be shared. Because maybe yours is a lot like somebody else’s. Or maybe you have very different mucks, but the connection bridges the gap.
“I’ll always love movies for their happy endings, for the hope they provide. But real life has room for hope too, through these kinds of honest and unexpected connections. And as I cross this threshold into my supposed manhood today, I hope I can always believe in this.
“And I guess what I’m saying is that I hope you can too.
“Thank you.”
At last, Teddy looked up from his paper, which was damp with the sweat from his palms. The room was quiet. He knew he had done good, as Morty would say.
And that was enough.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sylvie
Did you know your son was such a skilled orator?” asked Sylvie’s mother as they pulled extra toilet paper from the linen closet.
Sylvie had forgotten to stock the bathrooms before they had left for the synagogue, and now there were so many people, all of whom would need to go at some point during their stay, in her house.
“I mean, can you even?” Sylvie shook her head in wonder as she piled three white cylinders on the shelf over the toilet. “He’s changed so much.”
“Well, he’s becoming the man he’s going to be,” said her mother, adjusting her necklace in the mirror. “You know, everyone scoffs at this whole rite-of-passage, boy-into-man, girl-into-woman Bar or Bat Mitzvah business, but it’s true. It’s like clockwork. I swear, on the morning of your Bat Mitzvah, poof!, you had breasts.”
“Mom, I had breasts at ten,” said Sylvie.
“No you didn’t.”
“Sylvie, the caterer is asking if you have another serving platter?” asked Paul’s mother, popping her head in.
“You know, Mary, I didn’t have the chance to tell you how much I like your dress,” said Sylvie’s mother. “Very flattering.”
“Barbara, please,” said Mary. “Don’t bullshit me.” Sylvie smiled. Good for Mary.
“Can you believe our boy?” Mary asked her, her eyes twinkling. “Wasn’t he just amazing?”
“He really was,” agreed Sylvie. “Oh, come on, Mom, can’t you laugh?” Barbara sulked by the tub. “Haven’t we all known each other long enough by now?”
Her mother sighed. “Well, you didn’t have to be rude, Mary.”
“Why not? You’ve been rude for years. And there’s no hard feelings, Barbara, really. You’re the glamorous grandma, and I shop at Dress Barn. Apples and oranges.”
Barbara cracked a small smile.
“Can we get out of here now?” asked Sylvie. “Actually, you two: out. Mom, can you show them where the platters are? I need to pee.”
Sylvie closed the door behind them and exhaled deeply. She had only two, three at most, more hours of socializing to endure. She closed the toilet lid and sat down, digging in her pocket for a pill. She took it out and placed it on her tongue.
She stood up and faced herself in the mirror. She was a bona fide mess, but at least her son wasn’t. She hadn’t screwed him up entirely. His speech, that was proof. She was so proud of him and so sick of herself.
But on Monday she was going to rehab. She could not back out; she could not run away. She had to do what she had promised them she would do. She had let them both down, and now she had to earn their trust back. It was that simple.
Paul knew everything except the one thing that could be the last straw. David. But did she even have to tell him?
“No,” she said to herself in the mirror.
“Yes,” she said after that.
Neither felt right.
There was a knock at the door. Sylvie opened it to find Beverly from Twilight Manor, a study in graceful aging in her black tailored suit, white bob and red lips.
“Oh hello,” said Sylvie.
“Hi,” said Beverly. She looked like Lauren Hutton but sounded like Dolly Parton. “Your Teddy gives me hope for the future men of this world.”
“Thank you,” said Sylvie. “Me too.”
She walked out, and Beverly walked in, closed the door behind her. Of course it was yes. She had to tell Paul. How and when was another story.
Sylvie strode into the kitchen and then through the French doors out to the deck, where all the guests mingled and ate from the buffet of bagels and lox and salads and spreads; cucumbers and tomatoes and pickles of every persuasion. Pitchers of orange juice and lemonade; bottles of champagne and vodka for those so inclined; white hydrangeas placed on every available surface.
Paul walked up to her, placed his hand at the small of her back.
“It’s a lovely brunch,” he told her.
“Drunk guy, one o’clock,” Barbara warned them, clattering by on her heels to set her carefully procured plate at a table.
“What?” asked Sylvie.
“Who?” asked Paul.
And then, there he was, lumbering toward them in a too-big gray suit that swallowed him whole, a polyester maroon tie that practically glistened. Sylvie’s stomach somersaulted. David had been invited before all the messiness but had never RSVPed. Surely, he won’t show up, Sylvie had reasoned. But here he was.
“Amazing the lengths someone will go for a decent whitefish salad,” she managed to squeak out to Paul—her attempt to defuse the bomb that was three feet, now two, now directly in front of them.
“Great party,” said David, slurring.
“Good to see you,” offered Paul. “Do you want to sit down? Here, come with me—”
“Nah, I’m not staying long,” he said. He took a swig from his amber bottle of beer, his eyes locked directly into Sylvie’s. Her knees felt like jelly. She didn’t know who or what to ask for mercy, and she sure as hell didn’t deserve it, but she internally uttered a quick Please, no, don’t do this anyway.
“So the thing is,” David began. “About the pills. You know, what I told you about?”
“Yes, I know,” said Paul. “Sylvie and I have discussed it, David, and I want to thank you, you know. You saved her. She’s going to rehab on Monday.”
“Saved me?” asked Sylvie. “Well, I don’t know about that—”
“Yeah, well, see, I also fucked her,” said David.
All around them, guests mingled and ate. Sylvie could even see Teddy sitting with the long-lost Martin and Raj, Krystal by his side, all of them laughing, their plates scavenged. How stupid Sylvie had been to assume that David would just go away.
“Do what now?” asked Paul. His hand fell from the small of Sylvie’s back, and she was certain that it would be the last time he touched her at all. Ever.
“She fucked me for those pills,” explained David. His eyes were as flat and lifeless as pebbles. “Offered herself up to me.”
“Like a prostitute,” said Paul, turning to look at Sylvie in disbelief.
“Yeah, well,” said David. “Yeah. But the thing is, see, I took her up on it. I’m just as bad, if not worse than Sylvie here. Because I knew better.” David gasped, overcome by a wrenching sob, one that caused everyone around them to stop what they were saying, eating or drinking to take notice. “I’m just so lonely, man,” David blubbered.
�
��Oh God,” Sylvie mumbled into the floor of the deck.
“You know what, David, let’s get you out of here.” Paul would not look at Sylvie. He put his arm around David and walked him off the deck, into the yard and down the driveway, talking about who knew what.
Sylvie stood alone. Paul had handled the situation so deftly that everyone had resumed their activity none the wiser except maybe her mother, who kept staring at her. She turned from her gaze, grabbed a flute of champagne from the bar and continued on into the living room, which was all but deserted. Sylvie sat on the couch, careful not to spill, and took an enormous gulp of her drink.
All things considered, Sylvie felt remarkably peaceful about what had just happened. She had always known that she would have to tell Paul. David had just taken care of it for her. And if she was being honest with herself, which she almost never was, this whole mess had started because she had felt invisible. Now here she was, being seen for the drug addict, prostitute, repressed woman that she was.
She had lost her daughter, and now she was going to lose her son and her husband too.
“Sylvie?” She looked up. It was Ellen, her onetime ally from the PTA.
“I just wanted to say, what a beautiful service. I’ve never been to a Bar Mitzvah before.” She took a sip from her own champagne flute. “Very spiritual.”
“I’m addicted to pills,” Sylvie told her. “I’m addicted to oxycodone, and I slept with my husband’s friend to score some once I ran out of other options. That was him, back there, ratting me out.”
Ellen nodded, completely unfazed. “That sucks,” she said. “Although: define addict.”
“What?” asked Sylvie.
“Define addict, because I drink a bottle of wine a night and I just call that survival. Although I wouldn’t screw the Kroger manager to get it. Is that the difference?”
Sylvie stared at her.
“I’m sorry, I’m making a joke because I’m wildly uncomfortable,” said Ellen. She sat down next to Sylvie.
“Why are you telling me this?” asked Ellen.
“I don’t know,” said Sylvie. “I guess I don’t have any friends.”
“Well, that’s your first problem. Women need friends. You might not have gotten into this mess if you’d had a girlfriend to steer you elsewhere.”
“Maybe,” said Sylvie. “But probably not. I’m big on self-destruction, it seems.”
“I’ll be your friend,” offered Ellen.
“Okay. But you have three months to prepare for the role. I’m off to rehab on Monday,” said Sylvie.
“All right then,” said Ellen.
“Excuse me,” said Sylvie. “I have to go collect myself. And listen, don’t tell anyone, okay?”
“What are friends for?” asked Ellen, raising her glass.
Sylvie walked down the steps and into the far-left corner of the yard. Behind some bushes there was a very small clearing. And in that clearing there was an Adirondack chair and a tiny rattan side table. Sylvie had declared it hers during her nesting phase with Delilah, when she had gone through the entire house and yard throwing out and scrubbing and buying.
She had spent an entire weekend directing Paul, having him pull out shrubs so she could plant ones that didn’t require much light. She had bought the chair with Teddy, asking him for his opinion on its color, agreeing on yellow and then paying the exorbitant amount. Paul and Teddy had carried it over and set it down once and then a second and third time, until Sylvie had deemed its placement exactly right. Sylvie had finally accepted the fact that a baby was coming out of her, and her goal had been to be topless and breastfeeding all through the summer, protected from view by the shrubs and trees that remained.
Now the chair was mud splattered and sun bleached. The plants were dead. She hadn’t been back here since Delilah had died. Sylvie wiped some debris off the seat and sat down, staring up into the leaves of the trees and beyond, into the blue sky.
It was amazing what one did to survive. Why she had insisted on taking the least noble route was a mystery to her. First, with anger and repression, and then with drugs and alcohol and lies. Why hadn’t she gone to counseling like a normal person would have done? Why hadn’t she processed her grief with some dignity?
All her decisions, they had been the wrong ones. She had thought being a good mother to Teddy meant chauffeuring him to his various appointments and keeping him fed. Keeping him alive. And in some ways, yes, that was the job description. But it was only a small part of it. She had failed him emotionally because she had failed herself emotionally. And Paul too. She had failed him too.
Long before she had found those pills, she had failed.
She would never know why Delilah had died. Why she had thrived inside her for eight months and then, not. Sylvie hoped that Delilah had not felt a thing, that there had been no pain. That she had been alive, and then just wasn’t.
Sylvie did not want to go to rehab, but she also did. She was scared of who she really was in the inside, but she was also curious to find out. Maybe this place would help her do it.
And who knew what waited for her on the other side? Her marriage could very well be over; she knew that now, and she had known that then, when she got in the car to drive to David’s that morning. She hadn’t cared, but now she did. Or maybe she had cared in her own misguided, repressed way. Sylvie needed to learn how to care correctly.
Sylvie sat in the chair, looking up into the trees, the hum of party conversation behind her. She hid, and she thought, and she hoped.
And then she got up, dusted herself off and returned, walking with deliberate measure across the lawn toward whatever lay ahead.
Epilogue
Sylvie kept her head down as she walked through the hall. The white linoleum floors were polished to an almost blinding sheen, so much so that Sylvie wished for sunglasses. She thought back to how her eyes had felt after detox. They had ached so badly that she could feel their exact circumference inside her skull sockets.
She had been driven here by a husband who was not speaking to her, a son who could barely look at her, silenced by the depths she had plumbed, and still she had shaken off the term addict.
She had been admitted into this beautiful place that was technically a rehab but really a prison; strip-searched; her bags turned upside down and inside out; her cell phone taken. She was led to a room she would be sharing with a woman named Kim, who greeted Sylvie by telling her not to touch her shit or else, and still.
She had gotten into her bed, pulled the scratchy covers over her head, cried just a little and told herself that when she woke up, she would do the program, she would put herself through the paces and the ninety days would be over before she knew it. She was not really an addict. She had temporarily screwed up in an unfortunately extraordinary way.
And then.
The next three days came and went in a blur of nausea, vomiting, shaking, sweating, freezing, every muscle in her body quivering, every bone feeling as brittle as straw, every slam of a door in the entire building reverberating in her head like a gunshot. The dreams wove in and out of her subconscious like a needle, presenting some people long-ago dead and gone and some people who were very much alive, who would no doubt haunt her in some form or another for the rest of her life. David, for example.
When she had awoken, squinting at the ceiling of her room, as thirsty as someone who’d been wandering in the desert for days, finally, Sylvie could no longer deny the truth. Lying, stealing and prostituting herself for pills hadn’t convinced her, but this detox had. She was an addict. Finally, she could say it.
And so she had said it out loud, I’m an addict, and Kim, her roommate, had said, No shit, Sherlock, from across the room where she sat in her bed doing a crossword puzzle. That’s when the real work had begun.
It had been forty-four days. The next day she would see Teddy and Paul for the first time since she’d been admitted. Sylvie was nervous to see them, to confront the wreckage of her actions, but she was
also excited. She missed them so much. She loved them so much.
“How can you treat the people you love the most the worst?” she had asked one afternoon in Group.
“When you don’t like yourself, it’s pretty easy,” her counselor had answered. That was maybe the truest thing Sylvie had ever heard.
She walked out into the open air and there was just the faintest hint of fall, a crisp edge after an eternity of damp heat. It felt good against her skin. She followed the dirt path, wildflowers nodding around her boots as she made her way. Past the placid lake with its quacking ducks, through the middle of a vegetable garden boasting cucumbers and eggplants, carrots and snap peas, kale and tomatoes that every patient tended to, including herself, toward the barn.
“Hey, Sylvie,” said Cynthia, their resident horse whisperer.
Cynthia was a twenty-year recovered heroin addict herself. She stood as erect as a skyscraper in her denim and riding boots. Sylvie pushed her own shoulders back in response.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” said Cynthia. “Come on now, don’t be scared. You ain’t scared of them, they ain’t scared of you.”
Sylvie followed her inside, down the aisle through the middle of the horse stalls. The smell of hay and manure, of sweat and animal, almost knocked her off her feet. The horses examined her quizzically, their eyes as big as saucers, their tails swishing lazily. Sylvie told herself to breathe, in and out. Slowly.
“Okay now, Hazel here needs a proper cleaning,” said Cynthia. She opened the door to the horse’s stall. “Come on, Sylvie. You act like she’s a tiger or somethin’.”
“Sorry,” Sylvie mumbled. “You know from Group how horses freak me out.”
“I know,” said Cynthia, more gently this time. “I know. But the only way to get over a fear is to face it, right? And Hazel is as gentle as they come.” Cynthia stroked the bridge of Hazel’s dark-brown nose. Sylvie moved closer.
“Go on, say hello,” said Cynthia.
“Hello,” said Sylvie.
Cynthia laughed. “Girl, she don’t understand English! Touch this damn horse!”