How to Grow an Addict

by J. A. Wright

  When my therapist brought up the topic of intimate relationships in group the next day, and whispered to me that she knew about Nick’s phone call, I was relieved. I knew I wouldn’t have brought him up on my own. How could I say that I loved a man who treated me like a sex slave? I’d decided to tell my group that I was okay about breaking up with Nick, but when it came time for me to talk I blurted out, “I just don’t know if I can live without my boyfriend Nick. He’s the only person who cares about me.”

  “That’s just your lonely talking girl,” Mike said under his breath.

  I sobbed the rest of group time, and when it was over I stayed to talk to my therapist.

  “What’s your plan for Nick after you’re out of here?” she asked.

  I inched my chair right up to hers. “I don’t know. Nick knows where I live, and I think he’s got a key, and I kind of miss him,” I said.

  “No, you just miss the drugs he gives you. Do you really think you’d want Nick around if he couldn’t or wouldn’t supply you with pills?”

  “Maybe? I gotta think about that.”

  “When you make a decision to be done with drugs, you’ll be able to stay away from Nick,” she said.

  “It can’t be that easy,” I replied.

  “Oh, it is.” She smiled as she reached over and put two fingers under my chin and lifted it until I was looking right into her face. “You might want to think about moving out of your apartment and staying with your mom for a few months, until you get comfortable in AA meetings and find a sponsor,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes when she said that. “I don’t like AA. It’s full of weirdos and drunks. I’m thinking I’ll enroll in school instead. Maybe I’ll become a drug and alcohol counselor like you?” I smiled at her.

  Her face turned serious, and she took my hand and held it tight. “You won’t be able to stay away from drugs and alcohol— or Nick—on your own for very long. You’re clever, but not clever enough to outsmart this thing. Give yourself a chance to become the person you want to be. Find an AA sponsor. Someone who’ll take your calls when you’re frustrated or sad, or feeling like using.”

  I said I would, even though I wasn’t sure if I meant it.

  Later that same day, during a lecture on personal responsibility, the Facility psychologist talked for almost an hour about making good choices and not blaming others for what happens to us. Then he told us about the three family information evenings the Facility would be holding in the main room, beginning the next day, Tuesday. He asked all of us to give the office manager the names and phone numbers of four family members we’d like to invite by the end of the day. I only put Mom’s name down, and then later on I went back to the office and added Robbie, Aunt Flo, and my sister to my list. I didn’t want the Facility people to think I didn’t have anyone supporting me.

  The next night, Mom showed up. I was so happy it was all I could do to stop myself from giggling out loud. And I couldn’t stop looking at her. She seemed so different, happier and younger, but maybe she’d always been that way and I hadn’t noticed because I’d been so stoned and miserable. When she hugged me and rubbed the back of my head I felt so ashamed and so sad I practically collapsed in her arms.

  She told me the Facility manager had called and asked her to come alone the first night. “But Robbie’s in town tomorrow and he said he’d drop by, and your Aunt Flo called me at work yesterday. She said she was surprised and concerned to hear about where you were and promised she’d attend the session on Thursday.”

  I wondered which night Tammy would attend, or whether she’d attend.

  During the break, Mom told me she’d read the information the Facility had faxed her at work and that she thought I probably was an alcoholic, just like my dad had been. “You got it from him, I’m sure,” she said.

  I stopped myself from mentioning all the pills she took, or the times when I’d seen her drunk, sometimes even drunker than Dad, because I didn’t want her to be mad at me anymore.

  After the lecture was over, I got a pass to leave the Facility so I could go to dinner with Mom. She held my hand all the way to the parking lot, and boy was I surprised to see Dad’s yellow Falcon parked right up front. The last time I’d seen it, it had been up on blocks in the garage, exactly as Robbie had left it after Dad’s funeral. Mom said her boyfriend, Gavin, had found a set of spare keys in the garage and fixed it up for her.

  I got into the passenger seat and snuggled in. It felt good to be in Dad’s car again, and I checked the glove box and under the seat as Mom drove.

  “What ya looking for?” Mom asked.

  “Nothing really. Just looking,” I replied as I grabbed Dad’s car service notebook from the glove box. I flipped through the pages for a few seconds. “Ya know,” I said, “he bought this car for three thousand dollars when it only had seven thousand miles on it. It’s probably worth a lot of money now. I’m glad you kept it.”

  “Me too,” Mom said, and she reached out to me and smoothed the back of my hair.

  Mom parked right in front of the restaurant and insisted we find a table that would enable her to keep an eye on the Falcon. “I’d sure hate it if someone stole that car,” she said as we walked through the front door. The hostess seated us at a window overlooking the parking lot.

  I ordered first: a cheeseburger, onion rings, and tartar sauce. Mom got the fish and chips, and while we waited she asked me to tell her about the Facility.

  “Everyone’s pretty nice and my room is great,” I said as the waitress arrived with my root beer and Mom’s wine. I told Mom about the girl who had sex with a new guy in the room next to me and the guy from my group who killed himself the week before.

  “Jesus Christ, honey, what kind of place is this?”

  “It’s a rehab, Mom. For drug addicts, alcoholics, and troublemakers,” I whispered.

  I watched Mom’s face drop and turn serious before she took two big drinks and sank down deeper into her chair.

  I could see she was upset so I stopped talking about the Facility and said, “I’m sorry for all the crappy things I’ve done. For stealing things and never saying thanks.”

  Mom took another big sip of her wine before she said it was okay, and then told me she hadn’t been too good herself lately. “I’ve had lots of problems this past year. My sister and I haven’t settled our parents’ estate yet, and she’s getting frustrated and so am I. We’ve been trying to sell the two rental properties they had in San Diego and deal with insurance companies. Last week we hired a lawyer to help us.”

  As she was talking, I suddenly remembered a message Olive had left on my phone a few months ago telling me that my grandma had just passed. “Your mom wants to go to Utah to help with the funeral,” Olive had said. “Maybe you can drive her, because I can’t and she shouldn’t be alone.” I’d listened to the message two more times before deleting it. I hadn’t been interested in going to Utah or in seeing Mom. Plus, I’d been doing my best to avoid seeing anyone because I was pregnant and not dealing with it very well.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t go to Grandma’s funeral with you. I really am. And I’m sorry about your dad, too,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Losing Mom has been hard on me. I went to Utah for a week to help my brother and sister with her funeral. It was good for me to go alone. It gave me time to think about my life.”

  I watched with interest when Mom made herself stop crying and then dabbed a tissue under her eyes ever so softly, managing not to smear her makeup at all. I also watched as she finished her glass of wine and waved the waitress over and ordered another. Then she told me Robbie and Sarah Lizbeth were pregnant, and that she was looking forward to being a grandma.

  I didn’t say what I was thinking—that Robbie was going to be a horrible father. I just focused on my burger.

  When the waitress brought Mom’s second glass of wine, she took a few sips and confessed to me something that completely shocked me—that she had breast implants. “I don’t kno
w if you know this or not, but I’ve had silicone implants for more than twenty years and I think they’ve been leaking for the past fifteen. I think they’re the reason I get such bad headaches and lately I’ve been feeling like I have the flu all the time. I’m having them removed next week,” she said.

  “What? They’re not real?” I practically yelled. I’d never considered that implants might be responsible for Mom being so busty. I laughed a little. “God, Mom, I wished I’d known. I spent years expecting something to develop on my chest because you had so much on yours. As you can see,” I said, pulling my sweater open and sticking out my chest, “I could be president of the flat-chested club.”

  She said she’d been small-chested like me until a year after I was born. “Your dad came home from work one day and told me all about a guy who worked with him and how he’d bought a new set of boobs for his wife. He told Dad that it had made their marriage better than ever. I wanted a better marriage, and I especially wanted your dad to stop seeing Genie, so I let him make an appointment with a plastic surgeon. I even let him choose the size because he wanted to make sure he got his money’s worth. Once I get these bags of poison out of my chest, I’ll join your club,” she said, winking.

  I was stunned, and we ate in silence for the next few minutes, until our waitress arrived and we both noticed, at the same time, her big fake boobs. We giggled quietly as she refilled our water glasses, trying to avoid looking at each other; the second she walked away, Mom leaned across the table and mouthed, “Money’s worth,” and I burst into laughter and practically choked on the food I was chewing.

  “Will you come home and stay with me after the operation?” Mom asked, turning a bit more serious. “I don’t want Gavin to be my nurse. I don’t want him to see anything until I’m all healed up.”

  “Sure, Mom. I can do that.”

  I knew that Mom liked Gavin, and that he wasn’t like the other men she’d dated. “He cooks a little, does the dishes, and doesn’t mind one little bit if I don’t show up at breakfast with makeup on,” she said. “He even put up a clothesline in the backyard so he could hang out the laundry.”

  Mom had almost finished her second glass of wine when she told me she was in love with Gavin, felt like they were meant for each other, and was planning to move to New Zealand with him. “He’s keen to get back home,” she said.

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t believe she wanted to move to the other side of the world. I nodded my head like I was happy about it, because I didn’t know what else to do.

  We both picked at our food for a few minutes before she said, “If things work out okay with you when you leave the Facility, maybe you can come to New Zealand and stay with us.”

  I said I’d think about it and then asked her about her plans for the house.

  “It’s for sale, and there’s a young couple with two boys who’ve looked at it twice,” she said. “I’m expecting them to make an offer any day.”

  “What about all our stuff?” I asked.

  “You can have whatever you want, honey. Just let me know and I’ll make sure you get it.”

  “Can I have the Falcon, and maybe Dad’s jukebox?”

  “I don’t see why not.” She smiled.

  I felt instantly better, probably because of the way she said it, without one bit of hesitation and not one word about Robbie and what he might think.

  “I’m only taking a few suitcases of clothes with me, so I need to get rid of a lifetime of stuff. Maybe you can help me organize a garage sale, huh?” she said. “You can have all the money from the sale, but you’ll have to do most of the work.”

  I agreed to the plan. And I was happy to know I’d have something to do when I left the Facility. I’d be helping Mom and earning some money, too.

  When the waitress arrived to take our plates away and asked if we wanted anything else, Mom started to order another glass of wine but instead looked over at me and said, “Two root beers, please.” Then she reached into her purse, took out one of my old poem books, and handed it to me. She’d found it when she was cleaning out my bedroom and kept it because she liked to read my poems. I hadn’t seen that notebook for a long time and tried to remember what I’d written, hoping she hadn’t brought the one with my hundred poems of how to die. I could tell from the several spots of dried blood on the cover that this was a notebook from a particularly bad nail-biting period. I opened it to the first page and read to myself something I’d written a long time ago when some boy dumped me, probably after having sex with me and then deciding I was too weird to be seen with.

  Over is over, end is the end.

  Wanting not having, needing you when.

  Done is done, no one won.

  Sure wanted to, would’ve been nice,

  could’ve been great.

  This and not that, stupid mistake.

  Mom said she loved the poem and then asked, “When did things get so screwed up with you? What could I have done?”

  I told her I couldn’t think of anything she could’ve done. I didn’t say, “other than give me away for adoption,” like I wanted to. “I’ve been trying to figure it out myself for weeks,” I said. “I think I went from glad to sad and then mad after Uncle Hank died. It was around then when I started helping myself to Dad’s booze and your pills.”

  “I always wondered about that. I thought your dad was taking my pills for sleeping. It never occurred to me it might be you until after he died.”

  I tried to explain how it all got a whole lot worse when I moved out on my own because I was scared of just about everyone and everything, and being stoned felt better than being straight. It wasn’t the entire truth, but I wasn’t prepared to tell her about my relationship with Nick and all the drugs he’d made available to me.

  Later on, when she dropped me off at the front gate of the Facility, she said she’d come and get me Saturday afternoon and take me home. Then, in a real quiet voice, she said, “It’s okay that you didn’t like your dad. I didn’t like him much, either, but it took me years to figure that out.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The next night, Wednesday, just before the family session was scheduled to begin, the Facility psychologist told me he hadn’t heard from my sister or my brother about attending. “You might be alone tonight,” he said, giving me a sympathetic smile and motioning for me to find a seat.

  I found a seat in the back row next to Mike, kicked my shoes off, and got comfortable for what I now knew was a long lecture about avoiding alcohol, even in everyday foods. Just as the talk was getting going, Robbie walked into the room and sat down in the front row. He was wearing a black suit with a blue and red striped tie and looked as handsome as ever. I thought about getting up from my seat to welcome him, but I was kind of scared that he might yell at me in front of everyone so I stayed put.

  Robbie had only been seated a few minutes before he interrupted the speaker and began asking questions about the cost of the place and why some people were paying full price when it was pretty obvious to him that the losers he saw smoking out in front of the building didn’t have a dime to their name. “So it would be me, the taxpayer, who’s footing the cost?” he said. “I’m paying for those lowlifes to lounge around here smoking and whining all day?”

  I wanted to die. I wanted to stand up and tell him to shut his big fat fucking mouth, but I couldn’t. I knew if I did he’d let loose and tell everyone in the room some of the things I’d done before I got to the Facility, including having sex with a fourteen-year-old, which Robbie maintained was statutory rape, and taking Dad’s Mustang for a spin, which he said was grand theft auto.

  One of the managers stood up and said, “Sir, you can call our office in the morning and I’m sure someone will be able to answer your questions about costs. We’re here tonight to talk about the family disease of addiction. Do you have any questions about that?”

  “Yeah, I got a question about that. How is it that a drunk can kill someone and say in court he didn’t r
emember doing it but never forgets where he hides his booze?” Robbie asked.

  I waited for someone to answer, but no one did.

  Robbie shrugged his shoulders a few times and then said, “I guess killing someone isn’t as important as the booze, huh?”

  When he stood up to leave I got up and followed him all the way out to his car, which was parked at the end of the parking lot. I was bursting to tell him off but he beat me to it. When he finally stopped at his car, he pulled an envelope from the inside pocket of his suit coat and handed it to me. I could see it was a legal document of some sort. “It’s a restraining order,” he said. “I’ve had enough of your shit. You’re a drug addict, a drunk, and a child molester, and an embarrassment. I don’t want you around me, or my family, ever!” He held the pen out for me to take.

  “I’m sorry, ya know,” I murmured. “I didn’t mean to become any of those things.” I wiped at the tears that were threatening to erupt and took the pen from his hand.

  He calmed down a bit after I signed, and told me to stop crying and grow up. “My life is too important to be messed up by you,” he said in the very same stern manner Dad would have said it in.

  I watched Robbie get into his car, and before he drove off he rolled down his window and said, “Nice going talking Mom into letting you have Dad’s Falcon. You know I’ve always wanted that car.”

  “You got Dad’s Impala, El Camino, and Blazer. Why do you need the Falcon?” I asked.

  “Because Dad would have wanted me to have it and you know it.”

  He didn’t hear me say “good riddance” because he drove away too fast. And I didn’t get the chance to explain anything to anyone, either, because by the time I got back to the Facility it was time to go to another AA meeting. I knew the van would be in front of the building in ten minutes, and I needed to change my clothes and splash some cold water on my face.