Walking on Broken Glass Page 3

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  I measured his irritation with the yardstick of voice deliberateness. Machine-gun delivery. Code Orange: high annoyance with flashes of impatience. If I persisted, I risked Code Red: anger with ranges from shout to rage. I could retreat. Retreat was as familiar as his rage cycle—a cycle I could both provoke and subdue.

  “Of course I heard you.”

  “Leah.” A familiar honeyed shift in his voice. Carl reached across the table and held out his hands, his invitation for me to place my hands in his.

  “Besides, what's a few drinks? You know how free, how passionate you become when we’re in bed. I think about those things you do …”

  I yanked my hands out of his as if he’d scorched them.

  Tina reappeared at the perfect psychological moment. She handed Carl the bill. “Y’all have a good night now, and hope you come back soon.”

  Carl rewarded her with a grin. He must think I’d backed away from him because Tina walked up. I forgave her the lost coffee cups at that moment.

  After he calculated Tina's tip (“pre-tax” he always reminded me), then stacked the quarters as paperweights on the dollar bills, Carl said, “It's late. We’re both tired. We don’t have to make any decisions tonight.”

  I grabbed my purse off the floor. “You’re right. We don’t have to decide tonight.” I stood and threaded my way out of the restaurant.

  I hope I’m forgiven the lie.

  It was not a “we” decision.

  It was mine. All mine.

  4

  The ride home provided an abundant blessing of silence. The manna of quiet sustained us until we opened the back door. The brochures from the Brookforest Center interrupted, screaming for attention from where I’d left them, held down to anchored to the top of the washing machine by my keys.

  “Is this the information you picked up today?” Carl handed me my keys with a dash of eyebrow admonition, slight lift accompanied by equally slight eye-widening.

  I locked the door; he grabbed the papers.

  “Can we talk about this tomorrow? It's late, remember?”

  I dropped my purse on the cypress dining room table. Solid, unassuming, a natural scrubbed-clean-face beauty, aged and flawed, a table with character and style. We had found it in a Magazine Street antique shop in New Orleans when we visited my parents a few months before Alyssa was born. When we imagined Hallmark holiday and Rockwell painting reenactments at the Thornton home.

  Sometimes, between the early evening beers and the after-dinner liqueur-laced lattes, I’d relax with a glass or two or three or four of wine in the dining room. Settled in a chair, I’d stretch my legs until my bare feet were propped on the edge of the table and feel a wee bit sad the table had more going for it than I did. But, as my mother always reminded me, “You have to suffer to be beautiful.” That cypress beauty spent untold years in a swamp before it was dredged up, hauled away, milled, and created.

  There’d be no table talk tonight.

  “What's this?” Carl held up a paper as I walked past the sofa where he sat. Paperwork from Brookforest littered the coffee table.

  I didn’t have to look. I knew he’d found the admission form. My brain triggered an emergency alert system that must have included a tiny pyromaniac who darted around my insides and started little fires.

  I wished real life took commercial breaks. We interrupt this pending marital eruption to provide the wife time to delay, defer, distract—or will she signal defeat?

  “I’m not sure. I’ll look at it in just a minute.” My dishonesty and I turned around and headed to the kitchen.

  “Where are you going?” I didn’t know if he looked as confused as he sounded because my face was, once again, buried in a refrigerator. This time I pushed aside Coke Zero cans on the shelf and prayed I’d find a Miller Lite lurking behind one of them. A prayer for beer. I’m a spiritual reprobate.

  Success. I’d drown my little internal fire starter and fuel my courage at the same time. I grabbed a beer, kicked off my sandals, and barefooted myself to the battlefront in my den.

  Uh-oh. Once again, that Wild West look held Carl's face hostage. “What are you doing? Drinking a beer? Didn’t you just tell me you’re an alcoholic?”

  “That's exactly why I’m drinking the beer.” I sat on the sofa, set the can on the coffee table, tucked my hair behind my ears, and looked at Carl. “Okay, here's—”

  “Get a coaster. You’ll leave a ring on the table.” He lifted the can and grabbed a tissue to wipe the faint sweaty circle.

  I pulled the shiniest of the brochures over and pretended my tongue was numb for a nanosecond so I’d not blurt out a scathing comment. Carl hated my sarcasm when it was aimed at him.

  “This’ll work.” I reached for the beer, drank more, tried again. “Carl, I talked to someone at the center. I need to do this. Maybe tonight my thinking I drink too much sounds like high drama to you. I just know I can’t control my drinking. The admissions counselor—”

  “Who gives a rip what some stranger told you? I don’t. What made you think you could go off and do this—” he shook the paper at me “—without talking to me first?”

  I curled my legs underneath me, stretched my denim skirt over my knees, and wondered if Carl realized two small bubbles of maple syrup had hitched a ride on his lightly starched, white cotton button-down shirt. He hated shopping. Had no idea which cleaners I used. What would he do with this shirt for a month?

  “I don’t know, really. I mean, of course I was going to talk to you. I guess I just didn’t think—”

  “Exactly. Once again, you just didn’t think,” he said, as if relieved I finally provided the answer he expected. “How many times do we need to have this conversation?”

  And there it was.

  The hill I was willing to die on for the compromise I wasn’t willing to make.

  I finished the beer, clasped my hands around my knees, and pulled my legs against my chest. I held on tightly. My heart flopped like the fish dad would pull off his line and toss on the pier. A few more beers and the words could ride out on the river of my waning inhibitions. But so could my conviction.

  Deep breath. “I’m doing this. I have to or I won’t get sober or stay sober. You may not understand right now, but it's what I need to do. I’m admitting myself on the fourth.” Exhale.

  I found the hill. Carl found the dam, and it exploded like a grenade filled with ball bearings. He shot up with such force I almost tumbled off the sofa.

  “The fourth? You’re going in on the fourth? Are you crazy? Did you forget about the weekend? Your dad's coming in. We’re all supposed to meet my parents at the lake house.” Angry desperation brewed a toxic combination.

  “They’ll understand. It’ll work out. I don’t know. Go without me.” I pitched solutions, but the batter left the plate. “Isn’t my sobriety more important than going to the lake?”

  “Oh, right, I forgot. This is all about you. Your alcoholism,” which he pronounced more like “al-co-hall-izim.” He paced in front of the sofa. I tried to move past him. This would all go down so much easier with another beer. Or a glass of wine. He stopped in front of me, almost mashing my toes with his deck shoes. “Well, if you’re a real alcoholic, then where are you stashing it? That's what real alcoholics do, right? Hide bottles?”

  He scissored through the house from the family room to the kitchen to the study in an Academy Award performance. I followed him in the newly created Unsupporting Actress category.

  Things were tossed, nudged, lifted. Merry Maids were going to be anything but when they arrived next week.

  “Carl, I promise I don’t hide bottles anywhere. I’m not that kind of alcoholic. I mostly drink Miller Lite,” I said, though I’d left out “or anything else.”

  He shoved the bottom drawer of his desk closed. The handle clanged against the wood like metal teeth chattering in the cold. He paused on his way out of the study. Just a few paces behind him, I stopped and
waited. But he didn’t even turn around when he said, “Don’t say another thing unless it's to tell me you give up this lunatic notion of yours.” Each word from his mouth was a bullet intended to kill my determination.

  I didn’t want to provide the ammunition, but I fueled his search with the news I wouldn’t abandon my “crazy idea” of going into rehab.

  He pushed the guest room door open. The room had been the nursery. I begged him to stop. But he reached into the belly of the closet, shoved the pink gingham diaper bag he found into my chest, and dared me to unzip it.

  “Why didn’t you fill this with alcohol? Not like it’ll ever be filled with anything else again.” His voice throbbed with anger.

  The closet floor and its contents drifted in a swelling carpeted sea. Tidal waves of the closet's barren dampness, Carl's exploding accusations, and the lingering scent of baby powder sweetness crashed over me. I rode them out until the floor finally settled itself underneath me.

  “How dare you! How dare you!” I summoned a voice from places in my soul I’d buried a lifetime ago. My arms cradled the pink bag. I fell to my knees. I wanted to suffocate myself in the quilted softness. Its emptiness screamed of what was, what could have been.

  If I could have truly prayed again, this would’ve been the time.

  When Carl pushed past me, he left behind the rank bitterness steaming from his skin. I despised him at that moment. It was the strongest emotion I’d felt toward him in a long time.

  I curled into a ball on the closet floor with the diaper bag as my pillow. I told myself I’d drink the pain away later. My going-away present to myself.

  After I woke up from my closet sleep, I returned Alyssa's bag to the safety of the wicker hamper where we’d stored the too few belongings of her too brief life.

  Another night of sleeping in my clothes. A sour slime coated the inside of my mouth and oozed its way to my stomach with each swallow. I ached to throw up, but my body wouldn’t participate. Too far away from my bathroom to shove my finger down my throat, I sat on the floor, leaned against the wall, and willed my neck to support the weight of my head. The closet that cocooned me last night now folded in on me. Each breath mixed a cocktail of sadness, regret, disappointment, and anger.

  I unwound myself and shuffled to the kitchen. I found Carl, asleep on the sofa, his head propped on the rolled arm. His legs tangled the crimson chenille throw I spent ten minutes a day arranging to look like it’d been carelessly tossed. Reassured by his crackling snores that he would stay asleep, I didn’t disturb him on the way to my last rewards of orange juice and vodka.

  5

  Molly leaned against my closet doorframe and surveyed my options. She’d volunteered to help me skim my wardrobe for the appropriate alcoholic-in-recovery attire.

  I didn’t tell her about the emotional earthquake a few days ago. Carl and I didn’t even mention it to one another. The energy of that night diluted itself in the tedium of the next day. Since that night, we occupied the same space, but we hovered in different orbits. It worked for now.

  And now I’m cross-legged on the closet floor, surrounded by mismatched shoes and uneven stacks of wearables and not-on-your-lifes.

  We spent hours coordinating, eliminating, and parading ourselves in one after another of my generally disastrous fashions. My mother-in-law had spirited my maternity clothes away a long time ago. All that remained were my before, during, and after weight loss sizes, ranging from oh-my-gosh to oh-I-just-wish.

  “So the good news is you can wash clothes there. The bad news is you’ll be the one doing the washing. Do you think they’ll let you schlep around in your jammies? Not the boxers, of course, but …” Molly stopped mid-sentence, an incredibly annoying tendency, which usually signaled she was talking to herself.

  “I doubt many of the patients have a devoted Vogue subscriber packing for them. I bet the suitcase of choice is a grocery bag or one of those nifty purple velvet pouches that make you feel better for overspending on Crown Royal.”

  I debated telling Molly about my stash of those bags. I’d shoved them into an empty Kotex box. I knew Carl would never have a reason to explore the contents of any box labeled maximum overnight protection, extra length with wings, and delicately scented. I just couldn’t bring myself to ditch them; it seemed like such a waste. Especially with those gold-roped tassels. I decided not to tell Molly. Once I’m long-term sober, I might find some righteous use for those little bags.

  We reviewed the list of contraband items. Not allowed at any time: aerosol cans, mouthwashes with alcohol, nail polish, nail polish remover, needles, tacks, pins, staplers, staples, food, matches, perfume bottles, razor blades, glue, metal cans.

  I’ll walk around an unshaved, unscented, halitosis-impaired, unpolished, and unmani/pedicured nightmare. How will we tolerate each other?

  Also included on the list as not appropriate were weapons, illicit drugs, books with violent themes, and seductive clothing. Weren’t these life-inappropriate, not just rehab off-limits? Who needed instructions to not bring drugs to rehab? Am I one of these people?

  The upside of being in a treatment center? Molly reassured me it was a respite for the fashion-conscious. I could rest knowing not only would haute couture police not patrol, they won’t even be allowed to carry weapons.

  I eyed a stack of clothes that didn’t make the rehab cut. “You think I could plop down there, wave my arms like a wild woman, and make one of those snow angels?”

  “Is Carl thinking maybe you should be making snow devils?” Molly didn’t even make eye contact. She just kept rolling my clothes and then arranged them in my suitcase like puffy, rainbow-colored sausages.

  “Why? Has he talked to Devin?” The hope that hitched a ride on that question surprised me. I thought I’d suffocated it, left it for dead. But there it was—a gasp of promise. If Carl had said something to Devin, even an angry something, he was trying to make sense of this. And that would mean he wanted to understand.

  Molly looked at me, and I read the disappointment in her eyes before she spoke. “No,” she said softly as if wrapping a brick in cotton made it any less painful when it hit you. “I just guessed …”

  I tossed her a pair of socks. “It's fine. You guessed right. I’m the one who guessed wrong.”

  A bag of mini-Snickers, a bunch of grapes, and a bowl of popcorn later, we declared ourselves finished, having experienced the delirium of the mentally exhausted. Mine, however, had been supplemented by vodka. Another of those “you’re such a good girl for finishing this dreadful task, you deserve a reward.” Clearly warped, but I’d had these conversations with myself for years. By now they seemed logical.

  We wheeled my suitcases to the foyer and parked them near the stairs. I wanted to joke about waiting for the bus to pick me up for beer camp, but it didn’t feel funny. Not then. Not standing there with Molly, who had risked our friendship. What did I know of real courage? Mine came from bottles.

  “I’m so proud of you. I’m praying for both of you.” She hugged me with a fierce tenderness, and before she let go, she whispered, “You’ll make it through this. I promise.”

  I believed her.

  I hoped it would be enough to start.

  Journal 1

  When I refused to sacrifice myself, I’d bear the consequences the next day. Carl would accuse me of being frigid, tell me I needed help.

  In front of our friends, he’d say, “That little head of hers can’t even balance a checkbook. It's a good thing she's so pretty; otherwise, I’d wonder why I married her.” He’d tell them how he’d drag his hand across the antique foyer table to check it because my idea of clean was only one layer of dust.

  In the bedroom, he would rage as if his anger could pierce my unwillingness. “A wife should want to make love to her husband,” he’d sneer. Wasn’t he generous? Didn’t he provide for me? He’d remind me that I didn’t have to work like some of my friends. I was the one who chose work anyway. Didn’t that count for something? He t
olerated my overspending. “When are you going to be a wife? A real wife? What's wrong with you? When are you going to fix this?” The void left by those unanswered questions became our battlefield.

  I slogged through every day, dreading the inevitable night. Knowing it would come again and again and again and again. We’d wake the next morning, and it would be the unspoken war between us. Me the prisoner. Carl the occupying force.

  He wouldn’t relent. If he failed to capture my body, he would succeed in demanding my soul. Even when I won, I lost.

  That morning, the one where I was going to have to walk myself into treatment, I heard the click of the door before I saw him stride into the bathroom. The thick glass of the sliding shower doors distorted his body—the body I once welcomed and invited to press against my own. Tender and careful and patient. I once longed for him. But not today. Not for many days after everything changed.