“Mom?”
“Aidyn?” She turned to me, wincing. “I have the worst headache.” She sighed. “I’ve had hangovers this bad, but not often.”
“Do you want something?”
She shook her head. “No. I think I just need to sleep.” But she stayed on the couch. “My stomach hurts, too. I should have stopped and gotten some ginger ale. That might have helped.”
“Do you want me to go get some?”
“Do you mind? I’d appreciate that.”
So I ended up walking three blocks to get a six-pack of soda for her stomach and thinking mine needed it just as badly.
When I got back I asked, “What’s for dinner?”
“I don’t know. Can’t you just open a can of soup?”
I backed away. “Yeah, I guess. What kind do you want?”
“I’m not hungry.” She poured a glass of ginger ale and lay back on the couch. Even when I brought a bowl of chicken soup to her, she didn’t want it. I put it in the fridge and stared at my tiny pile of dishes. Nothing had changed, had it? Mom was drunk and trying to hide it. Just because I couldn’t see it or smell it didn’t change anything. Pretty soon she’d pass out, and my nightmare would suck me into its rancid mouth and swallow me whole. But it couldn’t, because I wasn’t whole.
I tiptoed into the room. Her eyes were closed, her breathing heavy. No snoring, like when she was really drunk, but—
I knelt next to her. “Mom, I think you better go to a meeting.”
She jerked like I’d woken her. “Not tonight, OK?’
Biting my lip, I got up. I’d given her another chance. She could have decided to go. I washed my dishes and finished my homework and spent a lot of time holding onto my cross.
Please don’t let it start again. Please!
And underneath my prayers ran the mantra—too late, too late.
And here I’d convinced myself Mom went to those meetings three times a week because she had so many friends there.
I headed for the living room and turned on the TV. Mom sat up, dragging her hair off her face. “Can’t you turn that down?”
I did, but after a few minutes she stirred again. “Do you have to have that on?”
“Why don’t you go to a meeting?” I muttered. “Then I could do what I want without you bagging on me.”
“I don’t feel like it, OK? I told you that.”
I switched off the TV and stared at the empty screen. I touched my cross, but it felt just as empty. Mom sat up and reached for her glass.
“What are you drinking?”
“Ginger ale. You bought it, remember?”
I shook my head. She’d sneaked something else into it. She had to have. And I knew why she wouldn’t go to a meeting. She’d quit quitting, and why would she go when she’d decided to drink?
I turned off all but one light and crept to my room. A long time later I heard her stumble to the bathroom. I heard her heaving and gasping, the splash of vomit on the tiles. At least it hadn’t hit the carpet. I clenched every muscle in my body and hated her. It would have been so much better to never have hoped. I thought she called me, but I pretended not to hear.
I hadn’t taken the cross off since Miguel fastened it around my neck, but I sat up then and undid the clasp. Shaking, I threw it at the wall. “Why? I believed in You. I trusted You. So why?”
Mom called again, threw up again, and I fell asleep crying.
In the morning, my head felt stuffed like I’d injected pillow fluff under my skin. When I got up I found Mom sprawled in the hall just outside the bathroom door. The apartment reeked of vomit. I swallowed. How many times had she missed?
“Get up.” I grabbed her arm and jerked her up, but she could barely stand.
“Call Toni. I’m sick.”
She staggered against me, stumbled as I pulled her into her room. I pushed her as roughly as I could onto the bed. “I know better than to believe you’re sick.”
I cleaned the bathroom and the soiled carpet, gagging as I lugged the dirty towels to the laundry room. I jammed in the coins and started the washer, then headed back to the apartment.
“Aidyn.” Mom’s voice came weak and hoarse.
Bad hangover
, I thought, although I wasn’t sure she had reached that stage yet. She still acted drunk; she probably was.
I leaned on the doorjamb and glared at her.
“Call Toni. Tell her I have the flu.”
“I’m calling her right now.” I punched in Toni’s work number. “It’s Aidyn. Mom won’t be in to work today. She’s got a hangover.”
Toni swore.
“I wasn’t drinking.” Mom hitched up on one elbow and reached for the phone, but I danced out of her way. “I swear, Aidyn. I’ve got the flu.”
“Yeah, she was really drunk last night. I think she still is.”
“I don’t need this,” Toni said.
“You think I do?” I slammed the phone, making sure Mom couldn’t reach it from the bed. But that wasn’t good enough. I’ve known her to call a liquor store for another delivery when she couldn’t walk, so I grabbed the cord and yanked it from the wall.
“Aidyn, I wasn’t drinking. I promise.”
I slammed her door and the front door as loud as I could when I left.
11
I ran downstairs and hid in the laundry room and felt eleven again. That’s how old I was when I first realized Mom’s drinking wasn’t ever going to stop, that my life would never go back to the way it had been when Daddy was alive. I slammed the basket down on the lid of an empty washer and slammed my fist against the metal then I curled up between two dryers and hated myself for trusting her again. Why did she have to drink? Why did I have to get so mad?
“Don’t break the washer,” Lucas said and I jumped.
Mrs. Donaldson maneuvered through the door with Andy on one hip and a basket of dirty clothes on the other. She’d want to know why I wasn’t in school, but she couldn’t make me go. No one could make me face Jackson and Miguel and admit they’d been right and I’d been wrong.
“You OK, Aidyn?” Mrs. Donaldson looked almost scared to ask me.
“Yeah.” I tried to keep the surliness from my voice, but I lost the battle. I’d lost every battle lately.
She raised her eyebrows then sighed. “I saw your mom’s car. Is she home today, too?”
I scrambled to my feet and stalked out, leaving my basket of nasty towels on top of the dryer. Did
everyone
have to know? Mrs. Donaldson probably thought I was as stupid and childish as Miguel and Jackson did because I believed my perfect little fantasy could last forever. It hadn’t even lasted a month.
I crept through the courtyard to the street, but I was scared to go any farther. I hardly ever ditched but if I did today, for sure I’d get caught, and what would happen when the cops called my mom to find out why? Well, they’d find out fast. That was sure.
After watching the street, though, I gathered up enough courage to run around the corner to the thrift store, my haven. I could sit in the back and spend hours going through the paperbacks. The lady who ran the store didn’t care who was there as long as we didn’t make trouble for her. I knew how to not make trouble.
I didn’t trudge home until I realized I’d missed both breakfast and lunch. The apartment door was shut and locked. I remembered slamming it, but not locking it. Mom must have gotten up. Had she opened the door for a delivery? I bit my lip. I should have stayed home. I’d have turned the delivery away and then maybe she’d have been able to stop again. But now?
Inside I sniffed. No wine, just a lingering sourness and the cleaner I’d used on the floors. I heard Mom’s voice, saying, “No, no, that’s all.” She must have been able to get up to plug in the phone. I wondered who she’d called. Joyce? Elaine? Or for another delivery?
Toni walked out of the hall and caught me shaking in the middle of the living room. “Aidyn!” She stepped back to call, “She’s back, Beth.” The scowl she turned on me puzzled me.
“What are you doing here?” I glared as hard at Mom’s boss as she did at me, but tension uncurled in my stomach, and I thought I’d be just as sick as Mom.
“Aidyn,” Mom called, but I ignored her.
“We just got back from the hospital.” Toni shifted and crossed her arms. “They had to put an IV in her; she’d gotten so dehydrated. But she kept down some soup so I guess she’s getting better.”
I blinked at the soup bowl in her hand. “Why’d you take her there? It’s just a hangover.”
“It just isn’t.” Toni gave me the kind of look she used to keep for Mom, disgusted and irritated. “If you’d listened to your mother for once, I wouldn’t have had to leave the nursery to come take care of her.”
She handed me the bowl, and I set it on the coffee table. “What are you talking about?”
“Your mother. Who has the flu, which she told you.”
“She wasn’t drinking?” I stared at Toni without seeing much of her face, only her eyes burning into mine, full of accusations. If only I’d believed Mom. If only I’d trusted her. If only I hadn’t left her when she was sick. But I’d hurt her again, for nothing. I dodged around Toni and bolted into Mom’s room.
She lay on her side, one hand dangling over the edge, her hair damp with sweat and flattened against her white face.
I squatted next to her, my fingertips on the mattress. “Mom?”
“Aidyn.” She didn’t open her eyes, but she reached for me. “Baby, where’d you go?”
“The thrift store. Mom, I’m sorry. I should have believed you. I should’ve known you wouldn’t lie to me.”
“No.” She swallowed, and when I stroked her cheek, she opened her eyes. “If I had been drinking, you can bet I would have lied to you about it.”
“No, Mom.”
“Sure, I would. I always have, haven’t I? That wouldn’t…” she sighed. “That wouldn’t change. Don’t feel bad, baby. Toni’s mad, but I don’t blame you at all.”
She nestled deeper into the pillow, her eyelids fluttering shut. I rolled to my knees and watched her breathe. “Mom, can I get you anything?”
“No.” She waved her fingers. “Toni made me eat, and I just need to sleep. I’m OK, as long as you’re here…” Her voice trailed off.
“I won’t leave again.” I crept back to the living room.
Toni had cleaned up the kitchen, and I could tell she’d done it not to help out but to give herself a reason to stay and chew me out. Her glare made me feel four years old again, and very bad.
“You didn’t have to act like that. You weren’t being fair, were you? And I called and called and got no answer so I came over. Lucky thing I did, too!”
“I told her I was sorry.” I was not going to tell Toni that, though.
“Well, all I can say is you’d better not tell me that again unless you know it’s true. The first time I called was to tell Beth she was fired.”
“I won’t tell you anything.”
She stared at me, her lip curling, and I sneered back. I sure didn’t want my attitude to lose Mom her job, but Toni could really get on my nerves.
She finally leaned to pick up her purse, but as she slung it over her shoulder she told me, “You don’t deserve her, Aidyn.”
“What?”
“I know living with an alcoholic isn’t any picnic, but Beth would do anything for you. She’d die for you. And you treat her like crap.”
“I don’t—”
“You’re just a selfish, spoiled brat and the sooner she figures that out, the better off she’ll be.” She left me shaking again, trying to hold the shock inside me. Toni couldn’t be right, not about everything. Not about me. What right did she have to walk in here and judge me? After all, my mother forgave me.
I eased Mom’s door open without squeaking the hinges so I could listen to her breathing. In between cleaning and folding laundry, I stood outside her door and watched her—watched her chest rise and fall. I savored the grace of the moment when I’d realized Mom hadn’t started drinking again. The whole miserable day had been my fault. I was stupid and selfish and undeserving, just as Toni said, but I could deal with that. I could deal with anything but Mom drinking.
When the phone rang, I dashed to grab it before it woke her.
“Where were you today?” Miguel asked.
“Home. Mom has the flu, and she ended up in the hospital. But she’s home now.”
“Don’t you get sick, OK? I missed you, Aidyn.”
“I missed you, too.”
“You coming to school tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I think so. I mean, unless Mom is a lot worse.”
“I need to see you, Aidyn.”
Surprise kept me silent.
“Aidyn?”
“I’m here. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. My dad. Talk about being worse.”
“Mom is sick!” How dare he assume it was booze that made her sick.
But that’s what I’d done.
“And my dad isn’t.” His voice roughened. “Only he keeps telling me it’s a disease, but that’s only when he’s trying to get sober. It’s evil, is what it is.”
“Did he hit you again?”
A long silence, and then, “Yeah. Just the one time, though, so I didn’t tell Mom. Not like any cop is gonna come out for that, anyway. You know? They’re gonna look at me and wonder why such a big guy can’t take a little smacking around.”
“Did you tell him to stop?”
“Yeah. Much good that did. He laughed.” Miguel choked on the hate. “The bully laughed at me when I told him to leave me alone.”
“Oh, Miguel! I wish—if Mom didn’t need me I’d walk to your house.”
“I know.” The longing in his voice wrenched my heart, and all I wanted was the chance to hold him while he cried.
After we said good-bye, I found my cross, put it on and made a fist around it. “You helped me.” I traced the tiny rose with my thumbnail. “Now help Miguel. Don’t let him get hurt. Don’t let his dad get to him anymore.”
Mom stayed home the rest of the week, and when she could work, she went only for a few hours. Even that wore her out, and each afternoon I’d tiptoe into the apartment, listen to her breathe, and tell myself she wasn’t drunk.
By Friday she’d improved enough to work a full day and to drop Miguel and me at the street fair. “I’ll be here at nine,” she reminded me before she drove off.
I leaned into the window. “Bye, Mom. Thanks.”
I turned and let Miguel capture my hand with his large, warm fingers. I traced a familiar scar-ridge with my thumb. I only wanted to find someplace quiet and private, a place where we could become each other’s safety, each other’s world, a place where the cold of fear could never intrude.