No, I’d just become invisible, in the way of all friendless outcasts. My fault…my mother’s fault. Who cared? Fact: you can’t see outcasts unless you are one.
After Mom slammed the door on her way out, I crumpled on the couch, telling myself scary stories. Like riding in the car with Mom when she couldn’t keep it in one lane. Or what would happen if I answered the door to a police officer and then spent the rest of my life knowing my mother had killed someone with her out-of-control driving. Knowing it was my fault.
I stumbled to the front door and leaned against it, crying. Because you know what? After just three lousy days, I’d started to hope. How stupid is that? I threw my glasses at the wall and slugged myself in the face, trying to beat my hope to death.
I even tried to pray, but I could only get as far as asking,
why
? And I knew He wasn’t going to give me an answer.
When I finished my tantrum, I had to find my glasses, straighten the frames, and wash my face. And nothing had gotten any better.
After that I pulled out every towel in the house and spread them on the couch and the floor where she was most likely to puke. If I didn’t want the job of picking vomit out of the carpet, I had to protect it before she got sick on it.
Mom walked in a few minutes past nine. She smelled more like stale perfume than booze. Her clear eyes took in the towels and she scowled. “I haven’t been drinking.”
“OK.” I folded one and put it on the coffee table. But the way she watched me made me leave the rest.
“Aidyn, we need to talk.”
I said, “OK” again.
She sank to that one bare patch of carpet and reached for another towel, rolled it on her lap and bent over it, like she sheltered something precious. “I went to the church,” she said. “They hold AA meetings there.”
Alcoholics Anonymous, really?
“It’s good. It’s really good for me. I think it’s going to be…I think.” She stopped and met my eyes. “I mean, I can’t do it for myself. I know I need…I need help, you know?”
I watched her, frozen.
She went on. “The thing is, it’s not guaranteed. I mean, I can’t—” She snapped a thread from the towel and twisted it around her fingers. “You’re not making this very easy, you know.”
“I didn’t even say anything!”
She shook her head. I guess even keeping all my thoughts to myself is a sin. “OK, on Saturday afternoons they have meetings. Alateen. I want you to go.”
“To a
meeting
?” And what good would that do, besides announce to the last few people in the city who didn’t already know that my mother drank?
“Aidyn, this isn’t easy. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I swear. You could at least—” She stopped and put her head in her hands. “Dear God, help me.”
Who was she asking? And anyway, what could I do? No matter what, it would be my fault.
And like she knew what the truth was, she told me a lie. “It’s not you, Aidyn. It’s me. I know that. It’s just, you don’t know how many times I’ve told myself, ‘Today. Stop drinking today. You can do it,’ and then you’d mouth off to me, or I’d start thinking about your dad. The next thing I’d be halfway down the bottle, and I wouldn’t even know how I got there.” She swallowed, rolled the thread into a ball. “Even if…Aidyn, even if I can’t do this, you need to go.”
“What? To some meeting where kids sit around and talk about how much they hate drunks?”
Mom jerked, but she met my eyes anyway. “If that’s what you need to do, yes.”
“Boring.” Frightening.
She stood up, and I could tell I’d gotten to her. A fierce, angry triumph filled me, speared through with ribbons of fear. Now what? But I already knew.
Mom rubbed a shaking hand over her sweaty face. “I’m going to Mass on Sunday. I want you to go with me.”
Another hit, and this one made me bleed. “It’s terminal, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You were at the doctor’s a couple days ago. You’re gonna die, aren’t you?”
“I’m fine.”
“How many months have you got?” We’d been through all this with Dad.
Mom sighed. “Sorry to disappoint you, Aidyn, but I’m perfectly healthy.”
“He didn’t check your liver, did he?”
She swore at me and spun around, her arms flailing, like she needed something to hit. I backed against the wall. “Can’t you just—” She stopped, gripped her own shoulders, closed her eyes. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “I can’t deal with this anymore tonight.”
Neither of us said good night, but that wasn’t a habit with us, anyway.
After I crawled into bed, I heard her through the wall, talking again. She and Joyce could go on for hours, though she usually kept the marathons for Friday night so the hangover wouldn’t keep her from work. Toni had threatened to fire her; even I knew that much. But tonight—well, tonight, she needed to talk about her rotten kid.
Joyce could get a lot drunker than Mom before they both passed out. I’d seen it, all those lovely times Joyce came to our place so Mom wouldn’t be leaving me alone and neglecting me. I’d be cleaning up after Mom or covering her with a blanket wherever she’d passed out, and Joyce would manage to slosh another mouthful from the bottle. I could just imagine what I’d find in the morning.
Mom must have had a lot to say about me because the conversation went on and on. Blah, blah, blah.
I didn’t ask her to think about me!
It wasn’t my fault.
I listened to her voice, the long pauses in between. I hated the pauses most, because at least when she was talking, she couldn’t be drinking. But the pauses grew, so many, so long, that I finally cried myself to sleep.
2
Saturday Mom started nagging about the stupid Alateen meeting before I rolled out of bed. I staggered after her to the kitchen and watched her slug down orange juice like it was her favorite scotch.
“It’ll help both of us if you go,” she said. Crooked strips of sun pierced the closed blinds and stabbed her face. But the dim room shadowed her eyes, and I figured they had to be bleary and swollen. I grabbed the cord and snapped up the blind so light flooded the room.
Mom winced and covered her forehead with her hand. “It’s at three this afternoon.”
I slammed my glass onto the table and juice sloshed over my hand. “Did you even think I might have something to do then?” I shouted and struggled to lower my voice. “I’m supposed to babysit.”
“Aidyn.” Mom waited for me to look at her. “I didn’t know. You don’t need to change your plans. There’s always next week.”
“What if I’ve got something next week?”
“You make it sound like I’m forcing you.” Mom sighed and shook her head like she thought she could convince me how wrong I was. “You have to be ready for it, or it won’t help.” She took another drink and her hands shook. She
had
been talking to Joyce last night, and now she had a hangover.
Yeah, and she probably had vodka in that juice.
“Just like me.” Mom’s voice came soft and patient, as though she loved this deep, touching subject and knew I cared just as terribly about it. “If I hadn’t been ready to quit, I wouldn’t have been able to.”
Just like her—she thought I was like
her
? “I don’t have anything to quit!”
She raised one eyebrow at me, as though I had no idea what I was talking about.
“I’m not the one who drinks!”
“I know.”
“
I’m
not the one who throws up because I drink.
I’m
not the one who forgets stuff like birthdays and promises and field trips and teacher conferences because I drink.
I’m
not the one who pretends to quit and then lies and
lies
.” I jumped up and backed away, my fists pressed to my stomach.
“I did quit.” Mom stood, too.
I backed farther away. “You’re lying.”
“When did you think I was drinking?”
“Only last night,” I snarled. “Only when you were talking to Joyce. Only when you weren’t talking I knew what you were doing.”
“I was talking to…I was listening, Aidyn. That was my sponsor.”
“Was she drinking, too?”
Mom gasped. “Of course not! I swear. I haven’t had a drink since Sunday.”
“You’re lying!” I flailed my arm, grabbed something, and threw it. Orange juice sprayed my mother and the kitchen. “I hate you!”
She put her hands over her face, and I did the same, cowering, sure last Sunday would happen all over again.
“Oh, dear God,” Mom whispered. But I knew she wasn’t talking to me. For once, she was really praying.
I lowered my arms. She slumped against the warped counter, juice dripping off her chin, and she shook. “I don’t need this, Aidyn. I’m having enough trouble trying not to drink.”
We stared at each other, blame separating us.
“I’m sorry.” Mom swallowed. If she went on swallowing her anger, she’d make herself sick. “For what I said, and for Sunday.” She looked away.
“I thought you blacked out again.”
“I wish I had.” She looked up at me then. “Aidyn, I am so sorry.”
Her tears mixed with the juice, but she still didn’t wipe her face. I grabbed a towel. Too rough, I dragged it across her face until she snapped it away. I didn’t care. She must be half drunk already, slobbery, sentimental, maudlin. She took the towel from me and clutched it to her chest. “Did I hit you?”
I shrugged. “You were too drunk to hurt me much.”
“You have no idea how sorry I am.” She turned, wiping the sticky juice from the table and cabinets. I leaned against the table and watched her.
She tossed the sopping towel in the sink. “I was out of control, and I hurt you, and I’m sorrier than you can imagine.”
Mom never talked this way. That meeting must have affected her. That or the booze. Maybe she could hold it better now, but she still had to be drunk.
She pointed to the juice pooled on the edge of the sink and dripping to the floor. “You’re out of control, too.”
I snorted. “I’m not the one with the hangover.”
Something sparked in her eyes. “For once, neither am I.”
“That’s ‘cause you’re already half bombed.”
“No, I’m not.” She shook her head. “I know I’m shaky. I’m getting rid of years of booze. I can’t expect to feel great overnight. But I
am
feeling better.”
Something hot and acid crept up my throat. She always said that. She’d stumble through the door, shaking with need, then she’d hug that first glass and say, “This has been the worst day, but I’m feeling better.”
Now she held out her arms like she wanted to hug me, too. I purposely flinched, but it didn’t work that time. “I’m sorry I hit you, baby. I know you hate me because I didn’t love you enough. I’m sorry I was always drunk when you needed me.” She gave up reaching for me. “I’m so tired of being sorry.”
“I have to get my shower.” I turned away, as much to hide my shock as to leave. “And then I have to go to the Donaldsons’.” I glanced around. I tried to keep the kitchen clean, though how many times had I spent all my energy cleaning up her mess instead? “If you’re so wonderfully sober, maybe it’s time you took over the housework.”
Mrs. Donaldson opened the door when I knocked. “They’re still napping. You can take them to the park after they finish their snack, but be home by five. We’re going to my in-laws’ for dinner.” She made a face, and I laughed. She hated taking her kids there, but it was family so she felt obligated. “My husband should be home by then so you won’t have to stay.” She bustled off to her room to finish getting ready.
I sat at her kitchen table with my history book. I had to study for a test on Monday, but the words went blurry. I yanked off my glasses and rubbed away the tears.
“Aidyn?” I looked up. Mrs. Donaldson’s pale face had gone red. “Is your mother all right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Why?” She hated attitude, but I didn’t care. Why should I have to tiptoe around
her
feelings, too?
She bit her lip. “Lucas heard you yelling again and it scared him.” She watched me for a minute, but I stared at my history text. “You know, if you need to talk, I’m here.”
I shrugged.
“It can’t be easy with your mother the way—” I jerked my head up and she stopped. “Oh, Aidyn.”
Everybody in the apartment building knew about Mom.
She glanced at her watch. “I have to go.” She sounded like she had a time bomb ticking off her last minutes. “But I’m usually here when you get home from school.” Her face went red, but I was just as mortified.
I said, “OK,” and we both knew I’d never confide in her.
By three I had the boys at the park. My watch must have broken. It stayed three o’clock for the longest time, only inching to one minute past, then two, after what seemed like hours of agony.
Mom’s meeting started at three. My world would stay riveted to three in the afternoon for the rest of my eternity. What did I know about AA meetings? People introduced themselves, said what they were—the one word that defined them all. I tried to imagine Mom saying, “My name is Beth, and I’m an alcoholic.”
My mind could not grasp that last word. I’d never heard her say it, and I’d never said it about her. Knowing is so different. You can know something and never have to admit it out loud, and that makes it bearable.
Maybe it was easier for Mom to say she was a drunk. Maybe it was easier for her to tell strangers what she was.
If I’d gone to the stupid meeting she wanted me to go to, I’d have ended up having to say practically the same thing. I shook my head. How could I say that about my
mother
? How could I ever admit to that horrible, stinking
shame
?
I tried to move my lips across the words. “My name is Aidyn and my mom—”
Lucas tugged my arm. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.” The park, crunchy with leaves and full of Saturday visitors, came into focus. Andy held his arms out for the swing. These kids needed me.
I pushed Andy and wondered if Mom had really gone to that meeting. Maybe she’d gotten too caught up in
being
an alcoholic to tell a bunch of losers she was one.
I yanked Andy out of the swing and onto my back. “Race you!” I yelled to Lucas, and I started around the edge of the playground. I ran away from the voice that accused,
if she’s drinking right now, it’s because you made her, Aidyn. It’s your fault!