Authors: Jackie Lee Miles
Mostly Bridget and I are in shock. Of course we knew my father and her stepmother were still doing it with each other, but we didn’t think of them as having a relationship as in going to dinner and stuff like that. When my father realizes that I saw them, he excuses himself to Donna and takes my arm and walks me outside the restaurant into the lobby and down the hall to a quiet spot. He says, “What are you doing here, Andi?” I’m thinking maybe that should be my question, but I’m too afraid to ask it. I tell him we were at the mall and how we happened to come over, perfectly innocent.
“We weren’t spying on you. That’s the truth.”
“Well,” he says, “the important thing is that you understand my having dinner with Donna is not something your mother should be privy to.”
Privy. He’s always using words in sentences that if you used them alone I would have a hard time understanding, but when they’re in the middle of a sentence they’re perfectly clear—my mother is not to be told I saw him mixing tongues with Donna.
“She’s still fragile in her recovery,” he adds.
I nod my head and spot Bridget standing at the end of the hall. Donna is nowhere in sight. I guess she’s leaving this mess up to my father.
“You are to go home and disregard whatever it is you think you saw. Is that clear?”
Now he’s holding my arm much more firmly than when he walked me out of the restaurant. I look him straight in the eyes. “I’m not telling Mother,” I say. “I don’t want to be the one to break her heart.” There, I said it. I hope it leaves him with a lot of guilt. He looks worried that I’m not telling the truth. If he’s so intent on being with Donna, why doesn’t he just tell my mother himself? That’s the question.
My father lets go of my arm. I motion for Bridget to come over. She walks down the hall like she’s on a tightrope forty feet above the ground. “Hello, Mr. St. James,” she says when she gets to us, like it’s a perfectly normal afternoon and we happened to bump into each other. My father nods his head, then turns to me.
“I think you two should go home. Is Henry picking you up?”
Then I realize it’s after eight and we told him we’d meet him at the valet parking at eight sharp.
“We need to go,” I say. “Henry’s been waiting for twenty minutes.”
My father does what my mother always does. He brushes the hair out of my eyes. There’s a look of concern on his face.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m not stupid. I know what’s at stake here.”
“I hope you do, Andi.” He turns and walks away. He probably told the maître d’ to bring the check yesterday and he and Donna got out of there. Bridget and I walk across the street to valet parking. Sure enough, Henry’s waiting for us. He’s his normal cheerful self.
“Here’s my girls,” he says. “I thought some space aliens got you.”
We don’t even smile. We climb in the car and sit like zombies for the entire ride back home.
“You don’t look like my happy girls,” Henry says, knowing something’s up, so he’s trying to make light of it. But not even his good nature can jar us out of our funk.
“It’s getting worse,” Bridget says.
I’m thinking the exact same thing. It’s written all over my face.
Sometimes life is on a roll. And not necessarily a good one. Sometimes it just goes downhill. Today is a perfect example. I go to Sunny Meadows expecting to see Mr. Sterling sitting up in bed yelling for someone to repeat what they said and I walk in the room and he isn’t even there. Mrs. Sterling is sitting on the edge of her bed and her face is all red. The kind of red where you’ve been crying for a long time and it leaves blotches all around your face and your eyes stay puffy. I know something bad is coming. I’m afraid to ask. And worse, I don’t know what to say or how to start a conversation. “Would you like me to read to you without Mr. Sterling?” would be really stupid. And “Hello, Mrs. Sterling” seems so cold and distant. Really I just want to put my arms around her thin shoulders and tell her everything is going to be alright, but of course it isn’t and I’m right. Mr. Sterling is dead. Joyce comes in. “He died last night in his sleep,” she whispers. Which is a nice way to go, if you have to go and it’s your time to go, but I can hardly tell Mrs. Sterling that. I search my entire brain and can’t think of one gentle thing to say that might help her.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Sterling,” I blurt out. And then I lean over and give her a hug. And that’s all it takes. She starts wailing like a baby who wants something, but not a bottle, and who knows what it is?
“I didn’t know I’d miss the old fart,” she says between sobs. I just pat her back and stand there and don’t say a word. It seems to work. She calms down and dries her eyes.
“He was eighty-nine years old,” she says. “That’s a lot of years.”
“My grandfather was eighty-five when he died,” I say and wince. I just said the “D” word and I was trying to avoid it. Trying to just talk around it, but it’s hard.
“Would you like me to maybe do your hair for you?” I ask. She’s a real mess. She keeps a cosmetic bag in the drawer of the nightstand. “Maybe put some makeup on. How about that?” I say. “Would that make you feel any better?” I don’t know what else to do for her.
“Why not?” she says. “No sense my going to pot because Howard decides to haul off and leave.”
I once read part of this book on death my father had when his father died. It said there are stages to recovery when a person you love dies. One of them is denial, and one is anger, and there were some others I can’t remember before the final one which I do remember was acceptance.
“Just like the old goat,” Mrs. Sterling adds.
She’s obviously in the anger stage. Maybe she’s skipping denial.
I open the nightstand drawer and pull out her cosmetics bag. It has pink stripes and is heavily soiled. There are finger marks all over the outside, smudges of lipstick, three different shades of foundation and traces of purple eye shadow. Maybe I could buy her a new one and next time I come I could transfer everything into it. Mostly all the makeup inside is old and half used-up, but she seems perfectly happy with it, so maybe a new bag would be all she needs. I take out the foundation and she tips her head up. Her face is still caked with tear marks. There are fresh washcloths in the bathroom.
“Let’s make like we’re doing a real facial.”
I go into the bathroom and wring one of the washcloths out with cool water and gently wash her face. She leans her head back and sighs.
“We’ll have you looking good in no time,” I say brightly.
She holds her face up and closes her eyes tightly like a small child afraid of getting soap in their eyes. I ring the washcloth out three times and keep washing until all traces of the tear marks are gone. Next I start with her foundation. It’s the type that comes in a tube and goes on pretty smoothly, but she has so many wrinkles it starts to collect in the folds. I dab some powder over the top of it and smooth them out as best I can. Her face has more lines than a Shakespeare play, but if I don’t hold the mirror too close, maybe she won’t notice. When I’m satisfied I’ve done the best I can with her foundation and powder, I’m ready to dab on some blush. She uses the kind that comes in a little pot, rouge my mother calls it. Mrs. Sterling’s is bright red and much too bright for her skin tone. I end up using too much and she looks like a clown. I mix a little foundation on top of it.
“That’s better,” I say. When I get her lipstick in place, I reach for her hairbrush. She keeps that in her cosmetics bag, too. If there’s one thing Mrs. Sterling still has in her old age, is a full head of hair. I brush it carefully off her face. There’s a little blue hair clip sitting on the nightstand. I pull some strands of her hair off to the side and clip it in place. It’s not really the kind of clip a woman her age would normally wear. It’s more like the kind you see second-graders wear, but it’s all we have. I hand her the mirror. And then remember to pull it back away from her a bit.
“What do you think?”
She studies her reflection carefully, then, sets the mirror on the nightstand.
“I think you should definitely try a different line of work when you grow up.”
“But you look lovely,” I say, and straighten the collar of her blouse.
“In that case, I think you’d best get your eyes examined, too.”
I put my arm around her and she leans in against me and we have a good laugh. Before long her laughter turns to tears. The makeup I tried so hard to put in place comes sliding off her face. What a mess. And now I’m crying right along with her.
“Hear that Howard?” she yells into the air. “You ain’t even gone a day and already we miss your sorry deaf ass!”
I got up while it was still dark outside and couldn’t get back to sleep no matter how much I turned around under the covers. Now I’m on my knees in front of my window watching the sun rise. It’s nice that my bedroom faces east. The sun is just peeking over the horizon and it glows like it’s wearing a halo and you just know there’s a God when you see it and it’s like he’s winking at you. And that got me thinking, I wonder how many other people are watching this very same sunrise, right this very minute. Did they have trouble sleeping, too? Did some of them set their alarm clocks the night before and say, “I think I’ll just watch the sunrise tomorrow.” How about that? So they set their clocks for six a.m. and here we are. It’d be nice if we were all lined up in a row, watching the sun climb over the horizon together. We’d probably, every one of us, just suck in our breath and let out a big sigh. It’s that beautiful. It takes the air right out of your lungs. But you have to be here at just the right second, because the sun peeks out at you one second and the next instant it’s full in your face.
The reason I couldn’t sleep is because my mother is drinking again. But she is not drinking out in the open like she used to. She is doing it on the sly. She probably thinks this way none of us will notice, not me or Beth or Rosa or even Henry. This is silly thinking. When she is drinking she gives herself away in a number of ways. To begin with, she will slur her words a bit, depending upon how much she’s consumed. And when she walks she has a way of making her way carefully through a room, balancing herself against the furniture along the way, like a toddler. It is very pathetic. I want to tell her outright that I know she is drinking and ask why she has stopped attending her meetings. I don’t believe she is calling her sponsor anymore either. At least I don’t hear her on the phone like I used to every afternoon.
Beth is not aware of what’s going on as she’s at school. She might not notice even if she were home. She’s preoccupied with herself. The wedding is getting closer, so I don’t blame her for this. But I am tempted to talk to her about the situation. If our mother keeps up her drinking she might end up a complete drunk by the actual wedding day and what kind of mother-of-the-bride will that make?
Rosa knows for sure about the drinking. I know this because my mother hides the empty wine bottles in the kitchen trash can under newspapers. They clink together when she asks Henry to empty it. They look at each other and shake their heads. When I am there to witness this they look away when my eyes meets theirs. It’s like they want to keep this knowledge from me, but it is no good and they know it. I stare blankly back at them, with tears in my eyes, which is a dead giveaway that I know what’s going on.
Rosa asks if she can fix me something good to eat. I shake my head. Henry asks if I’d like him to take me someplace. They are trying so hard to make my world work right. I love them all the more for this, but there is nothing they can do. It is up to my mother to change the situation. Her Alcoholics Anonymous book is still on her bedside table. I sneak it into my room and start to read. Maybe there is information that will help me find a way to convince her that she needs to get back on her program. An early chapter explains that the founder of the organization discovered that the only way he was going to remain sober was to help carry his message to another alcoholic. If this is the only way to recover, my mother is in worse shape than I thought. She is not in contact with any other alcoholics presently, so she is hardly in the position to help them stay sober in order to stay sober herself. I turn the pages and keep searching for something that can help me help my mother. I discover that she must reach her bottom before she will be once again willing to get help. And the bottom is different for each and every drinker. Who’s to know where hers is? The book also says that she must place herself in the hands of a higher power. That’s a start. I could get her to Mass every day. Going on Sunday is obviously not enough. I go find Henry. He is more than happy to drive us over to St. Lucy’s. I take the Alcoholics Anonymous book back to my mother’s room to place it on her nightstand. My mother is on her bed sleeping. Her mouth is open and an empty bottle of wine is on the floor—so much for hiding her drinking. But this is good. The book says those that hide it are in complete denial, which makes it much harder for them to reach bottom.
In the morning I hear my mother on the phone with her sponsor. She is talking in AA language, which makes me happy. It could be a sign that she is ready to go back to being sober.
“I’ve picked up,” my mother says.
I go into the library and quietly pick up the extension. Now I am an eavesdropper, but I forgive myself. My mother’s life—all of our lives are on the line. Her sponsor’s name is Alice. She has been in the program for over twenty years. She is telling my mother that there will be many tests along the way, but she can step up to them one day at a time.
Many tests, that’s a scary thought.
“Just how many?” I blurt into the phone without thinking. When I realize what I’ve done I drop the handset back in the phone rest and wait for my mother to come looking for me. I know exactly what I will say to her. I will tell her that I love her and that I am worried and I want to help her get back on her program. She will look at me and smile and tell me everything will be alright, and not to worry one more minute. I close my eyes and wish this with all my might. No more tests. No more tests. No more tests.
My mother peeks her head into the library. She does not smile and tell me everything will be alright. She opens the door and says, “This is my battle, Andi. Not yours, sweetheart. There is really nothing you can do. It’s up to me.”
That’s what I’m afraid of. It’s up to her and I’m terrified she’s not up to it. And I’m worried that any little thing could push her over the edge. Like finding out my father is having an affair, which is not really a little thing, it’s a major thing. Surely that would push her over the edge. Then I realize, going over the edge would mean she’s sure to hit her bottom. So, there is something I can do. I can help her hit her bottom. And I know just how to do it. I should have thought of it sooner. Now there’s no time to waste.