There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (18 page)

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I believed for a long time that I could affect my mother’s drinking. Like many children of alcoholics, I thought if I asked a certain way, or made some type of deal with my mother where I promised something, it would be compelling enough to make her stop.

As I grew older, I started to notice the deeper change in her
behavior and began to intensely feel the consequences of the booze. Once, when drunk, she got so angry with me for some little thing that she tipped over a full room-service table. Food went everywhere and one plate bruised the outer part of my eye. I wished it had cut it so I could show her the next day and make her feel bad. Another time we were driving somewhere in the car with Bob and she screamed for him to stop the car. She stumbled out and walked along the highway at night. Bob dropped me off with somebody and spent hours trying to find her. It was especially when I was not working that I felt increasingly unsettled by her drinking.

For years, I didn’t know what alcoholism was or that my mother had it. I knew only the effects and I thought I could change them. But at the end of 1978, once we were away from the safety net of the films I had been shooting and back in New York, I was getting scared, both for her and of her. Her drinking seemed to be incessant and her mood swings acute. She had gotten sloppy. I had begged her so many times to quit but to no avail. I knew it was still up to me to do something. I had taken care of her in various ways my entire life and this was just another task.

I think I must have complained to my godmother, Auntie Lila; to Bob; and to my dad. It was probably Lila who introduced me to the concept of alcoholism and how there were people who could help. It is strange how hard it is for me to remember the details and the exact timing, but I distinctly remember walking Mom through the nondescript door of the Freedom Institute, a treatment center in New York that was founded just a few years earlier, in 1976.

It had been only a few weeks prior that I met with a counselor, also at the Freedom Institute, who had described to me what it was to be an alcoholic. She made it clear that Mom had a disease and needed treatment. The counselor explained that I had in no way failed by not being able to get my mother to quit. She clarified that while it was absolutely normal that I wasn’t able to get my mother to stop drinking,
I was very much needed to help get her into treatment. This lovely woman exuded kindness and compassion as she took me through the necessary steps in getting my mother help. I listened intently and was resolved to do whatever it took. She kept saying it would be tough and I had to be strong and I was the only one to whom my mother might listen.

I knew I was important because I had been the one navigating my mother’s behavior the most intimately and constantly for most of my life. I was the one who had run up the street to Piccolo Mondo in search of Mom and peered in the window at Finnegans Wake pub after school to see if I recognized the back of her head. I was the one who had pleaded with her to not drink on my birthday and made excuses for her when she was on a tear. I was the one who learned that there was no Santa because she was passed out on the couch on Christmas Eve. Of course it would be me who was the important piece in this whole thing.

My mom loved me more than any other human being on the planet. I could fix this—I knew it. Responsibility was a familiar feeling. I absorbed the information and the plan was set. We would stage an intervention and confront my mother. I knew it was a delicate situation and it could go horribly awry. But intervention was my only hope.

I had told my dad that I was going to give my mom an ultimatum. My plan was to tell her I would go live with him and his family if she didn’t go into rehab. I remember being aware that I had to present this to my father in such a way that he didn’t feel as if living with him was considered a punishment or something I dreaded in any way. I was very sensitive about his feelings as well. But we both knew that the thought of losing me was the only real threat my mother would respond to.

I had been told that in order for intervention to work, it would
have to hinge on immediate rehab, because simply getting Mom to promise not to drink, without professional help, had already proven futile. Dad agreed to all parts of the plan; he would wait patiently to hear the intervention’s outcome. I can’t imagine how he felt hearing his thirteen-year-old child having such resolve.

Finally, the day had come. Auntie Lila had secretly packed a bag for my mother’s impending trip. Lila picked me up from school. I somehow got Mom to meet me at the Freedom Institute offices to discuss something serious. It was a nervous, scary time. My mother was never one for surprises, or for any situation, for that matter, in which she did not have complete control. To this day I’m still shocked that she even showed up to meet us.

I remember sitting down with her in a small, poorly lit room. Maybe the lighting was fine or just fluorescent and unflattering, I’m not sure, but I do remember seeing darkness out the sides of my eyes. My vision was narrowing. Lila was there, too. All the sounds in the room, including our voices, had a sort of muffled quality, like we were speaking underwater. I assume now that this was the result of heightened anxiety; I was on the verge of the flight side of the fight-or-flight response.

I did not flee but instead sat down facing my increasingly anxious, soon-to-be-blindsided mother. Once settled, the counselor from the Freedom Institute began giving my mother some background on who she was and what the Freedom Institute was about. She explained that I had come to them some weeks ago to ask for help with my mother’s drinking.

I remember immediately thinking that Mom must be getting mad that I went behind her back to discuss her with a stranger. The woman then looked at me and asked me to tell my mother some of the stories I had told her and explain how they made me feel.

I began talking. What could be going through her mind? I
imagined Mom saying, “Fuck this,” and storming out and going straight to the closest bar. But to my shock, she stayed in her seat. I looked at her and mustered the strength to pretend that I would rather live with my father than with her drinking. For the first time in my life I didn’t attempt to get her approval. I kept talking. I explained how mean she got when she drank and how it scared me. I told her I loved her and I wanted to have fun with her but when she drank she changed for the worse.

Her lips pursed and she was silent. One of Mom’s go-to tactics in an argument was to keep silent while somebody ranted and then coldly pose the question “Are you finished?” When you said yes, she would basically shut the whole debate down by claiming she would do nothing you asked. How dare you question her?

I expected the same this time. As I spoke about how she acted when she drank and how hurtful she was to me, I had a sort of tunnel vision, the blurry haze that encroaches just before someone is about to faint. Lila chimed in to say that it was mainly for my mother’s own benefit that we were doing this. We each had our parts to play. Mom scoffed at the idea of anything
ever
being for her.

The woman from the Freedom Institute said that there had been arrangements made for Mom to go to a place called St. Mary’s in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For what seemed like an eternity, there was silence. Then I remember Mom saying she would “think about it.”

I thought:
Oh no, we are losing her. I knew it wouldn’t work
.

But I didn’t give up. We explained that there was actually no time to think it over. That we had her bag ready and that the flight was in a few hours.

Even I felt this was harsh. If it had been me, I would have felt helpless, hurt, and angry. I couldn’t tell how she was feeling. My mother’s exterior did not betray her emotions, and I could tell she had decided to humor us and play along with this little game we were ignorantly playing, but had not yet decided to concede. She was steely, and I
could tell she was upset and hurt and even scared but would never let on.

I knew she was also placating us. She was condescending to our lack of judgment. She was sure she didn’t have a problem and would just prove us wrong. She could always turn even the most clear-cut situations into ones where she was calling the shots. She looked only at me and said, “Are you finished?” “Yes, Mama.”

More silence and then: She finally spoke. “I’ll go. But I am going for
you
. I’m doing this for you, Brookie,
not
for me. I don’t have a problem.”

She got into the car we had reserved, stoically turned her gaze straight ahead, and that was that. I honestly believe Mom hadn’t seen any of it coming.

I didn’t understand how I felt as I watched the sedan drive away. I was stunned. At that moment I didn’t realize that I would only ever get one chance at such an intervention. I felt relieved Mom had not put up a fight. But I suddenly had the urge to run after the car and apologize and take it all back. I had a pang in my chest and immediately missed her like crazy. I was relieved she was safe. And I was thankful that, in this case, her absence didn’t mean she was out at some bar. I instantly felt guilty for having ambushed her and knew she might never forgive me.

The woman from the Freedom Institute sat me down briefly and said we had done well. She said that the important thing was that she had gone. She told me that many people insist they don’t have a problem and try to put the burden on the family members and friends doing the intervention. There was a certain pride in the idea that the drinker was taking the high road and doing a loved one a favor by giving in.

Afterward, I remember walking down Third Avenue in a bit of a daze. I felt like it had gone way too easily for total celebration. This should have served as a premonition. Also, with the constant preoccupation of Mom’s drinking eliminated, I felt awkwardly unfettered.
There would be so much more time to devote to other things; I was suddenly at a slight loss.

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Afterward, I went back to our apartment, where Lila would be staying with me for the next few months. I was glad that I didn’t have to go live with my father. It wasn’t that it would have been terrible, but it would have been inconvenient. I knew it was going to be a hard time. Even being back in the apartment near my mom’s things felt suddenly unfamiliar. It felt a bit like a death because we would not even speak to one another for weeks. Phone calls were not allowed.

But life resumed, and Auntie Lila and I settled in to being roommates. I had a routine at home for the first time, which proved to be a welcome change. I started getting to school on time and eating at the dining table. I admit I loved the feeling of consistency yet felt equally guilty about preferring an ordered way of life compared to the chaos in which my mother lived.

The program lasted three months and included a family week. Auntie Lila and I would visit and engage in group sessions. I remember driving through Minneapolis, seeing big signs for addiction and depression and thinking that Mom had been sent to the right place. Within a day, however, I realized that the dreary place we were visiting was enough to make anybody want to drink. God, it was depressing. I really doubted that this environment would help my mom. But maybe it was supposed to be so bad that people wanted to be clean just so they did not have to return to godforsaken Minneapolis.

It had been a month since I’d seen my mother. During that time we hadn’t communicated at all. The separation, the longest we’d ever had by far, felt violent and much like when animals are separated from their mothers for a forced weaning process. However, letters were permitted, and I had sent cards of encouragement. She sent letters
back and in one explained how she had already been given the title of group leader and how her counselors continued to praise her. This immediately sent up a red flag to me. My heart sank at the thought that Mom had already seduced the therapy team. She kept alluding to her being the only person at the facility who was different and how, consequently, she was singled out and given more responsibility. I read “superior” as being the underlying subtext. Of course she was running her group. Of course she was not “common.” Part of me thought it may have been the truth. Mom had always been unique and set apart from others. I would not learn until years later that this resulted from a sort of self-imposed exile. Mom could not admit to being like the other people in the hospital. They were “crazy” and they had “real problems.” My mother’s insecurities lay deeply embedded in her psyche. She would prove to be much harder to crack.

Maybe I saw the writing on the wall. Or feared she would outwit the people I had prayed would help. But in any case, I went to family week and resented the whole thing. I hated being there and despised going through the family sessions and lectures. Luckily, I wasn’t quite a household name yet, so anonymity was relatively still on my side. I painstakingly stepped up and did what was asked. Ever the eager front-row, approval-seeking student, I completed the reading material and volunteered in class and spoke about hurt feelings. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You were encouraged to cry and tell the truth, and for once and for all to come clean. I had already done that. I could not understand why it all had to keep being my problem as well as my mother’s. I had done my caretaking and I wanted it to be her turn. When could I be done with it? I was angry that I had to spend my time in dingy Minneapolis, going to lectures on the effects of substance abuse when it was her problem. How could listening to how some redneck father hit his wife help me? Maybe I felt a bit superior as well but the people
there were all extremely different from my mother and me. I was miserable, drinking weak coffee with disgusting Cremora. It was nothing like the buttered roll and delicious coffee in Anthora-patterned cups we’d had at home. In this place, I felt like a spoiled little kid who wanted to stamp my feet and storm out of the room.

I couldn’t identify with any of these people or their stories. I had been told that I would meet people much like me in this environment and finally feel supported and fortified. It could not have been further from the truth. I could not have felt more isolated. I don’t mean that the differences stemmed from the fact that I was a “movie star.” The truth was that there was a cultural difference with regard to references and complaints. The people were actually lovely but I felt I was in a foreign country. The problem was that Mom was indeed savvier than many of the people at the facility; I could only imagine my mom reprogramming and manipulating each one of them. I had been told that once I realized that others had gone through the same experience I had by living with an alcoholic, I wouldn’t feel so alone, but in this case, the booze seemed to be the only underlying similarity.