Walking on Broken Glass (5 page)

M
olly 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 tolerated 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.

I watched, through the curtain of water that framed my face, as he reached for the white towel. It slithered off the bar on the shower door, caught between his two hands. He clutched it and leaned against the linen armoire.

Carl waited. Waited for me. Again.

The pelting drops couldn’t dissolve the revulsion that snaked from my bare feet into my stomach and wound its way to my throat. I grasped the handle; the water stopped. Only heaviness of the inevitable separated us.

“If you’re going to that place for a month, then you’re taking care of me first.” The edge in his voice ripped the stillness.

I accepted my defeat.

T
he drive from our house to the Brookforest Center the morning of July 4th was an eight-mile Jerry Springer episode. All bets were off once the suitcases landed in the car.

Carl opened the passenger door of the Range Rover for me, but the intensity of his closing it practically propelled me into the driver's seat. Before he slammed his own door, I grabbed the dashboard and braced myself for another carnival ride.

“You’re determined to do this, aren’t you?” He hit the brake pedal. “And you’re leaving all the dirty work for me. I’m the one who has to call your dad. Call my parents. Did you do that? Of course not.” A horn blew behind us, and Carl used primitive sign language to communicate with the driver.

He ranted from the red light to the green light and beyond. I didn’t answer. I focused on collecting pictures. With every block we passed, I opened and closed my eyes like a camera lens. Click. The duck pond. Click. Starbucks. Click. Rows of crepe myrtles and pear trees. Click. Joggers. Click. Carl. His mouth opened and closed and opened and closed. Click. My reflection in the car window. A diluted Monet water-color of auburn hair, olive skin, green eyes, rose-shaded lips. Papa Hemingway was a part of all he met. I was reflected in all I passed.

“Are you even awake?”

Who wouldn’t want to be the audience for a one-man performance of my wrongdoings and shortcomings?

One mile to go. One word. “Yes.”

Minutes later, the car lurched into the parking area like a bulldozer had plowed into the back. My head almost separated from my neck. I thought my admission would change to the emergency room where I’d be treated for brain trauma.
So, Mrs. Thornton, were you an alcoholic before or after the dashboard permanently waffled your forehead?

“Is it safe to open the door?” I’m poised to take off my seatbelt, but Carl still hadn’t turned off the car. He looked like a figure in the Wax Museum: a splotchy red-faced unhappy one.

“You are coming in with me, aren’t you?” I wondered if he intended a drive-by, and he’d reappear in thirty days. “Pretend you’re dropping me off for summer camp.” I slid forward to grab my purse off the floor where it had landed during one of Carl's Daytona speed-racing turns.

“You know,” he shifted into park and turned the key, “you always do that.”

Wax figures don’t last very long in this heat. I wondered if he’d considered that. “What do I always do?”

“Make jokes when there's obviously nothing funny going on,” he said.

“That's why I make jokes. Because there's nothing funny happening.” I scooted out the door before he had time to restart the car and headed for the entrance.

We lived in one of those shiny ad-attractive, oil-corporation-planned, Stepford communities not yet gobbled up by the city of Houston. One could be born and die in Brookforest and never know an entire world waited beyond the front-and back-gated entrances. Schools, hospitals, entertainment, supermarkets, offices, gas stations, all demurely tucked into lush wooded spaces.

Careful zoning assured residents they wouldn’t be unduly offended by the sight of golden arches rising from stately pine trees or flashing signs altering the moonlit, star-studded sky.

And, with what I came to appreciate as tremendous foresight on the part of these urban planners, accommodations had been made for a treatment center for the addicted and psychologically impaired residents. Of course, like any monument to the dark side of society, an innocuous sign only inches above the manicured landscaped parkway simply stated, “Brookforest Center.” One had to then maneuver two winding miles edged with evenly spaced pink and purple azaleas to find the three-story, white-washed brick and glass building.

We managed to enter the lobby without injury to self or spouse. The receptionist led us to a waiting room—a meat-locker cold waiting room, which explained the butcher-wear of the staff. Shivering in my mint-blue polished cotton skirt and white linen blouse, I hoped I’d remember to ask Molly to bring my denim jacket or a hoodie.

Carl didn’t speak. We sat like two strangers who stared at the wall, expecting the movie to begin anytime. I reached into my purse for my cell phone so I could send a quick text message to Molly. Before I could find it the Admissions Counselor walked over to escort us to her office. Ms. Antoinette Wattingly could have doubled as Oprah's sister, her taller sister. Right away, I’m impressed by a woman who can pull off a pair of Tory Burch leopard suede ballet flats. Well-paid staff, maybe? Fortunately, Carl's designer shoe radar was incapacitated. But not his suspicion radar. If he knew what those little cuties cost, Ms. Wattingly and her leopard ballet flats would be dashing out the doors after us.