Best Kept Secret

by Amy Hatvany

  “I really feel like using,” she says. “I want to shoot up.”

  “Oh.” I swallow, dropping to the couch, and look out the front window at another sunny spring morning. It’s only ten o’clock and I haven’t even finished my first cup of coffee. It seems a little early to be talking to someone about her desire to stick a needle in her arm. But Andi did say we should call each other if we needed to talk. I just haven’t felt the need to pick up the phone. “Did you? Shoot up, I mean?”

  “No. But I didn’t sleep, either. I kept having dreams. Waking up, reaching for the needle I used to keep on the table next to my bed.” She pauses. “Have you had those kinds of dreams?”

  “Not of needles. But drinking dreams? Yeah, I have.” I say this quietly, my eyes stealing down the hall to make sure Charlie hasn’t come looking for me in the kitchen. I hear Derek laugh and the sound of silverware tinkling and plates being set on the table. I don’t want Charlie to hear me talk about drinking; I’m afraid he’ll think I haven’t really stopped. I pull my legs up onto the couch and bend them so my heels are jutted up against my backside. I rest my chin on top of one knee.

  “Like, what do you dream?” Laura asks, her voice small.

  I sigh, softly. “Well, the one I have most is of being in my front yard, trying to cover a hole filled with empty wine bottles with dirt. And there’s not enough dirt. All my neighbors are standing around, watching me, shaking their heads.”

  “But you’re not drinking in that dream. You’re just ashamed that people might find out that you did drink like that, right?”

  I nod, as though she can see me, then realize she’s waiting for me to answer her. “Yeah, I guess that’s what it means, huh?” I clear my throat. “Are you going to be okay, sweetie?”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. I’ll be fine. Just trying to do what’s suggested, you know? Call someone when you feel weird?”

  “Well, I’m glad you did. And I’m really sorry to cut this short, but I need to eat breakfast with Charlie and get him back to my ex-mother-in-law’s house. I’ll see you tomorrow at group?”

  “Absolutely. Have fun with Charlie.”

  I hang up, unsettled, though I’m not sure why. I tell myself I’ll call her later tonight to make sure she is okay. I’ll offer to take her out to dinner sometime. It’s better than being stuck home all alone.

  I take a deep breath and pull myself off the couch. As I’m about to step back down the hallway, there’s a knock at the front door. “I’ll get it!” I call out, reaching for the glass knob and swinging the door open.

  My mother stands before me, slender and lovely, in a lavender pantsuit. Her crisp white linen blouse is ironed in perfect lines beneath her jacket. She looks like spring. She regards me, surprised, but manages to rearrange her features into an immediate smile. As a dentist, she is her own best advertisement. Her dazzling, bleached white teeth practically send out a beacon of light twenty feet in every direction. Her hair is newly cut in a chin-length, sleek bob, about three inches shorter than my sister’s. I wouldn’t be surprised if they go to the same stylist.

  “Cadence!” she says, stepping in to give me a kiss on the cheek, surely leaving a lipstick mark of perfect pale pink. “I didn’t expect to see you.” She sniffed the air and then crinkled her nose. “Are you wearing perfume?”

  “Hi, Mom. Charlie and I spent the night. And it’s a body spray.” Our mother never allowed me or my sister to wear perfume when we were growing up; she told us it gave boys the wrong idea, but we convinced ourselves she was just being strict.

  “Ah. Did I tell you I made my office a fragrance-free workplace? There are a lot of people with allergies to any kind of scent, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “You’re both here?” She sets her purse down on the entry table. “Where is that wonderful grandson of mine?”

  As if on cue, Charlie comes bounding down the hallway. “Nana!” he exclaims, running over to hug my mother’s legs. “What did you bring me?”

  “Charlie,” I scold gently. “Watch your manners.”

  “It’s all right, Cadence.” My mom pats him on the head. “I didn’t know you were going to be here, darling. So I didn’t bring presents. But here,” she says, reaching over to her purse. “I think I have some quarters.”

  “Mom—” I start, but she cuts me off.

  “Now, Cadence. Don’t deprive a grandmother the chance to spoil her grandchildren.” She rustles in her wallet, then hands Charlie six quarters. He holds them cupped in his hands like treasure, his eyes bright. “Make sure you give two each to Marley and Jake, as well, dear.”

  “I will!” Charlie says, racing back down the hall.

  “Charlie, say ‘thank you’!” I call out after him.

  “Thanks, Nana!” he says, not looking back. He stops at the top of the basement stairs and hollers, “Marley! Jake! Nana gave us money!”

  I laugh, shaking my head. “You always made me work for my allowance, Mom.”

  “It’s not my job to teach him responsibility, honey. Children learn by the example of their parents.” She smiles, this time hiding her teeth with closed lips. “It smells wonderful in here. Derek must be making breakfast!”

  Jess steps into the living room and comes over to give our mother a hug. “Hi, Mom. You’re early.”

  I look at Jess. “You were expecting her?” She hadn’t told me this.

  “Not until noon,” Jess says, not meeting my gaze. “We’re going shopping for a new bedroom set for her.”

  “Oh. Well.” I keep my voice light. “That’s right when I have to get Charlie back to Alice’s house, anyway.”

  “That’s what I figured,” Jess says. She must have planned it this way. She didn’t want me to be hurt that my mother hadn’t thought to ask me or didn’t want me to come along. My mother has only called me twice since I got back from my in-patient stay at Promises. One call was to make sure I got the flowers she sent me in the hospital and another was to ask when she could see Charlie. After much collusion by Jess, she did come to the family counseling session offered by the treatment center; however, once there, she sat with her hands perfectly folded in her lap and didn’t say more than ten words.

  “How was the hospital?” she inquired during her first call, before the family session. She asked this in the same tone a person might ask how I enjoyed a trip to Hawaii.

  “It was fine, I guess. As psychiatric units go.” I made a noise I intended to be a laugh, but it came out more like a fractured breath. “I guess you were right about me, huh, Mom?”

  “How was I right?”

  “That I’m like your mother.”

  She was quiet. “I have to go now, honey,” she finally said, ignoring my comment. “I have a patient.”

  That was the way we left things, the last time we spoke, before seeing her today.

  “You never were one for decorating, honey,” she says to me now, as though that conversation had never taken place. “Jess has such a lovely eye for what will work in a particular space. Like what she did with my office. My patients all ask for the name of the design firm I used.” My mother’s office is all glass, chrome, and leather, effectively warmed with lush groupings of tropical plants and thick, luxurious throw rugs. Calm, practically hypnotic melodies are piped in through the sound system; tiny Zen sand gardens rest on every table sitting next to a chair, strategically placed there by my sister to ease the stress of the patients about to have a whirring metal drill pressed against the sensitive nerves of their teeth.

  “Yes,” I say, “she’s very talented.”

  Derek comes up behind his wife, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing her on the neck. He looks up at our mother. “Hey, Sharon. Are you staying for breakfast? There’s plenty.”

  “Oh, I might have one,” my mother says. “No butter, though.”

  “Come on, Mom,” I say, “live a little. Don’t you have any vices?”

  “We all have plenty of those, don’t you
think?” The carefree tone of her voice doesn’t match the strange cloud in her eyes. A lump forms in my throat and I try to swallow it with a false smile.

  “We better eat before the boys devour it all,” Jess says, saving me. I shoot her a grateful look. Charlie comes bounding back down the hallway, runs over to me, and grabs my hand, pulling me back toward the kitchen with him.

  “C’mon, Mama. I want you to sit by me and I put the biggest pancake from the stack on your plate for you!”

  “With lots of butter, I hope,” I say. I can almost feel my mother’s body tense at those words.

  “Yep!” he says. “But I’ll let you pour the syrup.”

  “Oh, well, thank you. How generous!” Once again, my heart fills with a sense of gratitude that he seems to have completely forgotten my brief loss of temper the day before. I squeeze his hand, smile at the rest of my family, and let him lead the way.

  My family spends over an hour making pleasant chitchat over breakfast. With my mother there, no one brings up what is going on in my life: the psych ward, my internment at Promises, the custody dispute. My humiliating trifecta.

  Instead, my mother goes into more detail about her new boyfriend: a pediatric nurse who came in to her office for a root canal and left with our mother’s phone number.

  “Geez, Mom,” Jess says. “What do you do to these guys when you have them in the chair?”

  “Jessica!” my mother exclaims, setting her fork down on her plate with a clatter. “I am a complete professional with my patients!” Her expression is more pleased than angry, her voice filled with false indignation.

  Jess winks at me. “Oh, sure. Okay, Mom. Whatever you say.”

  I couldn’t have gotten away with teasing my mother like that. But Jess is the baby. The favorite. The rules are different for her—they always have been. It’s silly for me to expect them to change now.

  When I pull up in front of Alice’s house a few minutes before noon, there is an immediate weight in the pit of my stomach at the site of Martin’s car. “Daddy’s here!” Charlie cries out from the backseat.

  What’s he doing here? I wonder. It was he who requested that I pick up and bring Charlie back to Alice’s house and not his. Maybe he wants to talk. Maybe he is coming to his senses and wants to work things out with the custody issue. Maybe he’s had a change of heart. I feel my heartbeat quicken with this thought, tiny hopeful seedlings popping up within me. I get out of the car, then help Charlie disengage from his seat belt. He scrambles out the door and toward his grandmother’s house, leaving me to amble behind him.

  Martin steps out of the front door, arms crossed over his chest. The skin is dark under his eyes and he hasn’t shaved. He still looks handsome.

  I give him what I hope he interprets as a friendly smile. “Hey, there. Where’s Alice?”

  “She isn’t feeling well,” he says. The sound of his voice braids my stomach muscles into messy, complicated knots. Why is that? I wonder. I’m not in love with him anymore. I don’t regret the divorce. I suppose it’s the guilt. Or, more likely, the humiliation I feel knowing that he knows exactly how far I’ve fallen.

  Charlie launches himself against his father’s legs. “Oof! Careful, there, champ,” Martin says.

  Charlie looks up at his father, keeping his skinny arms latched around Martin’s thighs. “Is Omi sick?”

  Martin pushes Charlie’s hair back from his forehead and smiles. “Yeah, buddy, she is.”

  “What’s wrong?” I take a few more steps so I am standing at the bottom of the stairs. My legs are shaking; I tense them to get them to stop.

  Martin pauses, searching my face. “Head inside, okay, Charlie? But don’t bother Omi, you understand? She’s resting in her bedroom.”

  “Can I watch television?” Charlie asks hopefully.

  “Yes, you may. The Disney Channel only, though. And not too loud.”

  “Okay.” Charlie lets go of his father, looks back at me.

  I smile at him. “Come give me a hug good-bye, sweetie. I’m going to miss you.”

  Charlie rushes back down the steps and leaps into my open arms. I hug him tightly, breathing him in. “You are my best boy, you know that? I love you so much. I am so proud to be your mama.” I don’t know how to go about my life without him, how to let him simply walk away from me like this. It goes against every fiber of my being.

  “I know,” he says, dropping back down to the stairs. “ ’Bye, Mama!” The door slams behind him and Martin cringes.

  Silence weighs between us. Our eyes are locked on each other. I look away, clearing my throat before speaking again. “Nothing serious, I hope? With Alice, I mean.” I raise my eyes to him again.

  Martin shakes his head. “It’s the anniversary,” he finally says.

  It takes me a moment, but then it dawns on me what he is talking about. Thirty-three years ago today, Martin’s father was crushed to death on one of his building sites. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. A vital, rusted bolt had snapped and the crane fell. Every year on this day, Alice remains in bed, mourning the loss of her husband. At first, when Martin told me about her ritual, I thought it was a little over the top, but I gradually learned that Alice’s grief was authentic. She loved her husband and one day a year she found a way to honor him. It was sweet, actually. It was one of the few things I liked about her.

  When we were married, Martin had the day circled on the calendar in our kitchen. He made no other plans than to be with his mother.

  “Really?” I said, the first year he told me he spent this day with her. “The whole day?”

  “She needs me,” he explained. At the time, this show of love for his mother endeared him to me. I loved that he was there for her when she needed him so much. I believed he’d be there for me, too.

  “Sorry. It’s been a few years,” I say now, reaching out an arm to rest my hand on the black metal railing. I grip it for reassurance. “I forgot what day it was.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s hard for her,” Martin says.

  “I know,” I say. “I’m sorry she’s having such a hard time. I would have brought Charlie back to your place later, if you had called.”

  He shrugs. “Not a big deal. I was here with her anyway.” He looks at me, his blue eyes dimmed by an emotion I can’t read. I used to be able to read every one of his thoughts.

  I feel a thousand things. I want to scream. I want to beg him to forgive me. I want to cry. Instead, I take a deep breath and make sure I’m looking him straight in the eye as I softly speak. “It kills me that I’ve hurt him, Martin.”

  A muscle beneath his left eye twitches and he blinks, but Martin doesn’t respond. His mouth opens, as if to speak, but then he closes it again.

  Andi was right. The tension between us holds an unbearable weight. Even with Charlie inside the house, any more discussion of us, my drinking, or the custody dispute is too dangerous a risk.

  “You okay?” I manage to say.

  “I’m fine,” he says, and I know it’s not true. I know he carries the bulk of his mother’s grief. He helps her manage it so she doesn’t have to bear the burden alone. There was a time when I would reach out to him, when I would have found a way to offer him comfort. But today, there is no way. Too much sits between us. It’s a distance too vast, far too treacherous for us to cross.

  Seven

  By the time the summer of Charlie’s fifth birthday rolled around, I decided I was done drinking. The fact that I limited myself to two glasses a day—and even managed to go a few days at a time not drinking at all—didn’t matter. Two weeks before the party I went cold turkey, suffering through a four-day, intense, and debilitating headache, fighting off my craving to drink with a constant stream of Gatorade. After the fifth day, I actually felt a little like my old self and was proud of my abstinence. If I had a real problem, I wouldn’t be able to stop, I thought. I have this thing completely back under control.

  Still, my muscles ached and occasionally trembled, and my
energy level was low enough for me to worry I had contracted some kind of silent but terminal disease. Maybe chronic fatigue syndrome. Or fibromyalgia. I chose to have the party at a nearby park so I wouldn’t have to clean my house or worry about the guests’ possible scrutiny of the wine stains on the kitchen counter or the piles of laundry I couldn’t quite convince myself to fold.

  “Can we have Cheetos at my party?” Charlie asked when I took him shopping with me for supplies the day before it was scheduled to take place.

  “Sure,” I agreed. “It’s your birthday, why not?” I deliberately kept my eyes averted from the wine aisle. I wouldn’t even walk down it. See how strong I am?

  The morning of the party arrived on a hot Saturday in August. I filled an ice chest with pinwheel ham and cheese tortilla sandwiches, grapes, and juice boxes, then carefully packed the chocolate cake I’d made the night before. I almost gave in and bought a sheet cake from the store, but I knew Charlie would be disappointed if I didn’t bake his favorite “dirt” cake, complete with cookie crumbles and a mountain of gummy worms.

  When we arrived, Jess and Derek were already there, chasing the twins on the toddler jungle gym. Charlie raced over to join his cousins and my sister came over to hug me. “I feel like it has been forever since I’ve seen you,” she said, pulling back to look at me. Worry knit itself across the lines of her forehead. “Are you okay? You look tired.”

  “I haven’t been feeling very well,” I said, pushing my hair away from my face, happy I’d taken the time to put on some makeup. I wore a lightweight, sage-color princess-waist sundress and black flip-flops. I forced a bright smile at Jess. “It’s just stress, I think. Can you help me set up?”

  We spread out the plastic Spider-Man tablecloth and arranged a stack of plates, juice boxes, and the gigantic bag of Cheetos. The rest of the guests trickled in, with the exception of my mother, who had called to let me know she’d be a little late.

  Susanne came over to help us set up the table while Brittany and Renee went off to monitor the kids on the play equipment. She gave me a quick hug. “Good to see you, hon.”