I almost wanted to ask her what “us” meant. But I knew. Pat was one of the broken ones. Like me. It hit me, just like that. I just didn't recognize it in her at first, because she'd stopped acting so messed up, long before we ever met. Suddenly I could see her as a fourteen-year-old girl, being miserable and getting in trouble and having to go to AA and getting her heart broken. When she said she was like me, that's what she meant. Not like she was now. Like what she could still remember.
I put my arms around her as best I could and got to crying so hard I thought I'd never come up out of it again. I think I was getting her shirt all nasty and wet but she didn't seem to mind and I couldn't have stopped if I'd tried.
Then I said something I never thought I'd say out loud to anybody. Because I hadn't really even said it out loud to myself. “Bill could've died.”
She was quiet for a minute. It seemed like a long minute. “Yeah, he could have. Just luck that he didn't.”
“It would have been my fault. I could have killed him.”
We sat there for a while, and my sniffles and hitches seemed to echo around inside the walls of Snake's blanket tent. After a bit she said, “We'll do a fourth step inventory down the road. We'll work on it together.”
“I'm not going to be in the program anymore, Pat. I don't need it. Don't you get that? I'm not even an alcoholic. It's my mom who needs it. Why doesn't she go?”
Pat rocked me back and forth a little more. She said, “This program isn't for people who need it, honey, it's for people who want it. Most of the people who need to get sober never will. You have to want that for yourself.”
I still figured I didn't want anything except to disappear.
“Mom's drinking is, like, a million times worse than mine.”
“That's probably true.”
“My drinking is, like … normal.”
She was quiet for a long time. The kind of quiet that makes you worry what someone's thinking. What's about to come next. “Cynnie …”
“What?”
“Normal for a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old is none.”
“Oh, come on.”
“I'm telling you, girl. For a kid your age to drink … every
day … enough to get drunk every time … That's not even close to normal, honey. You've completely lost track of what normal is. Or maybe you never even got a chance to know.”
My crying had kind of used itself up. I felt all scraped out inside. She helped me lie down, and she put her coat over me. I didn't even try to think about what she'd just said. I just tried to get some sleep.
When I woke up in the morning I found out she'd sat there with me all night, without her coat on, to make sure I'd be okay.
I tried to lift up my head. My brain felt like it had been sandpapered inside. My stomach was all full of gravel. I asked her if I could be alone. She asked if I was going to the Sunday morning meeting, but I said I was too sick.
Just as she was climbing down the ladder steps, just before her head disappeared, she said one more thing. She said, “Cynnie, did you ever stop to think that when your mother was your age, maybe she drank just about like you do now?”
After she left I climbed down and started throwing up. Even after my stomach was empty, I couldn't stop. That last thing Pat said—no matter how much I threw up, I couldn't get it out of me.
I limped into the Sunday morning meeting with sunglasses on. The world was too bright and too loud. I'd probably have to go back to the doctor for my leg, maybe even wear a cast again. I knew my mom would be mad.
I could feel Pat's eyes follow me. I looked up at her and she smiled. I sat down, very gently. I couldn't even look at the cookies. The meeting secretary, Tom, started the usual way. He asked if there was anybody with less than thirty days sober, anybody new who wanted a welcome chip.
I raised my hand. “My name is Cynthia. I'm an alcoholic.” Everybody said, “Hi, Cynthia. Welcome back.” Nobody seemed surprised except me.
CHAPTER 10
After Six Months, Daylight
What can I say about my first six months? It's hard. Because Pat was right. I didn't feel much. For half a year I stumbled around like one of the undead in those bad horror flicks. It took actual contact with actual people to wake me up. So the ninth step, where I had to go around making amends to people, was a major wake-up call.
Pat waited in the car while I walked up to Harvey's new house. Well, it wasn't a house, exactly. It was more of a trailer. I could feel the knife in my pocket, that hard lumpy way it pushed on my leg, like on the day I took it. I tried to remind myself that I wasn't quite the same person anymore. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.
Harvey's trailer had cinder-block steps that I had to stand on to reach the door. I knocked. On about the count of three I figured he must not be home, so I felt a lot better. Then he opened the door.
His face changed to see me. His eyes got all suspicious and he took a step back, like the only thing I could possibly bring to his door was trouble. At first I wanted to be mad about that. Like, it was so typical of Harvey to think the worst about me. Then I reminded myself that the worst had pretty much turned out to be true about me. At least with the knife.
Pat says that's why you have to do this. So you can see in people's eyes how you really were. Then you have to admit how bad things had gotten. She said it doesn't matter much if they forgive you or if they don't. Just so long as you know you did your best to make it right.
“What the hell do you want?” he said. He had this look on his face like he'd just smelled something spoiled. I held the knife out on the open palm of my hand. We both just looked at it for a minute. Then he said, “I suppose now you're gonna tell me you found it layin' around.”
“No, sir. I stole it.” I held it further out to him and he took it off my hand.
“How come you're bringin' it back now?”
“Because it's yours. Because I was wrong to take it.”
He didn't look quite convinced yet. He looked braced for a bad surprise, maybe some kind of trick. “You got a conscience? Is that it?”
I had to think about that for a minute. I said, “I'm pretty sure everybody does, in there somewhere. I'm trying to find mine.” Pat says if you want to be honest, you start by acting honest. After a while the real thing sort of catches up with you.
I think that was more of an honest answer than he expected. He looked at me for a long time, real hard, like if he looked hard enough he might see what he wanted to know. Then he said, “My granddad gave me this knife. That's why I was so mad.”
I nodded, even though I hadn't known that. I hadn't known it was important to him. I thought he had lots of things and this was just one more. “I'm sorry I stole from you.”
He shrugged his shoulders. He didn't seem to want to dislike me anymore. Not that he liked me or anything. Just that it wasn't so important to be mad. Maybe it was too much trouble all of a sudden. “Well, it's back now,” he said. “That's the main thing.”
He closed the door without saying goodbye, and I walked back to Pat's car.
“That was a hard one to do, huh?” she said.
“Nah. Not so bad. Not like the last one. Not like the next ones.”
“Who's left on your list?”
“My mom. And Snake, except he's gone. And Bill.”
“And Zack.”
“No way, Pat. I don't owe Zack an apology. I don't owe him anything. Not after what he said to me. Besides, I didn't do anything to him. You said yourself there's nothing wrong with loving somebody.”
“That's not the part I think you should apologize for. It's the part where you been treating him like poison just because he did something you didn't like, even though he didn't do anything wrong. Want to know why you're so furious over what he said?”
“No.”
“Tell you anyway. 'Cause of the grain of truth to it. Somebody says something to you and it's just not true, you'd never take it so hard. But that one thing we mean to deny, wh
en somebody else points it out … man, we just hit the ceiling. Just about everybody I ever met said some kind of vow that they'd never grow up like their mother. Or father. And then somewhere down the line it hits you—you did anyway, in spite of all your trying. It's one of life's little mean tricks.”
“So you're telling me I'm going to turn out like my mom, period, and there's nothing I can do about it.”
“No, but I am saying you can't avoid it by trying to control it with your own willpower. You have to really heal all that old crap that runs in the family.”
“Let me get this straight. What you're saying to me is exactly what Zack said to me. You're agreeing with him.”
Pat sighed. “There's a saying in the program. ‘The truth shall set you free—’”
Big deal, I thought, there's that same stale old saying everywhere.
“ ‘—but first it shall piss you off.’”
I laughed. I didn't mean to. It was this little pig snort that leaked out of me against my will. I hated it when Pat made me laugh when I was trying to stay mad.
“I'm not making amends to Zack.”
“Oh, I expect you will,” she said. “If I stay out of your way and give you some time.”
She started up the car and we drove in silence for a while. I was thinking about a thing she said once, how you're only as sick as your secrets.
I said, “There's something I left off when we did my inventory.” She just waited. “That night you came up to my tree house. I had that pocketknife out. And open. I was thinking about using it. You know. On myself.”
“How serious do you think you were?”
“I don't know.” I wasn't trying to duck the question. It was true. I didn't know.
She was quiet for a minute, but I could see her chewing on that one. I could almost see it going around in her brain. “Well,” she said, “I guess you'll have to make some amends to yourself while you're at it.”
“Now how the hell am I supposed to make amends to myself?”
“Don't hurt yourself anymore.”
It was like someone opened up the curtains and let light into the room, and all of a sudden I could see it was daylight, and had been all this time.
That night, after my mom got drunk, she slammed open the door to my room and started yelling at me. I was asleep, so it took me a minute to figure out what was going on.
A lot of what she said didn't make sense, but I heard her say that she shouldn't have to get sober just because I was on the program. She was really upset. It scared me.
“I never said you should.” I'd thought it, though.
“No, but I can tell. You think just because you can do it, I should do it, too.”
“I didn't say that!”
“Hah!” she screamed, and slammed the door.
I lay awake for hours listening to her pop one beer can after another. Hoping she would pass out and not come in screaming again. I had no idea what brought that on.
I was sharing in a meeting. In fact, I was sharing first, leading, because it was a birthday for me. Sort of. Well, a half birthday. It was my six months. And nobody else was taking a chip, so unfortunately the focus was on me.
I was talking about how my sponsor had me working on step eight and nine. Going around making amends to people. I said, “Only, one of the people I really want to make amends to, I'm not sure where he is.” I meant Snake, but I thought it'd be better not to name names.
Pat nudged me in the ribs. I'd been looking down at the table, because it was still kind of embarrassing to share. Even after all the practice. I looked up. I saw my mom walk in and sit down. I could feel my face get red. I didn't say a word for a minute. But it was still my turn to share, until I passed it on to somebody, so nobody else said anything, either. I kept staring at my mom. I couldn't figure out if she was here for me, like to tell me something, or if she was here for her. She wasn't looking at me. She was looking at Zack. I bet she was thinking she didn't want to share with him there. I knew how she felt. I didn't want to talk in front of her. But everybody was waiting for me to go on.
“One of my amends went kind of bad,” I said. “I guess that happens to everybody. This kid I used to know. I sort of … well, I broke his nose, actually. Because he said something about—” I looked at my mom again. She was watching me and listening now, like I was a stranger, someone she might learn something from. “—well, about, you know, somebody I thought I oughta stand up for. Anyway, I apologized. But he pretty much told me to go to hell. Not quite that polite.” Everybody laughed. I couldn't go on. I just couldn't. I could not talk with my mom sitting there staring at me. So I just said, “I guess that's all for now.”
I called on Zack. I missed most of what he said, trying not to look at my mom.
After the meeting she slipped out. She didn't stay for the part at the end, where we stand in a circle and say the Serenity Prayer. She sort of spun away without any noise about it. I thought maybe I'd dreamed the whole thing up.
Zack came up to me and said, “Hi, Cynthia.” Nobody called me Cynnie now. I never even had to ask them not to. They just sort of saw on their own that I had grown up some. But until Zack said it just then, I didn't know what he called me anymore. Because we hadn't talked for a long time. Zack said, “I had something like that happen to me.”
I thought he meant his mom showed up at a meeting. I had my mom on the brain. Also, I was upset because he was talking to me. I couldn't look at his face so I looked at the floor. My throat felt weird inside. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I went back to this guy I used to work for. Told him I lifted a few dollars out of the till. I said I'd pay it back when I could. He said, ‘Admitting you're a thief doesn't make you any less a thief.’”
“Oh. Like Richie, you mean. What'd you say?”
“I said, ‘Well, maybe so, but I'm not going to steal anymore, and that makes me a lot less of a thief.' He never did cut me any slack, though. Even when I paid him back. Hey. You got a minute to talk?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
I heard myself say it to him like I was listening to somebody else. I could've sworn I was about to tell him to go to hell. But then somebody with my voice said “okay.” And all I could do was watch it, like I was in some other part of the room. Like I wasn't even in my body.
We sat in a couple of chairs at the very back.
“I wanted to make an amends to you,” he said. Right away I felt like I wanted to cry, but I didn't let that happen. “I handled things so wrong with you and me. I'm so sorry. I do like you. I always did. Just not like that. But I didn't know what to say to you or what to do and I ended up making a big mess of things, and I know I really hurt you with what I said. I should've said something sooner. And I'm sorry for that. Really sorry. But what I'm most sorry for is sort of … I don't know how to say it.” A long pause. “The loneliest I ever was in my life is when I was with Rita. I shouldn't have used you to try to fix it. I'm not just saying it because I need to say it to get through a step. I really feel bad about it.”
I still couldn't look at his face.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“So … you forgive me?”
“Sure.”
But we could both hear by the way I said it that even if I was trying to forgive him, I wasn't doing such a great job.
Just before we walked out the door together he said, “What was your mom doing here? Is she in the program now?”
So. I hadn't dreamed the whole thing up.
“Zack,” I said, “your guess is just about as good as mine.”
Pat was waiting for me outside.
“I'm real proud of you,” she said.
“For what?” Now I had Zack on the brain. I thought maybe she was proud of me for sitting down and talking to him, or maybe she even thought I was back there making my amends.
“For your six months, what do you think?”
“Oh. Right.”
“I know that thing with your mother threw you.”
; “You have no idea.”
“Anyway. Got a present for you.”
“You do?”
She looked at me sideways and laughed because of the way I said it. I guess I made it sound like she'd just said I won seventy million dollars or something. “Didn't anybody ever give you a present before?”
We started walking together, toward her car. “Not lately,” I said. “And even when my mom used to get me stuff, it was bad stuff. She'd get me dresses. I hate dresses. But she wanted me to like them. So she'd get me dresses. Which is even worse than most lame presents, because it wasn't even really a present. I mean, it wasn't for me. It was for her. I always really resented that.”
We got to her car and got inside, and she threw this little envelope into my lap. It didn't look like a present. It just looked like a card.
“It's not a dress,” she said.
I picked it up and shook it, just to be funny. Just to be a punk. “You sure?” Something slid around in there.
I opened it up, and inside was a phone card. A prepaid phone card.
“Oh, my God,” I said. First I couldn't talk at all. Then, after a bit, I said, “This is the best present ever.”
“It's not that big of a deal,” she said. Like I was embarrassing her.
“Yes, it is. It totally is.” It was the first time someone gave me something that showed they were actually listening. That they actually listened to me, to hear what I would want. “It is a big deal,” I said. “Because it's actually for me.”
A minute later, while we were driving, I said, “Remember when you said that thing to me about not being able to feel my feelings? You said people will say something bores them, and they don't even know they're really scared? I was scared to death to get a job. Or even look for one. I didn't know it until just now, when I could feel how relieved I was that I didn't have to.”
“Everybody's scared of stuff like that,” she said.
“Really?”
“Especially when they're feeling vulnerable for some reason.”
“Yeah. I felt like, maybe later, when I sort of … have my feet on the ground more. But my life feels so … overwhelming. I just couldn't add on something scary like that.”
The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance Page 11
