Walking on Broken Glass

by Christa Allan

  “I missed you too. I overreacted, I guess. I’m sorry.”

  Lie. Lie. Lie. Does AA offer confession? Accept the things I cannot change … wisdom to know the difference. When does the serenity happen?

  “Being out feels strange after being in … and there's so much more going on … like I didn’t expect to be going anywhere. Then you surprised me with this dress, going to your parents’ anniversary party …”

  “You’ll be fine. We don’t have to stay all night.” He stroked my hair. “Besides, we only have this one night together before you have to go back.”

  I shivered. Carl grinned. “This is a big step for me, going to this party,” I said. “I’m not sure if I’ll know what to do with myself. What do sober people do at parties?”

  “Guess you’ll find out. You’re not doing this alone. You’ve got me to run interference for you. I’ll make sure you don’t go anywhere near the bar tonight. I meant what I told you at the hospital. I want you to depend on me to help.”

  When Carl turned onto Oak Park Avenue, it was like turning into a festival of lights and noise. Harleys dodged around the snarls created by cars either too impatient or too oblivious to conform to lanes and traffic signals. Flashing business signs, the familiar bright arches, chicken buckets of chain restaurants, and the occasional exhaust of a city bus reminded me I’m gone and forgotten.

  A few more miles. “I’m glad your parents will understand. That helps too. I’d hate having to explain to them why I’m not manning the blender for frozen daiquiris.” I opened the glove compartment. “Is the perfume in here?”

  “Oh, I need to talk to you about that.” Carl switched lanes and waited for the turn signal.

  “What? My perfume? I found it.” I showed him the bottle of Butterfly. I first bought the perfume because I liked the top of the bottle. It was shaped like the folded wings of a butterfly. The perfume was equally delicate, a combination of flowers and almonds and berries. When the car stopped at a red light, I opened the bottle, applied dots of perfume behind my ears and knees, and returned it to the glove compartment. “So what did you want to tell me?”

  “About my parents and the party.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “Mom had asked me weeks ago if you’d want to be involved in all the details before she made the appointment with the party planner. I should’ve talked to you first, but I told her the end of school was a tough time for you. I figured you didn’t need to be making decisions about catering, decorations, music. You know my mother. ”

  Another example of Carl saving me from myself, but this time I was relieved. It protected me from Gloria and her exasperating attention to minutiae. The woman could spend days deliberating between white-white and almost-white paint. And another week deciding if the painters should use flat or eggshell as a base. “I know your mother, so I’m eternally grateful you made that decision for me. Don’t worry. I’ll back you up if she mentions it. But I’m sure after you told her about rehab at Brookforest, she's equally as thankful I didn’t help.”

  “Probably. But here's the thing.” Carl pulled into the parking lot of the Starbucks around the corner from his parents’ house. But he didn’t ask if I wanted a venti or a grande.

  “What are you doing? Why are we stopping here?” My chest hurt. “What thing?”

  Carl turned off the car engine and stared out the front window. “Your decision to go to Brookforest was a shock. You were so determined to go in on the Fourth, even when you knew my parents already had planned the weekend.”

  I needed air. Too much perfume. “Please open the windows. Go on, continue.” Whatever the “thing” was, I predicted it was my fault.

  “I called your dad first and told him, you know, about why you thought you drank too much and what you’d decided to do. We talked for a long time.” He ran his hands back and forth along the steering wheel.

  I unlocked the seat belt. Everything felt tight. The car, the dress, the shoes, the necklace, the truth. If I could have reached the ropes knotting in my stomach I might have strangled him with them at that moment. “You told your parents. Please tell me you told your parents.”

  “Of course, I told my parents.”

  Noisy teens spilled out of the car parked next to us. Slammed car doors gave me a reason to raise my voice. “I know a ‘but’ when I don’t hear one. But what?”

  “It wasn’t just me. Your dad agreed with me.”

  A foot stomped on my chest. “About what?” Loud didn’t matter to me now.

  He clutched the steering wheel and looked at me. “I didn’t tell them about the alcohol thing—”

  The other foot stomped.

  “The alcohol THING? THING?” I heard blood vessels popping in my eyes.

  “I told them you were having problems coping since Alyssa died. I told them you’d been in therapy, but you didn’t want people to know. I told them the therapist thought this would help you, our marriage.”

  The doors were bolted. I mashed the buzzer. No one.

  Where did that man go? I buzzed again and slapped my hand against the door. The car behind me was reflected in the glass. I seemed to be slapping it too. Good.

  “Hold your horses. I’m coming.” A voice, then a shadow of a figure materialized and moved toward me. I didn’t remember Mr. Jacobs having a rocking limp when I’d left. But it was Mr. Jacobs, and he showed only a ripple of surprise when he unlocked the door. “Come on in. Did you forget something?”

  I shoved my suitcase into the entrance and saw the rear lights of the car dance on the walls until they disappeared. “I guess you could say that.” I didn’t turn around to watch Mr. Jacobs relock the door.

  Betrayal was a rotting corpse: bloated and putrid. But that was more information than he really wanted. I kicked off my pumps and rubbed my feet against the cool terrazzo floors.

  “I forgot the story my mother told me about tigers,” I said.

  Mr. Jacobs scratched his head. “Well, I might need you to explain that one.”

  “Tigers don’t change their stripes,” I said.

  “Oh, she's right on there.” He scratched his chin, stared out the front door for a minute, and grabbed his clipboard. “You’re back for the night?”

  We both understood it wasn’t really a question.

  I nodded.

  “You have to sign back in. Policy.”

  I signed back in at 5:23 p.m.—fifty minutes after I left.

  Mr. Jacobs waved me into the elevator. “You have a good night. And Mrs. Thornton …” His voice reflected the kindness I saw in his eyes. “God has a plan, I promise. Everything's going to work out.”

  “It's going to be better now that I’m—” I caught myself, about to say “home.” “Now that I’m here.”

  If home was a place of safety and acceptance, maybe—for now—I was home. I just had to figure out how to make the one I’d left two weeks ago feel like the one I’d just come back to.

  “Stella's dress, Valentino's shoes, and Judith's purse, and I are all back. Where is everyone? Hello?” I dumped my shoes on top of my suitcase. Now that the elephant was off my chest, and I could breathe again, I headed to the refrigerator for an ice cream fix. I needed to check my Big Book for warnings about romanticizing about Blue Bell, Ben and Jerry's, and Nutty Buddies. In the meantime, I hoped Matthew remembered to restock. I found potential solace in a frozen Snickers candy bar and a Fudgesicle and headed to the rec room.

  No people. No television. No music. I sat, leaned against the arm of the sofa, and stretched my legs out. In the last hour, I’d overdosed on emotions, and the hangover left me numb. But it was no different than waking up the day after drinking too much. Numb was only temporary. Like the quiet in here.

  Jan stopped dead in her tracks when she saw me. Clichéd, but I’d never seen anyone come to such a complete halt without walking into a wall.

  I held up the Fudgesicle. “Care to join me?”

  “You have to pee first. When you come ba
ck from an overnight, we have to take a urine sample.”

  “Jan, duh. If I’m here, I’m not overnight.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You left. You came back. You pee.” She walked off and came back with an empty specimen jar. “Here.” She handed it to me. “Hurry up. I want to know what happened.”

  I handed her my ice cream. “Lucky for you, I happen to hold the world's record for fast peeing. But don’t start timing me until I’ve ditched the pantyhose.”

  A few minutes later we traded again. Off she went with her specimen jar. I resumed my position, resumed eating, and resumed waiting.

  Jan returned with a new supply of magazines. She stacked them on the table before she joined me on the sofa. “Are you hungry? It's not too late for me to get a plate sent up for you.”

  “Nah, I’m good, but thanks.”

  “You need to take care of yourself nutritionally, too. That body you’re occupying has to last a lifetime. Would you take care of your car the way you take care of yourself?”

  “Enough with the lectures,” I snapped. I finished the ice cream, and tossed the paper and stick on the table. “You want to talk unhealthy? Let's talk about relationships. Unhealthy relationships. Like my marriage. How long does an unhealthy relationship last?”

  I clenched and unclenched my hands. My fingernails dug into my palms. I wanted to go somewhere. Away. Far away. How far did I have to go to get away from myself? Anger surged down my arms, up my legs, flooded my chest. I wanted it to stop rising. Alcohol used to do that for me. Now what? Now what? Where did people go with this? I wanted this angry, raging flood to go away. My grandmother used to make rain go away. Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.

  I stood. “I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here. I have to do something with all this.” I waved my hands. The invisible this caught in the space between my hands and my body.

  Jan put her arm around my shoulders. “It's okay. You’re entitled to your anger. Let's go outside. We can walk on the trail behind the hospital, and you can tell me what happened.”

  She led me to where I’d dropped my suitcase. “But first you need to leave your designer friends behind.” She pointed to my dress and my glitzy pumps.

  “I have flip-flops and scrubs in my suitcase.” I pulled them out, changed, and followed Jan outside.

  30

  Lesson of the Day: Sober = Pain

  Not drinking meant I had to feel. But feeling meant I wanted to drink.

  Sobriety was complicated.

  Jan and I walked and walked and walked until I spewed and spilled the whole story of Carl's betrayal.

  “We probably should have charged Starbucks. I think people hung around just to watch us,” I said.

  “Did you really think you’d walk back to the hospital?”

  “Well, after I leaped out of the car and slammed the door, I had to go somewhere. But with my sense of direction, I would have ended up in Austin instead. All I knew was where I wasn’t going. No way was I going to his parents’ house. There I was, all designered-up, screaming like a banshee in the parking lot. ‘Take me back to the hospital, right now!’”

  “I’m surprised somebody didn’t call a television station. How many people do you think demand to be driven back to rehab?”

  “Good point. When Carl finally agreed to take me back, I wouldn’t get in the car until he gave me his cell phone. I was afraid he’d go to his parents’ house or who knew where. I told him if he didn’t do what I asked him to do, I’d punch 9-1-1 in the cell and scream I’d been kidnapped.”

  “And you’re the woman Carl told people didn’t have common sense?” She shook her head. “I bet he's rethinking that one.”

  “Hmm, I don’t know.” I stopped at the water fountain, too thirsty to care about drinking lukewarm water. “Years ago, I heard a radio show with Dr. Laura. Some days I switched the show off because the callers were such goofballs. I don’t even remember what the topic was that day. But I heard her say that at points in our lives, we have to choose the hills we’re willing to die on. That stayed with me. And when Carl told me he’d sold me out, that was my hill.”

  “I hope you realize what this says about you, and your commitment to recovery,” Jan said. “Honestly, I didn’t think you should have gone to the party in the first place. That's a tough temptation for anyone whose sobriety is so fragile.”

  We’d reached the end of the blacktop trail. Jan pointed in the direction of the cafeteria. And air conditioning.

  “I thought if I had Carl and his parents to support me it would be enough. Naïve, huh?”

  “Step Two says, ‘Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.’ Carl and his parents aren’t the ‘greater’ in that step.”

  “What if my marriage can’t survive my sanity?”

  “First, don’t play the ‘what if’ game. Secondly, was your marriage going to survive your insanity?”

  “Guess the fact that I’m here answers that question,” I said. “I can’t talk about this anymore. I’m hot. I’m hungry. Do you think there's anything left of dinner in the cafeteria?”

  Recovery reminded me of a clearance sale. Grabbing clothes helter-skelter, not knowing if the sizes fit, the colors coordinate, or the prices are palatable. You schlepped it all to the dressing room and refused to emerge until you tried and retried, matched and unmatched, added and subtracted.

  For weeks I gathered AA Steps and Traditions, a Blue Book, collections of adages and mottos, theories, epiphanies, crazy quilt pieces of my life. At first, it all seemed random and disconnected. Then I’d find a missing link, or some days I’d throw a useless link away, and order overcame chaos.

  The most frightening aspect of all this? It made perfect sense to me. Like strength in weakness. Freedom in structure. A bride in white who’d been living with the groom for three years.

  My newest victory was that I’d survived Carl-gate. He lied. I called him on it. I woke up Sunday morning in a different bed than the one I’d expected to be in. I don’t know how, but the idea that leaving here overnight included sharing a bed with Carl had failed to emerge on my radar screen. Sooner or later, I’d have to engage in sober sex. This morning, though, I was relieved it was later.

  I’d forgotten Sunday mornings were generally quiet since check-in wasn’t until noon. Jan told me last night Cathryn would be working, so I figured it’d just be us girls. I’d be lazy and sloppy until lunch. I didn’t bother changing out of the camisole and plaid boxers I’d fallen asleep wearing.

  I wandered to the front, so busy digging crud out of my eyes that I bumped smack into Designer Drugs woman in the hall. “Omph” met “Whoa. Oops.” Followed by the “flump, flump, flump” of magazines meeting the floor.

  “So sorry,” I said.

  “S’okay. I should know better than to read and walk at the same time.” She bent to pick up the magazines.

  “Wait, let me help.” I handed her the last two. “Oh, these are the ones Jan brought in last night.” Vogue, Cosmo, Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and Psychology Today. An eclectic collection. Had Designer Drugs asked for these?

  “I didn’t realize you were here. I thought you left on a pass,” she said.

  “I did leave. I came back. Long story. I didn’t know you were here either.” After my turkey sandwich, coleslaw, and chips dinner last night, I’d crashed in my room.

  “Oh, um, I didn’t have a pass this weekend. I could have, but my husband was out of town, so it didn’t seem to matter.” She passed her hand under her nose, a flutter of a movement.

  I pretended not to notice. So generous of me as I stood there with morning mouth, clothes so wrinkled I looked like I rolled down a hill, red slipper socks, and eye gunk I’d wiped on my boxers. Meanwhile, she didn’t stand, she posed, like a woman who felt comfortable in her skin. Her white linen nightshirt fell to her knees. She was prettier plain-faced than she was with make-up.

  “I didn’t realize you were married,” I
said. Oh, dumb me. Why would I realize that? I hadn’t bothered to utter a syllable to her since she arrived. I didn’t even know her name. Shame on me. Maybe there was a step for this I hadn’t reached yet.

  She shifted the magazines. “Do you mind walking with me so I can leave these in my room?”

  “No problem.” It wasn’t until we’d walked past my room that I realized she shared a room with Annie. Why had I assumed she had a private room? “So, how's Annie for a roommate?”