I knew he was right. Something had to be wrong with me. He knew I was smart; he’d tell people. But, he’d tell me, like many “book smart” people, I didn’t have much common sense. Once, I told my parents and Carl that I considered going to law school. They didn’t think it was a good idea. Law school was difficult, they told me, even for the most intelligent of people. When people would ask about my job, he’d tell them I was “just a teacher” in a public school where the trashy kids were. He’d say “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” He needed to be honest. It was for my own good, he’d say. He wanted me to see life realistically.
He gave me almost anything I asked for. He worked hard at Morgan Management. His father wanted him to have the experience of working for someone else. He wanted his father to be proud of him. And he loved my parents and was nice to Peter. We lived in a beautiful home, drove expensive cars, and traveled to fabulous places.
I loved his generosity and kindness and protectiveness. And I loved knowing alcohol could give Carl what I couldn’t … my body. And I loved knowing I, Leah, did not have to be there.
We both had what we wanted.
35
It was the week of lasts.
Last breakfast, lunch, dinner at Brookforest.
Last painting of a ceramic thingy in outpatient therapy.
Last group therapy where I listened to Doug snore, Theresa pass gas, and the U2 boys’ goofiness de jour.
Last family group therapy where I hoped Carl and I would not be the sacrificial family whose secrets would be spilled for the greater good. Last time I had to call my father two days before family group to reassure him his absence didn’t impede my recovery. Last time I had to remind him he’d better send the staff the food he’d promised to cook them or they’d find a way to have him involuntarily admitted on the psych floor.
I decided to attend the Serenity group meeting before I checked out to talk to Rebecca about being my sponsor. I remembered her from the first AA meeting I’d ever attended in my little alcoholic life. She’d raised her hand to remind everyone not to be slobs. At other meetings there and as I got over myself, I made an effort to meet other women. Rebecca didn’t hold back when she thought people were full of themselves or manure, as the case might be. She’d told one man whose self-pity party seemed to expand every meeting that if he wanted to be a martyr, he was in the wrong place. I liked that honesty and assertiveness. She was just as honest about her wrecked cars, buried wine bottles, and broken marriages.
Drinking coffee before one meeting, I told her I was afraid to leave Brookforest, afraid I wouldn’t know how to function without the safety net.
“I’ve heard all the AA party lines about fear being false expectations. Let's face it, we’re human and fear can paralyze us. You can’t deny what you feel. You just don’t have to act on it.”
“So, I don’t ignore it? What do I do with it?”
“Well, you do and you don’t,” she laughed. “Don’t you love how AA brings clarity to your life! I guess what helped me figure it out was when I heard, ‘feel the fear, and do it anyway.’”
“I don’t know. Doing what terrifies me even as I know how terrified I am? That doesn’t sound much better.”
She tossed her coffee cup in the recycle container. “My father planned for almost a year to take me and the kids to Disney World. Only he died of lung cancer seven months after the diagnosis. At first, we decided to cancel the trip. But when my six-year-old asked if Granddad would be sad if he was waiting in heaven to see us on vacation, but we weren’t there—that settled it. We went.”
“Did I miss the fear part? I’m confused.”
“Sorry. Long setup. The story should come with a warning.” She pulled on the white knit headband she had wrapped around her wrist. “Fast forward. We’re there. The kids are in line to ride Space Mountain, and they’re wiggly, hopping excited. Me? I’m about to have a stroke. I hate even a plain vanilla roller coaster. This one's the Double Chocolate Brownie Overload of roller coasters. The whole ride is dark. Enclosed, roller coaster, dark. I didn’t want to tell the kids what I said to their granddad at that point. We’re next. I’m scared. Terrified. Then AA brain takes over. My dad died, and I’m afraid to get on a roller coaster? What's the worst thing that's going to happen? If I’m still afraid when I get off, I haven’t lost anything. And what lesson am I teaching my kids? Be controlled by fear?”
“Well, how was it?”
“We screamed, screeched, and laughed the entire ride. When it ended, we ran back in line to go again.”
“Leaving here is my roller coaster?”
“You got it. And it could be the ride of your life. Don’t run away from it before you even run to it.”
Being a sponsor means commitment to helping a newbie through the steps, holding the person accountable, and giving up phone numbers with the understanding that—short of abuse—you’re willing to be called 24/7/365. Being sponsored has its own responsibilities, the most important being listening and, of course, staying sober. Matthew had suggested I ask Rebecca. He knew she’d been in the program for six years, and she’d sponsored women who’d maintained their sobriety.
After the meeting ended, I found Rebecca at her usual post, rinsing out coffee pots and setting them up for the next meeting. I tapped her shoulder to get her attention. “I hate to interrupt. I know cleaning is your life, but could I talk to you for a few minutes?”
She looked over her shoulder. “Sure, kiddo, give me a minute. Almost finished. Unless, wait, is the bus ready to go?”
“No, Matthew told everyone before we left that we’d leave late tonight. Take your time. I’ll just sit at the back table,” I said.
This was the last meeting of the night, so people tended to hang around. Fellowship. A word I’d learned when I’d started church shopping before Alyssa. We’d only attended four or five services between the time she was born and the time she died. After her funeral, I devoted as much attention to church and God as I thought had been devoted to us—none. Otherwise, I’d still have my daughter and not have to visit her in the Little Innocents Cemetery.
Fellowship at AA meetings wasn’t all that much different from the few I’d experienced in church, except we didn’t bring covered dishes. Old-timers always said what happened before and after meetings mattered as much, maybe even more, than the meetings. At last week's meeting, Nolan B. said fellowship was how he knew AA wasn’t a church. “If this was a church, we’d all be trying to leave early and kill each other getting out of the parking lot.”
Someone had left a schedule of Al-Anon meetings on the table. As I folded it to shove in my purse, optimistic that Carl might be interested in going to at least one meeting, a man pulled out the chair next to me and sat. “You probably don’t recognize me,” he said, and pushed away from the table a bit to face me.
I hadn’t looked at him when he first walked over. Just figured he needed a chair. I didn’t think he’d sit. Didn’t really want him to since I wanted to talk to Rebecca privately.
He recognized me. Great. It never occurred to me anyone would ever know me here. This was an unexpected embarrassment. Can’t pretend I’m just here for the coffee. No, dummy, but he can’t either. Thank you, voice of reason. I slipped the paper into my purse, pushed it aside, and turned.
Dark-brown hair parted on the side. John Lennon glasses. Stubble-faced. U-shaped jaw. I scrolled through the photo-file in my brain. Got it.
“You were in the Social Studies’ department for a year, right?”
“I sure was. Wasn’t sure you’d remember. Spring Creek has so many teachers. I’m an assistant principal at the new school, Woodville High. I’ll start my third year there this August,” he said. “Didn’t you teach English?”
“On a good day, yes. I taught freshmen and juniors, but really, they were great,” I said.
“Sometimes I miss the classroom. I don’t miss grading papers, of course. Being on the other side now—” he shook his head “—I�
��m dealing with kids, teachers, parents, the school board. Some days I wonder if the pay increase was worth it.” His cell phone shimmied across the table. “Sorry. Probably my son sending me a text.” He picked up the phone and grinned. “Wants me to stop at Dairy Queen on the way home for Blizzards.” He slipped it in his shirt pocket. “I am so rude. I just realized I didn’t tell you my name. I’m Ethan.”
“Leah.” I checked Rebecca's progress at the sink. She was drying her hands, talking to Matthew. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ethan look in the direction I had.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time. You were the first person I saw here that I actually knew.” He paused. “I’m probably not supposed to be so excited about that, huh?”
We both laughed. “Well, you’re my first too. I thought it’d be awkward meeting somebody here, but it's not like we have to ask each other what we’re doing here,” I said. “I’m leaving rehab in a few days, so I’m waiting to talk to someone about being my sponsor.”
“Brookforest? I was there, too. I’ve been in recovery eleven months now. I know how important a sponsor is. Mine is awesome. I don’t know if I’d be sober today without him. In fact,” he stood when Matthew and Rebecca walked over, “here he comes now.”
Myrtle pushed the speed limit, not too happy our extra time at the meeting meant she missed part of Smallville. “Clark's supposed to find out tonight that Lana's still alive, and now I gonna have to wait for the reruns.”
“You need TiVo,” Vince told her. “Then you could watch it without those dumb commercials.”
“What I know about TiVo?” she grumped. While Benny and Vince tried to explain TiVo technology to Myrtle, I asked Matthew about his conversation with Rebecca. “Did you tell her I was going to ask her to be my sponsor? Is that why the two of you were talking?”
“I did tell her. I knew she’d probably ask me about you anyway. Look, she still agreed, even after I talked to her,” he said.
“You’re cracking me up, Matthew. If I could reach your head, I’d whop you.” I was stretched out on the seat in front of him, wishing I had a pillow for my back, which bumped against the side every time Myrtle hit a pothole. “She already set up a time for the two of us to meet the first week I’m home. Lunch with my AA sponsor. Wouldn’t have thought six weeks ago I’d be saying those words.”
“By the way, I didn’t tell her about the baby. Just thought that should come from you, in your time.”
For a flash, I thought he meant Alyssa. “That's fine. I already told her. If it was going to make a difference in her decision, I figured we both needed to know tonight. New sober and new pregnant. She's got her work cut out for her.”
“Don’t underestimate Rebecca,” he smiled. “Or yourself for that matter. Seems the two of you working together is one of those God-incidents. That first year of sobriety is tough, no lie. Most people who backslide do it before they pick up their one-year chip. But Rebecca's all over tough love sponsorship. And, since she's your sponsor, that means I might be seeing you more than I might have.”
“Planning to check up on me, and I haven’t even graduated,” I said. I put my hand over my heart and pretended to be offended. Of course, we both knew I was anything but.
My father called and wanted to fly in for my graduation. I explained it wasn’t a cap and gown event—no awards, no scholarships, no pictures. “It's not that I don’t want to see you,” I said. “Carl and I need to spend some time alone this first weekend.” I tried not to wince. Of course, I couldn’t tell him the most important reason I needed to be alone with Carl. Once I broke the baby news, I might find hell broke open as well. “Peter isn’t planning to come, is he?”
“I don’t think so. But the last time I talked to him was when Carl called me about the news” … the new family euphemism for my rehab. “Haven’t you talked to him?”
“Dad, you haven’t talked to Peter in almost a month? You two live in the same city. What's going on?” I’d talked to Peter before “the news” long enough to know Dad was dating. Dad hadn’t bothered to mention this to me at all. My father not telling us something said everything about the something. It was either a bad news something or a guilty something. He probably thought his dating was both.
“Now, you have enough on your plate.” Yes, if you only knew … and now I have a saucer. “Peter and I will work this out. You don’t worry about us. You just take care of yourself. Now, I don’t want to talk anymore about this thing with Peter,” he said. “Haven’t you talked to him, honey? He should’ve called you by now.”
“He sent me cards. I wrote him last week and told him I’d talk to him after I was home a few days.” Peter was always much better at writing. Phone calls, he’d tell me, are ripe for mis-interpretation. He blamed it on the disconnect between tone of voice and facial expression. Having received questionable voice mails from parents of my students, I understood exactly.
I guess God understood that because he left us the Bible instead of voice mail.
“You do understand Carl's expecting you to sleep in the same bed? He's also expecting you to have sex because he thinks, on some level, that you’ve been ‘cured.’ What's your plan?”
“I thought that's why I was here. That you’d give me a plan,” I said. My last session with Ron, and it was as emotionally exhausting as the first one.
Ron flipped pages in my file. “I’m not the one who's going home to Carl. You are. You can’t have it both ways. Recovery means gaining a sense of who you are. How you define yourself. Almost four weeks ago, you were asked, ‘Who are you?’ I want you to hear what you said: ‘My name's Leah. Let's see. Who am I? I’m Carl's wife, I’m a teacher, I’m a sister, I’m a daughter and a daughter-in-law. I guess now I have to add alcoholic to the list.’ Less than thirty days ago, you couldn’t define yourself independent of any of your roles. You were whoever, whatever everyone needed you to be.”
“I know. I know.” I combed my hair back with my fingers. Closed my eyes. Tried to recapture that Leah for an instant. Stirrings of her like the scent of a candle just extinguished.
“I can’t be independent and not be responsible for my own decisions. It was so much easier when I could be.”
“Sure, so easy you ended up here to find that out,” Ron smiled and closed my file. “So, back to the question. What are you going to do?”
“The opposite of what old Leah would have done?”
“You’re stalling. Pretend I’m Carl, and I’m leading you into our bedroom, telling you how much I’ve missed you, how lonesome I’ve been for you in my bed, how I want to make love to you—”
“Stop. Stop. No. I can’t. I won’t. Not yet.”
“That's good. Don’t compromise yourself. If you forget everything else, remember that. Don’t compromise yourself.”
36
Leaving the staff was as difficult as watching some of my favorite students graduate. They march in, tassels swinging on their mortarboards, gowns swishing, and faces like fiery diamonds. In the instant they passed me, it was as if a balloon holding all my memories of them popped, and my heart exploded with hope. A hope that I’d given them the tools they needed, but knowing only they can be the carpenters. I prayed they fashioned a life from their dreams and desires.
The morning I left Brookforest every hug was a prayer. Theresa, Doug, Benny, Vince, Annie, Trudie, and I were a motley collection of people. A tradition, before leaving, was to pass around your Big Book, the AA Bible, so everyone could write a message. I’d read them in my room while I waited for Carl.
From Benny and Vince who, of course, wrote a combined message: To our fav homegirl: We wish you could have been our teacher. But it's all good. Keep it real. And always remember, who's the champions. WE are the champions! (we hope we spelled it write!) Props … from ya boys.
From Doug: Leah, I know I wasn’t too nice to you at first. I believe you now. That you really are an alcoholic. No. Make that WERE an alcoholic. I probably won’t
see you anywhere. But good luck. Big Dog Doug
From Theresa: Dear Roomie: Boo-yah! I’m glad I got to know ya ’cuz your not the stuck-up chick I thought you was. Don’t be like me. Don’t come back. Don’t sell you’re jewelry. If you see a fine woman at a meeting, probably me!!!!!! Remember, God made you a NEW CREATION. Amen to that, sister girl. I’m gonna miss you. I hope I get out of here B4 they get me a new roomie. Stay SOBER. Love. Theresa p.s. I know your an English teacher, I don’t write too good, so don’t grade this note!!
Walking on Broken Glass Page 21
