Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife

by Brenda Wilhelmson

  I took Van to my parents’ house last night, dropped off Max at school this morning, and pulled into Liv’s driveway. Liv is watching Max for us while we’re gone. I gave Liv a hug and a kiss, thanked her profusely, handed her Max’s suitcase, and took a limo to the airport.

  Since tagging along with Charlie was a last-minute decision, he and I were flying separately. I got to O’Hare, presented the agent with my ticket, and he told me my flight to Savannah had been cancelled and there wasn’t another. After messing around on the computer for a while, he booked me on a flight to Charleston. I killed several hours in the airport, flew to Charleston, rented a car, and drove to Savannah. The drive was supposed to be lovely, but it was pitch black by the time I hit the road and the only thing I saw were bright cigarette depot signs. Halfway to Savannah, it started to rain. I flicked on my windshield wipers, and they made one swipe and stopped. I tested the settings. I couldn’t get them to work. I flicked the wipers on and off manually all the way to the damned hotel. Charlie was asleep when I got there. I wanted a drink, bad.

  [Wednesday, March 19]

  Charlie had a couple of hours free this morning, so we went to Shavers Book Store and gawked at Jim Williams’s infamous Mercer House immortalized in John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Charlie left for his conference and I drove to Bonaventure Cemetery. Berendt had written about an eccentric old woman he’d met there who was sitting on a bench shaking up martinis for herself and a dead guy. The thought of drinking a cold vodka martini as I strolled through the cemetery was enticing, but I kicked the thought out of my head.

  I drove back to the hotel, got ready for dinner, and Charlie and I went to a restaurant with two of his co-workers and a client. Charlie’s boss, Neil, apparently likes to play wine aficionado and made a big to-do over ordering two bottles of cabernet. The waiter began pouring and I shifted in my chair. I held my hand over my empty wineglass as he tipped the bottle toward me.

  “No thank you,” I said.

  Neil looked at me like I had scurvy. As we ate, I reflexively reached for my wineglass several times and stopped myself. I really wanted a glass of that wine. It sucked.

  [Thursday, March 20]

  Stories of pirates, slaves, yellow fever, and ghosts haunt Savannah. I wandered through town with my guidebook, part of me feeling guilty that Charlie was working, part of me happy I wasn’t. I made my way to historic sites, trolled antique shops, and bought a politically incorrect salt and pepper shaker set to add to my lot of African American collectibles. I hit the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Gallery and toured the home of Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low, who married a philandering gold digger who gave her VD.

  During dinner I told Charlie I saw a $2,000 collage at the SCAD gallery I wanted to buy.

  “No fucking way,” he told me.

  “We’re booked on a haunted walking tour tonight,” I said.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I guess there’s nothing I can do about that,” he said.

  We walked past Savannah’s haunted houses, restaurants, and hotels. No glowing orbs bobbed in trees where people were hanged. No vicious apparitions leered at us from attic windows. Our guide told us even though we weren’t seeing supernatural beings, some might appear on the pictures I was snapping. We’ll see. We’re flying home tomorrow.

  [Saturday, March 22]

  Tonight, I missed a boxing match I purchased tickets to. The boxing match was a fundraiser for a little girl with cystic fibrosis, and Charlie and I were supposed to go with Liv and Reed, Kelly and Joel, and a few other couples. We were supposed to meet at Kelly’s beforehand for cocktails, but Van is sick.

  Van came down with an upper respiratory thing that mimics asthma, which is freaking me out. I’ve prayed for Van to be free of allergies and asthma ever since I found out I was pregnant with him. Max was diagnosed with asthma when he was two and it was a hell ride for years. Now I’m watching the skin between Van’s throat and chest suck in every time he breathes.

  I called Van’s doctor and he told me to drag out Max’s old nebulizer and give Van breathing treatments. The doctor said this upper respiratory thing was hitting a lot of kids hard and that Van would probably be fine in a few days.

  Pete, Liv’s oldest son, was supposed to babysit for Van, Max, and Seth at our house. I called Liv and told her Van was sick.

  “What am I going to do with Pete and Seth?” she asked, sounding panicky. “They try to kill each other when they’re alone.”

  “Bring them here,” I said. “We’ll rent some movies.”

  I called Kelly and told her Charlie would be coming to her cocktail party minus me.

  “Oh,” she said, sounding irritated. “Don’t you think Van will be fine? You can give him a treatment, put him to bed, and come. Everyone’s got that upper respiratory thing.”

  “He’s two, Kelly. I’m not leaving him with Pete.”

  “Okay,” she sighed, her tone implying I was making lame excuses.

  [Monday, March 24]

  I went to a meeting this morning and the topic was loving your enemies.

  “My mother picked up and moved away without saying anything to anyone,” Krissy said. “Now she’s back—and I don’t want to see her.” Krissy leaned back on the couch and rubbed her eyes. “My mother was psychologically and physically abused by her husband. I don’t know. Somewhere I feel guilty for not looking in on her more. But when you feel hate and anger in your core, you know it’s taken you over and you have to forgive and let it go, but it’s easier said than done.”

  All of a sudden I was furious at my father.

  My mother had offered to pick up Max from Liv’s last Friday when Charlie and I were flying back from Savannah. She was going to hang out with the boys at our house until we got home. When Charlie and I walked through our back door, Max ran up to me and gave me a bear hug. My father swept up behind him.

  “Where the hell have you been?” my dad shouted. “Did you stop off for dinner? Here I am and you’ve got nothing in your fucking house! You don’t have any food or anything to drink.” He stalked over to the pantry and yanked out a half-gallon bottle of vodka. “I had to go out and buy my own fucking booze. And it’s dinner time and I’m looking around in your refrigerator and there’s nothing in there except some old turkey. I hope to hell I don’t get sick now because I ate some.”

  “I’m supposed to stock my refrigerator before I go out of town?” I screamed at him. “Who the fuck does that?”

  Charlie touched my arm. “Brenda, come on now,” he said.

  “So? Did you stop somewhere for dinner?” my father yelled. “You called Max from the airport and said you’d be home in half an hour, forty-five minutes.”

  “I was wrong. It took longer than I thought. And no, we didn’t have dinner.”

  “Yeah, well, I put up your ceiling fan and it was a mess,” my dad shouted, thrusting his arm at the ceiling. “That’s a hundred dollars worth of work. You have someone put that up for you that’s a hundred dollars. And you got no fucking food or booze in the house.”

  I blurted out this story this morning and started crying. I didn’t even know I was bothered. I’m used to this behavior from my dad.

  “It’s typical,” I said, swiping at tears. “And I have to suck it up because somewhere he’s done me a favor. Max told me, ‘Papa wanted to leave, he was so mad. Van was in bed and he said I was old enough to stay by myself.’ What a bastard.” I sat back and sighed. “That’s all I’ve got. Pass.”

  When I was a kid, my dad would ask me for a bite of my sandwich, intending to devour half of it in one bite, and get angry when I refused to hand him my lunch.

  “After all the nice things I do for you and you won’t give me a bite of your sandwich?” he’d growl. I’d feel guilty and offer it to him.

  “No, no,” he’d say. “Keep your damned sandwich. You can stick it up your ass. I just wanted to see if you’d
give me a bite.”

  He’d use the horse he promised but never bought against me.

  “I was going to get you a horse until you did (fill in the blank). But you’re not getting one now.”

  Christmas Eves sucked at our house, too. Instead of opening presents Christmas morning, my family opened presents Christmas Eve because my mother didn’t want my sister and me believing in Santa Claus as it would take away from Jesus and cause her to break the “Thou shall not lie” commandment. My father would often show up late and drunk, having shared some holiday cheer with co-workers. My parents would fight, and my mother would cry. One Christmas Eve, my dad punched a hole in the living room wall while my sister and I sat silently waiting to open presents.

  My father can go to hell.

  [Tuesday, March 25]

  Kelly is getting together a group of us to stay at a hotel for a sleepover/swim party during spring break, and I told her the kids and I would go.

  “I’m going to invite Liv and Wendy, too,” Kelly said. “We’ll get Wendy out by the pool and watch her stumble around, ha, ha, ha.”

  Sometimes I hate Kelly. I was probably Kelly’s cheap entertainment when I was drinking. I was the wacky broad who would sing, drink from everyone’s wineglass, demonstrate yoga poses and fall down, break something. Kelly’s a bitch.

  [Wednesday, March 26]

  I went to a meeting this morning and the topic was slips, relapses, how you set yourself up to use before you actually do. Drinking definitely lurks in the back of my mind.

  Lately, I’ve been treating myself like a science experiment: dissecting myself to see what’s in there. It’s been interesting, but I anticipate getting bored with being sober. I get random urges to be bad, get hammered, let the good times roll.

  At the meeting this morning, a guy named Tom said he had intrusive thoughts, thoughts like throw the baby up in the air, put your hand on the hot stove, ride your bike in front of a semi. He said his shrink told him that as long as he doesn’t act on them, he’s okay.

  I have intrusive thoughts. I just never knew they had a label. I’ll be at the shopping mall and have the urge to throw myself over the second-floor railing. I’ll be standing on a train platform and think about pushing someone on the tracks. Don’t most people have random twisted thoughts? Maybe not. Maybe I’m a freak.

  I had a dream last night that I was on the second floor of an unfamiliar house. I was bending over a railing looking at the living room below. I climbed onto the railing and stood on it, teetering, about to jump. Then I thought, What am I doing? and got down.

  Tom works at a cemetery. I think he’s a grave digger. When he finished talking about intrusive thoughts, he said, “A woman at a meeting last night was clucking her tongue at me. She was shaking her head at me while I was speaking.

  I leaned over and told her, ‘When people do that it gets me excited. There’s some action going on in my pants. You keep it up we’ll be walking down the aisle.’

  “I love to drink, just love to drink,” Tom continued. “I just hate the consequences. If I had a pill that would allow me to drink and not have any consequences—the vomiting, the nut house, jail—I’d have a garage full of those pills and I’d be drinking. To have that drink and feel that ah in the brain …”

  I’m on the same page with a crazy grave digger.

  [Thursday, March 27]

  It’s my three-month anniversary of being sober. I went to a meeting, and when the chair asked if anyone was celebrating an anniversary, I raised my hand. Everyone clapped and some guy handed me a three-month coin. It was embarrassing but cool at the same time. A young kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen, gave the lead. He was very cocky, thought he was cute, but he described some painful loneliness that he attempted to numb with drugs.

  When I became a stay-at-home-mom and housebound freelance writer, I started hitting the wine and vodka pretty hard. Charlie got to leave the house, go out for drinks after work, travel, play tennis. I was at home and angry about the mind-numbing tasks that filled my day. Much of my day was spent standing in the kitchen making food, feeding people, and cleaning up the food. I would stew and tell myself I was meant for greater things.

  During the meeting I said that while I was sucking down vodka by myself, I knew I was on a bad path but didn’t care. It had crossed my mind I’d probably wind up in a recovery program, but I thought, At least I’d get out of the house. People nodded their heads and laughed.

  [Tuesday, April 1]

  Tonight’s the swim fest/sleepover Kelly organized for spring break. It had been seventy degrees today, and I’d taken the kids to a playground with a massive jungle gym castle before doing mountains of laundry, packing, and leaving. On the way to the hotel, Max opened the glove compartment.

  “What’s this?” he asked accusingly, waving a pack of cigarettes and a book of matches.

  “What does it look like?” I retorted.

  “Is your head up your you-know-what or something?” Max asked.

  “Actually, I’m kind of in the mood for one of those,” I said, snatching the pack from him.

  The temperature had plunged from seventy to forty-something during our drive. April fool! I lit a cigarette and rolled down my window. I held my cigarette at the edge of the window and tried to blow the smoke outside without success. Van was in the back seat getting blasted by cold air and smoke. The poor kid had just recovered from his upper respiratory virus. Max was in the front seat holding his T-shirt over his nose and staring at me in shock. I threw the cigarette out the window after three puffs and rolled up the windows. Max pulled his shirt down from his nose.

  “You know, that really makes me feel bad,” he said, almost crying.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That was really stupid. Smoking is stupid.” I crunched the cigarette pack in my fist. “But don’t you ever talk to me in that snotty way again.”

  “I won’t.”

  I felt like a big baby acting out. We arrived at the hotel and were told we had no reservation and none of our friends were there. I was fuming as we drove back home. I had the kids put on warmer clothes and called Kelly.

  “Where are you?” I asked testily.

  Kelly insisted she’d told me we were staying at another hotel. She probably had, but it didn’t stop me from toying with the idea that she’d purposely misinformed me just to screw with me.

  The boys and I checked in at the correct hotel and found our room, which had a sliding glass door that opened to the indoor swimming pool. The room smelled like chlorine, mildew, and cigarette butts. We put on our swimsuits and jumped in the pool. I waved briefly to Kelly, Nosey Rosy, and Liv. They were sitting at a table on an elevated platform overlooking the pool with Joel, Reed, and Joel’s friend Trip. Charlie was swamped with work and chipping away at it at home. Liv and Reed weren’t staying. They’d just stopped by for a couple of drinks. Seth was going to sleep at the hotel with the boys and me.

  When Van tired of swimming, I wrapped him in a towel, carried him over to the table where the adults were sitting, gave him a snack, and popped open a can of LaCroix. Trip was chain smoking. Hotel guests at other tables were chain smoking. The smoke hung in the humid, stagnant air like a mushroom cloud. I like to have an occasional cigarette, but this was gross. I watched our kids running back and forth between the pool and the hot tub, squirting each other with the squirt guns I’d brought. Van periodically darted from the table we were sitting at, ran for the pool, and I ran after him. Kelly uncorked wine bottle after wine bottle. Eventually, Liv and Reed left and I put Van to bed. When I returned to the table, Kelly and Nosey Rosy were playing ping-pong and Joel and Trip were watching them. Nosey Rosy beat Kelly three games in a row and Kelly was unhappy. Kelly huffed back to the table while Nosey Rosy checked on her kids in the pool.

  “She’s so competitive,” Kelly grumbled. “And she’s a cheater.”

  I checked my watch. It was ten thirty. My sinuses and eyes were burning.

  “I’m going to bed,” I s
aid, waving my hand in the cloud of smoke surrounding my head. “I can’t breathe anymore.”

  I got up to round up Max and Seth and Kelly put her arm around my shoulders and slurred, “You’re not there with us, and you wish you were.”

  I looked at her and smirked. “Yeah, that’s it,” I said.

  [Wednesday, April 2]

  I took Seth, Max, and Van out to breakfast. I checked the pool and hallway before we left and no one else was up. When we returned, Nosey Rosy, Kelly, and the kids were by the pool. Nosey Rosy was in the hot tub and Kelly was sitting at a patio table in front of her room looking like shit. Max and Seth jumped into the pool with the other kids, and Van and I got into the hot tub.

  “Kelly’s hurting bad,” Nosey Rosy said.

  “Looks like it.”

  “How do you feel about going to those heavy drinking parties now that you’re not drinking?” she asked.

  “I like seeing everyone at the beginning and having a nice dinner,” I said, knowing full well my words would get repeated to Kelly. “But when everyone’s gone from slightly buzzed to stupid it’s a drag. I’m the first one to leave.”

  But now it’s my turn to host and I don’t know what I’m going to do.

  [Friday, April 4]

  We had Liv, Reed, and their kids over for dinner as a thank-you for watching Max while we were in Savannah. I made cheese biscuits, collard greens, and cassoulet. Charlie picked up Maker’s Mark, Absolut, and wine.

  Liv had one martini. I was pretty sure she was holding back because of me. Things felt a bit strained between us. I don’t know. We’re maneuvering new ground with me being sober and it’s weird. Reed didn’t slow his drinking up one bit, however, which felt more normal. He walked through our front door swigging bourbon and Coke out of an enormous disposable plastic cup and immediately started bitching about the nasty traffic he’d just been stuck in. He’s so much like my dad.

  I put the finishing touches on the collard greens and noticed Max crawling on top of the kitchen counter and grabbing something out of the cupboard. On his way out of the kitchen, a shot glass fell out of his pocket and smashed on the floor.