Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife

by Brenda Wilhelmson

  I got in my car and cried all the way home. God, a stiff vodka would be nice.

  [Tuesday, July 1]

  I loaded up the Jeep around eleven last night, and at five thirty this morning, the kids and I pulled out for Lakeside. When we arrived in town, we pulled into the parking lot of the Blue Plate restaurant, which is literally around the corner from our cottage. The second after we walked into the restaurant, Van vomited all over the floor. A waitress rushed over with a bucket and a mop and began cleaning the entry-way. I wiped Van off and fed him breakfast. After that, he was fine. Riding in the back seat for an hour and forty-five minutes on an empty stomach apparently hadn’t set well with him.

  I started unpacking when we got to the cottage and began figuring out where I was going to put everyone. Hope and her two boys were on their way up. They were staying for a few days. Charlie was coming up for the weekend, and my sister and her two boys were coming up after that. I was starting to stress.

  Max had brought his BB gun, and while I was unpacking and making shopping lists in my head, Max kept pestering me to let him shoot.

  “No,” I told him repeatedly. “Please watch Van. Take him outside. Blow some bubbles, play ball, help me out, please.”

  Max took Van outside and, moments later, was screaming at him for spilling all the bubble solution. He yanked the bubble paraphernalia away from Van, and Van began screaming at Max and shoved him. Max screamed back at Van. Van snatched one of Max’s toy guns and whipped it on the ground, smashing it. I hurried outside, packed the boys into the car, and headed for the grocery store.

  We walked into the grocery store, and I sat Van in the grocery cart seat. Max jumped on the back end of the cart and I began pushing it. Max yanked his body from side to side, making the cart sway with his body weight.

  “Stop it,” I snapped. “Get off! You’re making it hard to push.”

  Max jumped off. He jumped back on. He jumped off. He jumped back on.

  “Knock it off,” I yelled. I began picking through a pile of cantaloupe. Max grabbed the shopping cart and ran down an aisle with it. Van began screaming and laughing. Max slalomed around the produce, cutting people off. He skidded to a stop and left Van and the cart in the middle of another aisle and ran over to a Twinkie display. I marched over to the cart with my cantaloupe and pushed it past glaring shoppers.

  “Can we get these, can we get these?” Max asked running up to the cart with a box of Twinkies.

  “No. Put them back.”

  Max put the Twinkies back, ran to the cart, and trailed after me making siren sounds and flailing his arms. I seriously wanted to smack him. We checked out, hopped back into the car, and drove back to the cottage. Hope’s SUV was in the driveway, and she and her boys, Sid and Robin, were unloading their stuff. Max jumped out of the Jeep as soon as I put it in park and hopped on his bike. He wove his bike in and out of tight spots between the two vehicles and the cottage. He careened toward Van, skidded to a stop, and hopped off before hitting him. Max ran to the Jeep while I was unloading groceries and pulled his BB gun out of the back. He began waving it around and I snatched it from him and threw it back in the Jeep.

  “That’s where it’s staying for a week!” I yelled. “You don’t touch that thing without permission. And waving it around little kids, are you nuts?”

  “Wow, he has a BB gun?” Hope said. “If you had a BB gun in my neighborhood you’d be ostracized.”

  “That’s why I live with the gentiles,” I snapped.

  Hope clucked her tongue and stared at me with her mouth hanging open. I knew I shouldn’t have said that, but I was at my limit.

  Hope and her boys put their stuff in the cottage and I put the groceries away. We headed down to the beach, and Lake Michigan looked like a sea. Huge waves were crashing on the shore and I knew before putting my foot in that there was a strong undercurrent. Max jumped into the water and began swimming away from the shore. I screamed at him to swim back. He slowly turned and swam back. As he neared the shore, I felt like yanking him out by the hair. I was acutely aware that I’d been yelling at Max since Hope arrived. I could feel her silent judgment. In a calm, measured voice I told Max how dangerous the lake was and gave him parameters for where he could and could not swim.

  My friends never seem to yell at their kids. Even when their kids are behaving hideously they pull them aside and say, “Now Sweetie, you know you shouldn’t blah, blah, blah. Please don’t yadda, yadda, yadda, okay Sweetie?” Maybe it’s a bullshit show they put on for nonfamily members, but I’d have to be on happy pills to act like that. God, I want a drink!

  [Wednesday, July 2]

  I’m almost done reading the book We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. It’s a fictional story about a teenage boy, a nasty little seed, who murders his classmates like in Columbine. Hope’s son Robin is a nasty little shit, and I couldn’t stop comparing him to Kevin.

  Robin is three and constantly scowls. We went to the beach today, and Robin sat on the sand and refused to step foot into the water. Hope jumped around Robin like a moronic court jester, and Robin screamed at Hope to stop, so she did. Van was playing on the sand with a beach ball.

  “I want that ball,” Robin shouted.

  Hope asked Van if he wanted to play ball with Robin and walked Van over to her little angel of darkness. “Throw the ball to Robin,” she told Van. Van threw the ball to Robin and Robin grabbed it and ran in the opposite direction. Van stood there for a moment, then walked off toward a shovel and pail and began digging in the sand. Robin saw what Van was doing, threw down the ball, ran over, pushed Van, and took his shovel and pail.

  “Hey, those are mine,” Van wailed. “I was playing with them.”

  Hope sat on the sand next to Robin. “Robin, Van was playing with those,” she said cheerily. “It’s not nice to push.” Robin ignored her and kept digging. Hope sat there for a moment, then began helping Robin build a sand castle.

  I was thoroughly disgusted. “Let’s play ball,” I told Van.

  I grabbed the beach ball and Van and I waded into the water and tossed it back and forth. I looked over at Robin to see what he was doing. He had stopped digging. He was sitting with his arms crossed over his chest scowling at us. I saw Hope flapping her arms and jaws. Robin got up, walked across the beach, and began climbing the stairs to leave.

  “Robin, come here,” Hope shouted. “Robin! Come back here! Robin!” She got up and jogged to the stairs and ran up. Moments later, Hope reappeared with Robin. “Sid!” she called. “Come on, we need to go up. We need to go with Robin.”

  “Why do we always have to leave because of Robin?” Sid yelled. He turned to Robin. “Robin, why are you so mean?”

  “You know what?” I said looking at my watch. “It’s time for lunch anyway. We’ll go up and eat and come back down.”

  The six of us climbed up the stairs from the beach to the top of the bluff. We walked back to the cottage and I made grilled cheese sandwiches. Robin wouldn’t eat his. Sid finished his sandwich and began eating Robin’s. Robin started screaming at Sid saying he wanted his sandwich.

  Throughout the day, Robin continued to abuse Van. I saw him slap Van; push Van. When I started to intervene, Hope would pull Robin aside, quietly talk to him, and make Robin apologize. One of the times Robin pushed Van, Robin looked at me first, looked at Hope, and shoved Van anyway. The little brat knew his mother would step in and wouldn’t do jack shit. The icing on the cake was when Robin spit at Van and gave him the finger. I didn’t see it, but Max came running up yelling, “Mom, Mom, Robin spit at Van! And he gave him the finger! I hate that kid! What’s wrong with him?”

  I gave Hope a very pissed-off look. Hope said, “Robin, why would you do that?” She turned to Van and said, “Sorry, Van.” She turned toward me. “What can you do?” she shrugged.

  I looked at her incredulously. Hope winced and turned away.

  [Thursday, July 3]

  It was a hot, windless day and Robin didn’t want to go
to the beach.

  “I heard about this big playground in Three Oaks,” Hope said. “Let’s go there. You want to go there, Robin? Yeah? Let’s go!”

  “Can we stay here?” Max asked me, motioning to Sid and himself.

  “Yeah, can we stay here?” Sid asked. “We want to go to the beach.”

  “I want to go to the park with Robin,” Van said.

  “We’re all going to the park,” Hope said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “You guys can’t stay here by yourselves,” I told Max. “We’ll go to the beach later, okay?”

  “But they’re leaving later,” Max said.

  I looked at Max and shrugged.

  Max and Sid disgustedly got into Hope’s SUV.

  The Three Oaks playground, an enormous community-built structure erected in a treeless field, sat baking in the sun. Waves of heat danced off of it as we walked toward it. The kids climbed on, but minutes later, Max, Sid, Van, and I were sitting in the shade under a wooden platform.

  “It’s too hot,” Sid moaned. “I want to leave. Everyone wants to go, Mom,” Sid wailed.

  “Robin doesn’t want to leave,” Hope said.

  “Four against one,” Sid said.

  “Four against two,” Hope said. “And I’m driving.” She turned toward Robin, “We’re having fun, right Robin?”

  Robin was sitting in a corner near the top of a slide, pouting as usual. But as soon as Sid began complaining, Robin jumped up and slid down the slide.

  “Come on, Mom,” Sid complained loudly.

  “This sucks,” Max groaned.

  “Hope, let’s go,” I said. “This is miserable. I’ve had it.”

  We left the inferno, and as Hope drove back to the cottage with the air conditioner cranked, I called my mom.

  “Hey, how are things going? How’s Dad? Did you make those doctor appointments?”

  “I made one with Dr. Locke.”

  “That’s it?” I said. “He’s the holistic MD. He’s not an oncologist.”

  “He’s not? I thought he was. His office sent over a twenty-page questionnaire. Can you believe it? I don’t know why they need so much information.”

  “Doctors like that do exhaustive case histories. Your lifestyle has a lot to do with your health. You need to make appointments with those oncologists. We need to pick a cancer doctor and get Dad started on treatment.”

  “I was on the phone and computer all day yesterday with this stuff and I don’t feel like spending another day on it,” my mother complained.

  “Well, you have to,” I said irritably. “Make those appointments today.”

  I hung up. Hope was playing a sappy children’s CD, still trying to make Robin happy.

  “What’s this shit you’re listening to?” I snapped.

  Hope gave me a shocked look. “It’s Robin’s favorite. We love it!”

  “I’d be on Prozac, too, if I had to listen to this crap.”

  Hope had confided in me that she took Prozac. She stared at me in disbelief and I stared out the window.

  We ate lunch at the cottage, then Hope and her kids packed up their SUV and left. Van waved and cried as they drove away.

  “I don’t know why Van likes Robin,” Max muttered.

  “Van likes being around another kid his age, even if he is a mean little so-and-so,” I said. “Let’s go to the beach.”

  We went to the beach and Charlie arrived at the cottage before dinner. At dusk, we drove to the little town of Baroda for a fireworks show. Everyone was parking in the middle of a large open field. We put a blanket down and watched the fireworks explode, literally over our heads. Ash and soot drifted down from the sky and tapped our bodies lightly after each close-up explosion. It felt good to be present and not floating in an alcohol haze.

  [Friday, July 4]

  I called my mother. She told me she had made an appointment for my dad with a doctor at Evanston-Northwestern.

  “Make an appointment with the oncologist downtown, too,” I said.

  “I’ve been emailing my cousin Pat,” my mother said. “You remember him? We usually see him at the flea market in St. Germaine when we’re in Minocqua? He says doctors are full of it and I agree. He sent me a link to a Web site for nutritional supplements that are supposed to change your body’s PH and cure cancer. Some doctor has been curing his patients, all thirty of them, with this stuff.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “Kelly came across a miracle drug on the Internet when her mother was dying of cancer. She got all excited about it, but after digging around she found out it was made out of airplane fuel.”

  I hung up. I picked up the phone book and looked for a recovery meeting. I called a number and left my number on someone’s answering machine. A while later, a man called back. “This is the Program Police,” he said. I laughed. It felt good to laugh.

  [Saturday, July 5]

  I went to a meeting this morning and the man who spoke was the kind of guy my dad would like. He was a blue-collar guy about the same age as my dad and funny as hell. He said he’d never met his father, but his dad would send him a card every five years or so while he was growing up.

  “My dad was an unsuccessful bank robber,” the speaker said. “The kind of bank robber who would walk into a bank, pull a sack over his head, but have forgotten to cut the eyeholes out. That part is true. He really did forget to cut the eye holes out.”

  After he finished, we took turns commenting. One woman said she was sober three weeks and having a rough time watching her family drink at her cottage. When it was my turn, I said I was having trouble dealing with my dad’s terminal cancer. A chic woman approached me after the meeting.

  “I lost my dad to cancer right after I got sober,” she said. She wrote her phone number on a piece of paper. “Here,” she said, handing it to me. The number was to an upscale clothing boutique in New Buffalo. “Just tell them you’re my friend and they’ll put you through to me.”

  I thanked her and left. Later, Charlie and the boys and I went to see Lilly’s Orchid Show in Three Oaks. Lilly’s Orchid Show, a collection of talented and not-so-talented musical and performance acts, is usually geared for adults. I’d seen it years ago in Chicago when it showcased the Blue Man Group before the Blue Man Group was famous. But tonight, it was a family show. Square dancers, plate-twirlers, and Kurt Elling singing jazz. It was cool.

  We drove back to the cottage and my cell phone rang.

  “I don’t want to alarm you,” Reed said, “but a tornado ripped through your neighborhood. They’re calling it a microburst, but I’m calling it a tornado. A humongous box elder was knocked down and is covering the whole back three-quarters of your yard. The maple tree by your brick patio, the whole top and middle section got ripped out. There’s a five-foot-high, ten-foot-wide barricade of branches and trees piled up in your street. It looks like a war zone.”

  I called Judy, my next-door neighbor.

  “Branches from your maple tree fell across the alley onto your neighbor’s car,” she said. “But I don’t think the car was damaged. Dennis and I cleared the limbs off your garage roof and we cleaned up the alley and put the branches in the street. Your telephone wire was ripped off the front of your house and took some fascia with it. But otherwise, everything else is okay.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “We’ll be home tomorrow.”

  “Don’t cancel your vacation,” Judy said. “There’s nothing to do that can’t wait until you come back. But you might want to call a tree removal service. The tree guys are really busy. I’ll get you the number for the guy we used.”

  [Sunday, July 6]

  Instead of returning home, we drove to Saugatuck. Saugatuck is a lovely little town full of arty clip joints. After a day of poking around in the shops, we drove back to the cottage and I flipped on the news and began cooking dinner. The news anchor reported that librarians were destroying library patrons’ checkout histories so the federal government couldn’t get them under the Patriot Act.

 
; “I checked out books on Hitler and Osama bin Laden,” Max said. “Do you think the government might come after me?”

  “Don’t forget all the books you checked out on guns,” I said.

  Charlie started laughing. “Didn’t you check out some books on bombs?”

  “No!” Max snapped, looking worried. He sat back on the couch, arms folded, deep in troubled thought.

  “You’re fine,” I told Max. “You’re ten. Ten-year-old boys check out that kind of stuff. But you shouldn’t have to worry about the government looking over your shoulder while you’re reading. That’s sickening.” Secretly, I wondered if my family was on the government’s watch list. Maybe Max’s reading history was a red flag. I also donate money to Greenpeace and Planned Parenthood.

  [Monday, July 7]

  Charlie left and my sister arrived in Lakeside with her kids. We went to the beach, and when we returned to the cottage, Paula began drinking a wine cooler she’d made by mixing red wine with some off-brand citrus soda. I’d told Paula I didn’t want her bringing anything I wanted to drink, so she complied. But her liquor consumption is starting to make me feel edgy.

  I called my parents’ house. My mom said she made an appointment for my dad to see the oncologist downtown at Northwestern. They were going to see the Evanston doc in three days.

  “Ask the doctor if there’s a study Dad can get into with no risk of getting into a placebo group,” I said. “Ask him if he’s willing to go off-label—prescribe drugs that haven’t been approved.”

  “I think the supplement Pat told me about on the Internet sounds promising,” my mom said. “Sounds like it can cure him. I’m going to ask the doctor about that.”

  “How’s Dad?” I asked.

  “He’s here. You want to talk to him?”

  “Yeah.”

  I began telling my dad what I’d just told my mother.

  “I can’t think about this,” my dad shouted. “I can’t figure anything out. What the fuck’s a placebo? I don’t know what the fuck that is. I don’t know what the fuck they’re saying or what the fuck to do. I wish you were going to this doctor appointment with me. I can’t think about this. When I do, I just go fucking nuts. This drives me fucking crazy. I can’t think about it, Brenda. Everyone has to go sometime. Maybe I’ll just do nothing. When I just put it out of my mind I’m fine.”