Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife

by Brenda Wilhelmson

  [Tuesday, July 8]

  We went to the beach and after the kids were in bed, Paula and I talked for a while about our dad. She, like my mother, is carrying false hope.

  “He’s not going to get better,” I said. “And he’s not going to feel well much longer.”

  “Stop that!” Paula snapped. “Don’t say that.”

  “He’s going to get sick and the cancer treatments are going to make him feel like shit.”

  “Well, maybe he should just do hormone therapy,” Paula said. “I talked to a guy on a plane who told me his prostate cancer had spread so much that when they opened him up, they just closed him right back up. He’s been on hormone therapy for six years and he’s doing fine, I think.”

  “Doesn’t sound right,” I said. “The cancer is going to kill him. Dad’s only hope is an experimental drug.”

  “You said there was no hope, that the cancer would kill him.”

  “Nothing so far cures cancer.”

  Paula looked deflated. I felt bad. But I don’t want to be the only one not in denial.

  [Wednesday, July 9]

  Paula, the boys, and I climbed mountains of sand at Warren Dunes. We swam at the beach, and as I was flicking sand off my towel my cell phone rang.

  “It’s going to cost $1,210 to trim our trees and remove the downed box elder in our yard,” Charlie said. “Removing the box elder is $800. The neighborhood is pretty cleaned up, but both of our phone lines are out. The phone cable is coiled up on the neighbor’s grass across the street. I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’ll come back to Lakeside late Friday or early Saturday.”

  [Thursday, July 10]

  Paula and her kids left this morning. It was nice having a quiet day with just my kids to myself. After Max and Van went to bed, I stayed up and read. I’ve been craving alone time, but now that I’ve got it, it’s making me uncomfortable. I’m noticing how spidery the cottage is. I’m feeling uneasy with myself in general. There are people who can’t stand being by themselves, and I’ve always prided myself on not being one of them. But I’m feeling edgy, restless, pretty much crawling in my skin.

  I loved living alone before I got married. When Charlie and I were dating, he wanted me to move in with him and I wouldn’t. When we got married I missed having my own space. But I smoked a lot of pot back then. It wasn’t like I was being introspective.

  As a kid, I used to spend long periods of time lying on my closet floor thinking about how weird it was that I existed, that my parents had picked each other, that out of all the possible combinations everything had lined up for me to be here. I’d look at myself in the mirror and feel like I was looking at myself from outside my body. It felt supernatural, interesting. I tried doing it again recently, staring at myself in the mirror to see if I could look at myself from the outside, but I got too creeped out and stopped.

  [Monday, July 14]

  We drove back home and I began doing loads of laundry. Darcy called.

  “I’m not feeling comfortable around Eve, not safe,” she said. “I think drinking is still working for her and I can’t be around that.”

  “Sometimes it’s best to drift away,” I said, thinking about Kelly.

  [Thursday, July 17]

  More psycho Kelly crap. The kids and I went out to lunch with Liv and her boys and I told Liv about calling Kelly on her bad behavior and dragging Liv’s name into it.

  “I’m so glad you’re bringing this up,” Liv said. “I’ve wanted to talk to you about this, but Reed was like, ‘This is between Kelly and Brenda. Stay out of it.’ You were out of town, but at Kelly’s book club, she pulled me aside and wanted to talk about the conversation she had with you.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Kelly said you were mad at her because, and these were her words, ‘I supposedly told you Ryan was using Max as a BB gun target.’ Then she started crying and kept saying, ‘Ryan was the one who said it. Don’t you remember?’ I told her, ‘No, I don’t remember it that way,’ but she wanted me to tell you that’s how it happened. I told her I wasn’t going to do that and she wasn’t too happy with me. She was pretty irritated.”

  “She’s lost her mind,” I said.

  “What am I going to say when she calls me and asks how it went when I talked to you?” Liv asked. “Kelly is expecting me to talk to you.”

  “Kelly’s been leaving a lot of messages on my answering machine since I got back from Michigan,” I said. “Now I know why.”

  Yesterday, I swung by Kelly’s to pick up a belated wedding present for Audrey and Nehemiah that I’d ordered from Kelly’s friend Lexi, who runs a corporate gifts business. When Kelly opened the door, she had a sad look pasted on her face.

  “You never called me to tell me how your dad’s doctor appointment went and it hurt my feelings,” she said.

  I ignored her and opened the boxes and pulled out the hand-painted platter and bowl I was going to give Audrey. “Look at this,” I said. “I feel like keeping this stuff.”

  “I need to get something for my mother-in-law’s birthday,” Kelly said. “Will you bring me those catalogs Lexi gave you?”

  Kelly left me a message today saying she needed to stop by and get those catalogs.

  “I’m not calling her back,” I told Liv.

  [Friday, July 18]

  I went to my dad’s appointment at the holistic medical center. While I was in Michigan, my parents met with an oncologist in Evanston, Dr. Chevron, and they said Dr. Chevron wanted to do nothing until my dad started feeling bad, then he’d start him on hormone therapy. I don’t like that.

  A nutritionist at the holistic center came into the room we were waiting in and told my dad he needs to radically change his diet and eat a lot of deep Atlantic fish, vegetables, and only whole-grain carbohydrates.

  “No meat, dairy products, or sugar—and stop drinking alcohol,” the nutritionist said. “Sugar feeds cancer and so does animal fat. Alcohol converts to sugar in your body.”

  “So I should give up all the pleasures in life?” my dad asked testily. “I gave up smoking. I can’t have sex because I’ve got a limp dick from surgery and radiation. Now I should give up drinking and meat?” My dad snorted and laughed.

  My father walked out of the clinic agitated but hopeful that he could lengthen his life by changing his diet. He’s not going to change his eating habits. It’s never going to happen.

  [Monday, July 21]

  My parents and I went downtown to see Dr. Benton, the Northwestern oncologist Dr. Wheeler recommended. I initially liked Benton because he’s aggressive. He said he wanted to start my dad on hormone therapy right away.

  “How much time do I have?” my dad asked Benton.

  “I could arrest the cancer with hormones for three to four years if the cancer is visible on CT or bone scans. And I can arrest it for up to seven years if it’s not. I want you to get CT and bone scans right away.”

  My dad went ashen. “What about changing my diet? Can I help myself by changing my diet?”

  “That won’t do a thing,” Benton said. “It’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. There’s some evidence to suggest that diet affects your health before you get sick based on the different types of cancer people get. But your house is on fire and you can’t rebuild a burning house.”

  After the appointment, as we waited for the elevator, my dad said, “That guy’s a fucking asshole. I don’t like him. He’s not going to be my doctor.”

  We got in the elevator. “Did you hear what he said?” my dad asked. “I’ve got seven years tops, but probably three to four. Prick. But at least he told me I can eat and drink whatever I want.”

  [Tuesday, July 22]

  I was cooking with Max when the phone rang and I let the answering machine pick up.

  “Brenda,” Kelly sing-songed. “I need those catalogs.”

  I picked up the phone and told her to come over. I couldn’t avoid Kelly forever. Kelly was over in five minutes. I walked her into my kitchen and we c
hatted for half an hour, then I walked Kelly out onto my front porch.

  “Bren,” she began, “I just want to reiterate that I didn’t bring up that BB gun story. I reminded Liv that Ryan had been the one to bring it up, but Liv couldn’t remember a thing. It was weird, like a Twilight Zone episode.” Kelly’s voice began to shake and her eyes filled with tears. “I’m not about to let Liv, a new friend, get in the way and mess up our friendship.” Tears rolled down Kelly’s cheeks and she swiped them away. “In the six years we’ve been friends, you’ve never been mad at me, and I’m not about to let Liv screw things up.”

  “I didn’t like your asinine story,” I said. “I had to tell you how I felt and I did. Now it’s over. Okay?”

  Kelly hugged me, and I hugged her back. She tearfully told me she valued my friendship and loved me. I got teary and told her, “Back at ya.”

  [Thursday, July 24]

  I’ve got mixed feelings about leaving for Minocqua tomorrow. I met with Sara this morning, and we talked about how I was going to handle being with my parents and watching my dad drink all week. Things get ugly around mid-week every time I stay with them. This time around, I wanted to avoid making barbed comments like the one I skewered my dad with before seeing Dr. Benton.

  While we were in Benton’s waiting room, I asked my dad if he was changing his diet.

  “Your father’s been drinking as much as ever, maybe more,” my mother tattled.

  I glared at my father. “Every time you pour booze down your throat you’re feeding your cancer. If you’re going to keep boozing and bringing on your death, let me know so I can try not to care.”

  “I feel bad about that,” I told Sara. “I don’t want to say anything like that again. But we push each other’s buttons.”

  “Don’t nag,” Sara told me. “Don’t push. Just be supportive. Tell your dad, ‘I love you, I’m scared for you, and however you want me to help you I will.’ Don’t count his drinks. Try not to get upset when you see him drinking. Remember, drinking used to be fun, that’s why we did it. Just look at it as your dad having a good time and handling things his own way. And go to meetings up there.”

  [Friday, July 25]

  I’m up in Minocqua already blowing Sara’s good advice. My dad and I went grocery shopping this evening, and as we meandered down the aisles, I told him I’d been working a recovery program for six months and that it was helping me a lot and he should try it.

  “I’m friends with this older dude called Playboy Pete,” I told him. “He was a friend of your childhood buddy Leo. You’d like Pete. He has poker parties at his house, lives on a lake, has a boat.”

  “Leo was a big alcoholic,” my dad said. “His wife was going to leave him if he didn’t quit drinking. He quit drinking, then died of cancer.”

  “Pete wanted me to give you his card,” I said and fished Pete’s card out of my purse and held it out to my dad. “He’d love it if you called him.”

  “I’m not going to call him,” my father said. “I can quit drinking anytime I want. If I want to, I’ll quit by myself. I don’t need a recovery program.”

  I stuffed Playboy Pete’s card into my dad’s shirt pocket. “Hang onto it, just in case.”

  Back at the cabin, I started counting my dad’s drinks. He had five huge manhattans in an oversized rocks glass. I reminded him that he needed to stop drinking. Then I forced myself to shut up. Later, when it was dark, my dad went outside and sat on the deck with another manhattan. I went out and sat with him.

  “You don’t know how it feels to have cancer, Brenda,” he said. “I think about it all the time. I can’t sleep. It keeps me up at night. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave you, the boys, your mother. Who would have thought this would happen to me? Sometimes I think I’ll just buy a Harley and drive it into a fucking wall. I see myself in a coffin already, so why not? Everyone’s going to die. Why not make it sooner than later? I really think I’ll buy a Harley. It would make me happy. But your mother won’t hear of it. She says it’ll cost too much money. She’s got enough money to live on very comfortably after I’m gone.”

  “She’s afraid you’ll ride it all fucked up and kill yourself,” I said. “If you quit drinking, I’ll lobby for you to get that bike.”

  [Saturday, July 26]

  I woke up feeling sick to my stomach worrying about my father. I rolled out of bed and sat on the couch in the loft area outside my upstairs bedroom while Charlie slept. The kids got up and I cooked breakfast. When we finished eating, my dad and I took Seth and Max tubing.

  My dad recently bought two tubes and we drove one out to the middle of the lake. Max hunkered down on top of the tube. His only experience tubing was getting whiplashed behind Kelly’s boat. Remembering his violent jerking, Max kept the tube in the wake behind the boat. Seth, having tubed a ton, signaled for my dad to speed up, fishtail, do donuts. My dad, who loves a daredevil, began whipping Seth around.

  “Seth’s doing a great job out there,” my dad shouted for Max’s benefit. “Look at him. He’s really hot-dogging it. You were just hanging in the wake.”

  Max looked like he’d been slapped. I knew exactly how he felt. My dad pulled that on my sister and me. “Look at Paula,” or “Look at Brenda.” Max got onto the tube again and hit it hard, but I could tell he wasn’t enjoying it.

  While my dad was tying his boat to the dock, I said I wanted to take out the dinged-up piece-of-crap community boat the other cabin owners use. My parents own the cabin with eight other couples and my dad bought his own boat rather than use the dilapidated piece of garbage everyone else drives.

  “Why?” my dad asked.

  “I want to be able to take it out if I want to,” I said. “I should learn how to maneuver it in and out of the boathouse.”

  “You can’t do that. Just go out with me.”

  “That piece of garbage is perfect to learn on,” I said irritably.

  I lowered the boat, drove it out of the boathouse, drove it around the lake, and brought it back to the dock. The wind had picked up and there was a strong current. As I approached the boathouse, the boat swung out at a funky angle and I aborted my attempt to pull the boat into the house. I reapproached. My father started screaming, “Throw it in reverse! Throw it in reverse!” I got flustered, threw the throttle forward, and rammed the boat into a metal pole holding up one end of the boathouse.

  “Look what you did!” my father screamed. “Look what you did! You dented the boat. Everyone’s going to be pissed!”

  “What dent? What fucking dent? Which one of these fucking dents is new?”

  “Just get out of the fucking boat and let me pull it in.”

  I got out of the boat and stalked off.

  [Sunday, July 27]

  I’ve been trying to find a recovery meeting for two days. On Friday, I called a number in the phone book, left a message on someone’s answering machine, and no one called me back. On Saturday, I called the number again, someone picked up, and it sounded like the phone was tumbling around in the bottom of a purse while a hand fished for it. An older woman laughed then the phone went dead. I called back. The old woman answered.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for a meeting but I’m not sure I have the right number.”

  “Oh hi,” she said. “Yeah, this is the right number. I’m not at home so I’m not by my meeting list. Could you call back at four thirty when I’ll be home?”

  I called back at four thirty and got her voicemail. I left another message and left the cabin number and my cell number. She didn’t call back. I called a local treatment center thinking they might have a meeting list. What sounded to be a very old woman answered. “There’s a meeting going on here right now, but it’s almost over,” she said.

  “Great. Is there another one this week?”

  “Oh, this is the only one here,” she said. “It’s once a week on Saturday.”

  “There have to be other meetings,” I said. “Do you have a list?”

  “I w
ork at the hospital as a greeter,” she said. “I don’t have any of that information. Call me back tomorrow. I’ll be at work at ten on Sunday. I’ll see what I can find out for you from the men as they leave tonight.”

  I called the hospital greeter this morning.

  “Oh, I didn’t get a chance to ask,” the woman said. “They went out a different door.”

  I was livid. I called Sara. I told her I felt like drinking.

  “Look how hard you’ve tried to find a meeting,” Sara said. “Look how much you want to stay sober. That’s awesome. So you couldn’t find a meeting, you’re talking to me. Just think how lucky we are to have all the meetings we have at home. Those poor people up there—it’s got to be a lot harder for them. Keep calling me.”

  [Tuesday, July 29]

  I miss getting loaded. I’ve been wanting to drink all week. When I arrived at the cabin on Friday, I went directly to the kitchen to get a martini, then remembered I wasn’t drinking. It felt weird not grabbing the vodka bottle and pouring myself a stiff one. Saturday night, while we were having dinner, my dad asked, “Where’s the wine?” I’m the wino who always supplied it. My dad doesn’t drink wine if I’m not around. I wanted a glass of pinot grigio so bad I could feel its icy dryness on my tongue. I made a trip to buy groceries on Sunday and my dad said, “Pick me up some vodka,” as I was walking out the door. I didn’t buy him any, so yesterday he purchased a liter of vodka. Before dinner last night, my dad took the kids and me for a boat ride and on our way back, he said, “I’m gonna fix Charlie and me a nice martini. Charlie’s about ready for one, I’m sure.” This morning, my dad and I went out on the boat and docked at a restaurant to check its dinner hours. “Last year we stopped here for Bloody Marys,” he said. “Remember?”

  My father has been grinding me down for four days. He’d love to have me back as his drinking buddy. Part of me feels guilty for not drinking with him, like it’s the least I could do for a dying man.