Drowning Erin

by Elizabeth O'Roark

  “I was happy until you showed up,” I cry. “Before you came back from Italy, I was fine. I was happy then, and I’ll be happy again.”

  “You weren’t happy, Erin. You still aren’t or you wouldn’t be in here with me crying. And I don’t want to make you cry, but I’m in love with a girl you want to kill off, and I don’t know what else to do.”

  He leans in, capturing my mouth, his hands framing my face, and I let him. I let myself have this one last time, his mouth and his heat and my tears slipping between our skin. And then I pull back, and I leave him behind for good.

  74

  Erin

  Present

  By the following day, my father’s condition is considered stable. The hospital tells us he can be released within 48 hours. The doctor requests a meeting with all of us, and I’m relieved that Rob is back at work and will miss it. I have no idea what the doctor will say, but it feels like our secrets are on the move now, that the trap door they hide under has begun to shift and lift, and things that are meant to stay hidden may be about to slip free. Rob sort of knows about my dad, but he doesn’t know the rest of us are just as sick in our own ways, and it’s something I’d prefer he not find out.

  My parents are back to performing The Doyle Show when the doctor walks in: my dad the gruff but lovable patriarch, my mother giggling and giddy. I’d almost stopped noticing it, but now I can see nothing else. The falseness of it sickens me.

  The doctor’s smile is patient, but small. It’s obvious he’s here to discuss something serious, something neither of my parents wants to hear.

  “Before Mr. Doyle goes home,” he says, “there are a couple of issues we need to address.”

  “We can’t wait to get home,” my mother says briskly. “We’re having a big celebration dinner tomorrow night.” Her eyes widen as if she’s just had the most brilliant idea, so brilliant it startles her. “You should come! You’ve never had chicken parm like mine, I promise you.”

  I flinch, embarrassed for her, and Sean looks away. She is the only person in the room who doesn’t realize how insane she sounds.

  Dr. Taylor doesn’t even smile in response. He’s not one of those doctors who makes friends with his patients, and in this case that may be a good thing. He’s unlikely to be bringing good news.

  “I’ve gone over your labs and your biopsy report,” he tells my father. “As you know, cirrhosis is irreversible, but you still have the possibility of ten good years, maybe more, if you can manage not to drive into any more telephone poles.”

  My father nods. “I won’t. I just need to learn not to stay out so late.”

  My mother squeezes his hand. “We’re getting older. I think we both need to remember to take better care of ourselves.”

  I feel like I’m choking. My father is dying from alcohol poisoning. He could have killed someone last week. I can’t believe they still refuse to see this.

  “No.” My voice is like breaking glass, making every other action in the room cease, every head turn toward me. “No, this wasn’t lack of sleep. You don’t get to pretend this was lack of sleep.”

  “Erin, stop,” my mother scolds. Her voice isn’t harsh, but her eyes are. They dare me to continue. It’s the same look she gave me as a child, when someone asked why my father was absent at a school concert or an award ceremony.

  Except I’m an adult now. She’s no longer a foot taller, and I’m no longer the little girl who needs her to survive.

  “He could have killed someone. That telephone pole could have been a child, Mom. That could have been me. Would you still be pretending then?”

  “We can discuss this later,” she says, her eyes shooting daggers.

  “Mr. Doyle had a blood alcohol content of .25 when he arrived here that night,” says Dr. Taylor. “I think he should consider attending a rehab program.”

  “Everyone has a few too many once in a while, doc,” my dad says.

  His tone is jovial. It’s his “come on, boys will be boys” schtick. I’ve heard it way too many times before.

  “Your cirrhosis didn’t happen on its own,” the doctor replies. “If none of that persuades you, I’d encourage you to consider the fact that you’re also facing a DUI charge. Given how high your blood alcohol content was and that this wasn’t your first DUI, rehab may be the only thing that keeps you out of jail.”

  He leaves, and my parents bluster, as outraged as they might be had the doctor accused them of child pornography or human trafficking.

  “He’s crazy,” my mother insists. “Erin, you and Rob need to find a lawyer for your father. The best lawyer.” She turns to my dad. “We’ll get you out of this.”

  I laugh, but it’s not a happy sound. I’ve wondered when I might hit the point of enough—the moment when my debt to them is paid, when I abandon responsibility. And here it is: with my father in the hospital, dying of cirrhosis, facing jail time.

  Enough.

  I stand. “Dad needs help, not a lawyer. Not a penny of my money, or Rob’s, will go toward defending him unless he’s gone to rehab first.”

  “Erin,” my mother gasps, ready to scold.

  I stop her before she can start. “Mom, shut up, for once in your life. You’re as big a problem as he is.” I turn toward my father. “Five days ago I thought you were going to die. And if you had, it would have been my fault, and Mom’s, for letting you do this. You’re still going to die. Maybe it’ll take a few years and maybe it won’t, but I’m done being a part of it. When it happens, I’m not willing to feel the way I’ve felt over the past week. You know what your drinking is? It’s cowardice. And Mom, every single time you let him do it without comment, you’re just as bad. And I’ve been bad too. I shouldn’t have been answering your calls. I shouldn’t have been in bars looking for you at 3 AM when I had to be up for work in a few hours. So Dad, here’s the deal: go to rehab, or this is the last time you’ll see me, either of you. I’m not going to be a part of this anymore.”

  All three of them look shocked, but it’s my mother whose shock turns to rage in a heartbeat. “How dare you make this about yourself right now, of all times? Why is it so hard for you to be—”

  “Stop, Mom,” Sean says. “She’s right. We’re all fucking cowards. She’s right. I’m going back to rehab. Dad needs to go too. If he doesn’t go, I don’t want to hear from either of you again either.”

  My mother starts carrying on about how she raised us, reminding Sean of all the times she’s supported him. It’s my father who stops her.

  “Okay,” he says, his voice low and gravelly. “I’ll go.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” my mother insists.

  “I think,” he says quietly, closing his eyes, “that I probably do.”

  75

  Erin

  Present

  Rob arranges everything. He gets my dad into the best treatment program in the area, and he says he knows a lawyer who “always wins.”

  “And I got you an interview with my firm,” he adds.

  “Oh,” I stammer. “I appreciate that, but I got a call from the chancellor at ECU. It’s possible they’re going to offer me something there.”

  “Erin, you can make 30 percent more at my company. Being at a nonprofit has hardly done you a lot of favors so far. Think about the bullshit you went through with HR. That would never happen in the private sector.” He shakes his head. “I can’t imagine it’s about a job anyway, given the way you left. He probably just wants you to call in a favor with Olivia.”

  My heart sinks. But just because the truth sucks doesn’t mean you ignore it. After a moment I nod, though I can’t bring myself to say anything.

  So once again, Rob saves the day. And the Doyles always, always need saving.

  We’re lucky to have him. I just wish I could think that without this feeling of resignation. Everything is fixed, and everyone is saved, but I still cry myself to sleep back at my parents’ place that night.

  So I guess not everyone is fixed. I s
ecretly wonder if I’m broken beyond repair.

  Sean spends the next morning at the police station—I don’t ask why because I don’t want to know—and when he returns, I drive him back to rehab.

  “I’m sorry about summer semester,” he says. “I’ll figure out a way to get those credits. And I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

  I’ve heard Sean’s promises so many times. He could have said nothing at all and it would hold more weight. But he’s trying, and I’m not going to make all of this harder for him by arguing. Very little feels worth fighting over at the moment.

  “You think Dad will make it?” he asks.

  I glance at him. Given that he’s now entering rehab for the eighth time, I can’t say I have a lot of faith in the process. I tell him I don’t know, and I can hear the apathy in my voice. This week, it seems, has used up my ability to care about pretty much everything.

  Sean doesn’t speak again until we pull up to the rehab center. “The last time I saw you—when we went to lunch? You glowed, like you did when you were a kid,” he says. “I’d forgotten that about you. I’d forgotten you could even be happy like that. You’re back to faking it now, though.”

  I pull into the first available parking space and climb out of the car. “I’m not faking anything, Sean.” I slam the door harder than I should. “Our father is dying, and I’m unemployed. Who would be happy right now?”

  “I don’t think that has anything to do with it, though, because you hadn’t been happy like that for a long time before, even when you had a job,” he says, reaching into the trunk for his bag. “It was Brendan.”

  “If I seemed happy, it had nothing to do with him.”

  “If you say so,” he replies. “Or maybe being scared of shit runs in the family.” Without a backward glance, he walks away.

  I spend the trip back to the hospital fuming. What an asshole. He took my entire life savings and is riding the rehab train for the eighth time. Why would I listen to his opinion about anything?

  Besides, what he said didn’t even make sense—happiness and bravery are completely different things. And he might know plenty about happiness, at least of the heroin/cocaine-induced variety, but he doesn’t know shit about courage.

  I’m not a coward. I’ve gone into the seediest bars known to man to find my father. I kept running track when I wanted to give up. I’ve held my family together in my most broken moments. I stood up to my boss and ended a relationship when it wasn’t working, although I guess I can’t take much credit for that now that we’re back together.

  “I’m not scared of anything,” I say aloud, as if I can prove it to myself. Except I don’t sound brave, or fearless. I sound like a child arguing against the most obvious truth.

  Rob comes to the hospital early in the afternoon to drive my father to rehab. He insisted on doing this, although I wish he hadn’t. Somewhere inside, I know he finds this situation distasteful. We are like a dirty guest room he’s forced to stay in for a weekend. He smiles and struggles to control his disgust the entire time.

  My mother climbs in the backseat of Rob’s Range Rover with my father, filling the air with false good cheer. It reminds me of bug spray—the scent not quite sweet enough to disguise what is noxious.

  “I spoke to Father Duncan,” she says. “He said he’d be happy to marry you in the church, despite the situation. We could probably get a date within the month, as long as you aren’t going to insist on bridesmaids and…” Her voice grinds to a halt.

  Rob’s hand, holding mine, feels leaden.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Just family. No one else.”

  My mother starts prattling on about the morning weddings she’s attended, places we can go to for a nice brunch afterward. She asks if we’ll have a honeymoon, and I finally snap.

  “Mom, can we please stop discussing this? Let’s just get through one thing at a time.”

  She’s probably mad, but I don’t really care. I turn on the radio, and Rob immediately hits the preset for NPR. I think of Brendan again, although I never actually seem to stop thinking of Brendan. Everything he said was correct. I don’t want to listen to this, but I’m not going to ask Rob to change the station. I’m not going to ask Rob for anything I want, ever. I want so many things I wouldn’t even know where to start, and I don’t think I’d ever be able to stop.

  One of their annoying little bluegrass interludes comes on, and I want to laugh and cry at the same time. Even the stupidest, smallest things make me think of Brendan, and every one of them hurts.

  My head begins to throb. The bluegrass continues. My mother, behind me, is talking too loudly, her false enthusiasm grating on my ear as she comments on every fucking thing we pass. Every building, every road sign, every billboard.

  “I didn’t know they had a Cracker Barrel here, honey, did you?” she practically sings to my father. “We’ll have to stop there when you come home!”

  She’s pretending all is well, even with half of her family in rehab.

  Rob catches my eye and smiles awkwardly. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

  “Not really. You?”

  “If you can wait, we could just get a late dinner back home. Why don’t you see if we can get a table at De La Mer around eight?”

  De La Mer is quiet and expensive and sterile, the kind of place I hate. I bite my lip. Brendan, get out of my head.

  “I’m pretty wiped,” I venture. “Do you think we could go somewhere low-key? That place with the patio on Edgemont always looks relaxed. And they have bands sometimes.”

  He frowns. “Outside? What kind of food?”

  “Just casual, I think. Burgers or whatever.”

  “I was kind of craving some ahi tuna. And if there’s a band, we won’t be able to talk.”

  It’s not worth fighting over. Very few things in life are. I go online to reserve our table, ignoring the odd dread I feel about the night I’ve just planned. What is there to dread about a nice dinner at a good restaurant? Nothing.

  We check my father in, and the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach remains. The truth is that it’s been here, to some extent, ever since I agreed to get back together with Rob. I’m beginning to worry it’s permanent.

  My mother decides to stay for that night’s family therapy session, and the reception desk assures us they’ll get her a ride home, so Rob and I return to the car alone. We reach the highway, and he rests his hand on my thigh.

  “It’ll be good to have you back home,” he says.

  Oh, God. I’m not sure how I’m just realizing this now, but tonight will be our first night alone since we got back together. And there are things he’ll expect. I’ve slept with him a thousand times, but the idea of doing it tonight sickens me.

  I stare out the window. No place is more beautiful than Colorado in August, but right now all I can see is what’s bleak—the grass that’s parched and the dry ground and the ugly highway. Everything looks dead to me, looks like nothing, and that’s what I feel inside.

  I’ve just chosen a lifetime of things I don’t want—NPR and fancy dinners and boring sex—because I’m convinced this life is the safest course.

  I squeeze my eyes shut to stop thinking, but I only hear Brendan and Sean in my head, and they’re both saying the same thing. They’re telling me I’m giving up everything I love because I think it will keep me free—from pain, from worry, from the sick parts of myself. But freedom is meaningless if you gain it by giving away what matters.

  I’ve been confusing comfort with happiness, apathy with freedom. Just like my parents, I’m missing my real life every single day by choosing things that are empty, by choosing to pretend.

  I don’t want to give up dinner outside, or music. I don’t want to give up sex in a hammock, or on a picnic blanket. Or late nights with someone who will stay awake with me when my whole life is turning to shit, who knows everything ugly inside of me and wants me in spite of it. What am I getting in exchange for all of those things I’ve pushed away? Less pain, maybe.
Fewer demons to fight and resist.

  Sean is right. I’m as big a coward as anyone in my family.

  He turns the radio on. Bluegrass music again. I reach out and turn it off so I can say brave words at last, really meaning them this time.

  “I’m sorry, Rob,” I tell him, “but this isn’t going to work.”

  76

  Brendan

  Present

  “How long you plan to keep doing this?” Beck asks, sliding me a beer.

  We’ve been friends for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I feel like answering his questions, even if he does let me drink for free. I wrap my hand around the bottle, looking at it as if it holds answers. “Doing what?”

  “Sitting in here alone and pissed off, drinking to forget about Erin.”

  “What makes you think this has anything to do with Erin?”

  He raises a brow. “Do I really look that stupid to you?”

  It’s been three days since she walked away from me at the hospital. Three days since I realized getting serious with Gabi wasn’t the biggest mistake of my life, refusing to get serious with Erin was.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s over. She’s marrying someone else.”

  Beck hesitates, like he wants to argue, and finally decides against it. “Then you’ve got to move on, man. I’m tired of watching you sulk and go home alone.”

  I look around. There are girls here, girls I’d have taken home once upon a time. I don’t have much interest in being that guy again, but who am I otherwise? I’m this, the guy who didn’t pull his head out of his ass until it was too late. The guy too damn miserable to care about anything right now, even the business he once wanted so badly.

  “Something’s got to change, bro,” says Beck.

  Yeah, I guess it does. Realizing that I’m capable of commitment, of the risk involved, must be broader than just Erin. If I can feel that way about one girl, I can probably feel that way about someone else eventually. And in the meantime, I should do what I can. For the next few months, getting over the fact that Rob and Erin are married is going to be so fucking hard. I’m going to need something more than what I’ve got at the moment to survive.