When I was in elementary school, we used to go to Cape Cod every summer, in a town where my Grandma Helen grew up. We’d fly to Boston, then drive the rest of the way. Even though the time in the car was way less than the time we’d just spent on an airplane, as a seven-, then eight-, then nine-year-old, those ninety minutes (sometimes longer if there was a backup at the Sagamore Bridge) seemed to drag on forever, like time was something measured in dog years. One human minute actually equaled seven travel minutes.
I’d sit in the backseat of our rental car, crossing and recrossing my legs when the seats got too hot and sticky. I can still feel the seat peeling and squelching away from my bare legs.
“How much longer?”
I was allowed to ask that question three times per trip. Mom and Dad had made that rule after our first trip to the Cape, when I asked for an update approximately every fifteen seconds. They decided that three times was reasonable—one question for the early flash of excitement, one question during the endless middle, and once when I could smell the salt water in the air.
I’d sing along to the radio at the top of my lungs, then curl up against the window and stare out at the other cars when Mom and Dad got fed up with me. I made up a game where I imagined a story for every face flashing by.
The elderly lady with the floppy straw hat was a retired Broadway actress traveling to her summer home, one of the mansions right on the water with wraparound porches and hydrangeas spotting the lawn.
The three fighting kids staring out the back window of the huge blue minivan were sick and tired of their parents dragging them around the country and just wanted to settle down, maybe in a little cottage by the sea.
The man in a business suit and tie, his hair slicked back like he’d already been in the ocean, was meeting his family at their vacation house after finishing up a long week of work, desperate to change into a bathing suit and feel the sand between his toes.
Everyone I saw was either going or leaving, stuck in that boring in-between place, where the fun either hasn’t started or is starting to drain away.
“We’ll get there when we get there,” Mom would always say, then turn right back to her book. I usually tried to read in the car, but got carsick after about two minutes, while Mom could read practically an entire novel during our trip. “No sooner, no later.”
Over the years, though, I started noticing the landmarks around me: the gas station at the rotary, where we always stopped so I could pee, and where I always convinced Dad to get me a blue raspberry slushy (the yummiest flavor).
The roadside diner where we’d stopped one year for a late lunch, and where Mom had left her favorite bracelet on the table, the one Dad had given her for their first anniversary. She’d cried for the entire rest of the drive after we went back and she realized it was gone.
Then the rock-filled driveway of the house we rented, the one with the weathered gray shutters and the bright pink roses lining the driveway. I always ran out of the car and buried my face in the flowers (watching out for thorns, of course—a cut-up face is no way to start a vacation!). For years, I thought those flowers bloomed just for me.
The rest of the week always felt the same way. It was filled with bumper boats and beach days, lazy mornings on the beach slathered in sunscreen, a pail in one hand and a shovel in the other. Mom and I searched for hermit crabs and shrieked as we jumped over the frigid waves, while Dad lay on his towel, his pale skin slathered in SPF 5000.
And every night before bed, we’d roast s’mores in the firepit behind our rental or walk to get double scoops of chocolate chip from Sundae School down the street, an old one-room schoolhouse that someone had converted into an ice cream parlor.
It’s not the fanciest trip in the world, but it’s still special, way better than the “epic summer vacation plans” Camille and Abby are gushing about in the lunch line ahead of me.
“I can’t wait.” Camille tosses her long red hair over her shoulder. I’m not even standing that close to her, and she still almost whips me in the face. Camille has the longest hair I’ve ever seen. It’s Rapunzel-worthy. “We’re going to Aruba for two weeks, then to California, where our second house is. You have to visit. There are two supercute boys who live right next door.”
Abby squees and claps her hands together. “That’s amazing.” She reaches for a fruit cup and settles it next to the chicken nuggets on her tray. “I totally would visit, but we’re going to be away the whole summer. It takes a long time to travel all over Europe, you know.”
I roll my eyes, just managing to stifle the groan that’s actively trying to claw its way out of my mouth. We know you’re rich, I want to exclaim. You don’t have to tell everyone all the time.
They both do tell us, though. And the rest of us have been well aware of that fact since kindergarten, when Abby and Camille compared how many stuffed animals each of them owned during “sharing time” the first day of school.
I take a slice of pizza and a bottle of water (luckily I have some money left on my account, because there was no way I had time to make anything this morning), then head in the opposite direction from Abby and Camille, a heavy feeling weighing down my stomach even though it’s totally empty.
It’s not that I’m jealous of Abby’s European tour or Camille’s fancy second house. It’s just that their conversation is like a slap in the face, the one totally random thing that made this whole “Mom’s in rehab” thing seem one hundred percent, “going to affect the future” real.
Maybe I don’t want to go to Europe, but I do want to go to Cape Cod. Will we still get to go on vacation this summer if Mom’s in recovery? Dad told me that after Mom comes home, she’s going to have to go to support groups and meetings all the time. She’s going to have to meet with a therapist and keep a routine.
Are s’mores part of a routine?
I probably don’t even need to ask Dad about our vacation plans. Mom’s addiction will change that, just like it’s changing everything else. Her “illness,” as Mom and Dad call it, is like a bunch of dominoes lined up in a row, ready to topple over.
I don’t know what set the whole row of dominoes into motion—what made Mom take that second sip after the first sip, and then the third sip after that. Whatever it was, I feel like I’m a domino now, with life pushing me forward and the ground rising up to meet me.
With everything falling down.
That’s why, once Mom gets home, I have to work as hard as I can to keep things as normal as possible for her. And a big part of that normal is softball. It’s what we do together. It’s what we share. And, once I get through all this pressure and worry (which I know will totally fade away), it will still be what we both love.
Once I make the All-Star team, Mom will be so happy and proud that those dominoes will be glued to the ground. She’ll never want to go back to drinking again.
Never ever.
I settle at our usual lunch table and stare at the slice of limp pizza in front of me. My friends went to the bathroom after class, so there’s no one to ask me what’s wrong. Just like there’s no one to ask me what’s wrong at home, either.
I feel like I’m in that old rental car again, stuck in the in-between place. If anyone was looking out their window at me, they might see a sunny smile on my face.
They might see a girl picking up her pizza and taking a bite, then washing it down with a sip of water.
They might see her greeting her friends when they finally arrive, and giggling with them over a shared inside joke.
They might imagine she was someone without a care in the world.
They’d be wrong.