I clenched my jaw, turned the key in the ignition, looked carefully behind me, and pulled out of the driveway. All of my senses were on high alert. I could see everything with perfect clarity. The nearest liquor store was three blocks away. I planned each step in my head. One block to the main street. Turn right. Two blocks north. I would park the car, go in, get a bottle, drive to my trailer, and drink the whole thing. Why not? It was the very thing everyone was holding their breath waiting for. Why not just get it over with?
I rehearsed the steps over and over in my head. This was happening. Of course, it was happening. It was inevitable and always had been.
I made the right turn. Drove the two blocks. I could see the liquor store on the corner. What kind of bottle? Vodka? Rum? Something good. Heck, I hadn't had a drop of alcohol in over a year now. I deserved a splurge. Do it big. A bottle of Chivas.
I drove past the liquor store.
I pulled into a parking lot down the block, swung the car around, and drove back.
I drove past the liquor store.
I drove down, turned left, made the block.
I pulled into the liquor store parking lot. I put the car in park. I stared at the door.
Here's the thing. I had known from the first day of my sobriety that this day would eventually come. So I had planned ahead. When the time came that I couldn't white-knuckle it anymore, I would remind myself of all the mistakes I had made while I was drinking.
The times I had embarrassed myself.
The times I had hurt others.
The times I had said things I regretted.
The times I had driven drunk.
The times I had been with a man I didn't particularly want to be with, but was caught up in the need to be the carefree, careless daredevil.
Those memories I carried around with me like a talisman, a list of private, personal horrors to have available to ward off the urge to drink. I had told myself that I would remember how it felt. The memory of the consuming regret would be enough to steer me away, when the moment came that my willpower had played out. Those stories would remind me of why I had to stay away.
All those bad memories, though...they withered and died as soon as I pulled them up. Because the fact was, I knew none of those things were going to happen. Not tonight. Tonight, I was going to get a bottle, I was going to drive home, and I was going to drink. That’s all. I was going to go numb for a while.
No one else would even have to know.
Frank was gone. Tony wouldn't come after me. Les thought I was at Tony's and wouldn't bother to check unless I called him.
I stared at the liquor store door. All I had to do was pick up my purse, open the car door, and walk in.
Things seemed so clear now. I had used a boogeyman to keep myself in line, but when the moment came to really look at that boogeyman, he was just a bunch of fabric stitched together and stuffed with cotton. He had no power.
I could drink. The world wouldn't end. Blood wouldn't run in the streets. Sirens wouldn't even go off. I could drink, and the only thing that would happen is, I would fail. And hadn't I been doing that all my life? Wasn't that the one thing I was really, really good at?
I turned my head to look at the seat beside me, where my purse waited with plenty of money for one bottle.
Stump sat with her chin resting on my purse, her brown eyes on me, her brows raised in concern.
I stared back, feeling a kind of tug at my heart.
You're not seriously going to use this dog as an excuse to not drink, are you? a snarky voice in my head asked. You're not seriously going to act like this is one of those Jesus-freak God moments your sanctified friends like to talk about, are you? She's a dog. She has no idea what's going on. She doesn't care if you drink or don't drink. She's a dog.
I took a breath, turned the key in the ignition, and backed the car onto the street.
I made it to the end of the street before I burst into tears. I kept going. For another half a block. Then I was crying too hard to see and had to pull into a church parking lot so I wouldn't take out a light pole or something with the Monster Carlo. I made sure I wasn't in anyone's way, put the car into park, killed the motor, put my head against the steering wheel, and cried.
I cried out of anger—anger at Tony and at myself. I cried out of sorrow that I wasn't able to do this thing right. I cried out of fear and frustration. What had I done? What kind of person got mad at someone for being good?
I was such a jerk.
I cried more when I realized that I wasn't mad at Tony. I was mad at my mom for something I was not supposed to care about. Which made me madder at myself.
What sucked perhaps most of all was that I couldn't blame the hateful words on alcohol. I had spewed all that bull hockey while stone cold sober.
I wanted to go back and scream at Serena-Wow-look-how-blue-your-aura-is, “See! This is what happens when I open the floodgates!”
I rooted around in the glove box and under the seats until I finally found a couple of crumpled Subway napkins stuffed between the seats. I wiped my eyes and tried to blow my nose, but it was clear these sad napkins weren't equal to the task. I sniffed and started the car.
“Okay, Stump, let's go home.”
I made it to Trailertopia and into my house, all the way to the back where my bedroom was, dropped my purse, and fell face first onto the bed. I felt so horribly wretched. For the first time in weeks, I wished I could go to sleep and not wake up again for weeks. Months. Maybe ever.
The hurt look on Tony's face haunted me. I wanted to go to sleep and shut it out.
I lay for a while, exhausted, my eyes burning, my throat sore. I wanted to sleep and block it out for a while.
But, exhausted as I felt, I was too tortured to sleep.
I rolled to my side and pulled my knees up. Stump curled into the curve of my body and laid her head on my arm.
Her brow was wrinkled in what honestly did look like concern. She might have been concerned for me. Then again, she might have been concerned that we were back at my crummy trailer in Trailertopia and not in Tony's nice big house with the thick carpet and the perfectly manicured lawn.
I petted her until I felt like I might be able to speak without losing it again. Then I rolled over, fished around on the floor to find my purse, dug in it until I found my phone, and said, “Windy, call Les.”
“What is that, honey? I didn't understand you.”
Windy didn't understand my thick-with-tears voice. Maybe this wasn't the time to call Les.
I hit the text app.
“I had a fight with Tony. I was mean. I feel awful. I drove to the liquor store but then Stump looked at me and I couldn't go in so I came home but I still feel awful and I don't know what to do.”
I read over it. That about summed it up. I hit send.
I laid back on the bed, still thinking about that look on Tony's face. Suddenly desperate to undo what couldn't be undone, I pulled up his name and started and deleted half a dozen messages. Finally, I wrote, “I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that. I was mad about my mom and took it out on you, and I regret it so much. I'm not drinking. I'm sorry.”
I read through it, but it seemed pitifully little against the enormity of what I'd said. I hit send anyway.
Then I stared at it and waited for him to respond. Nothing.
My phone beeped the sound I'd assigned to Les.
I answered. “I called him Sir Galla-Freaking-Had and Saint Anthony. But, that doesn't even...I was mean. I said it in a mean way. I said it like an insult, and he knew it. He was hurt by it.”
“Where are you?”
“At home. At Trailertopia.”
“Alone?”
“Stump is here.”
He made a noise that might have meant anything. “I'm on my way.”
Frank came in while I was in the bathroom washing my face. I came into the living room to find him sitting in his usual spot in my recliner, watching TV, Stump at his side.
He looked up and kind of blanched when he saw me.
“Still pretty bad, huh?” I asked. I had looked absolutely scary in my bathroom mirror, but I had hoped splashing cold water on my face and blowing my nose would have brought some improvement.
“Was it...worse, before?” he asked, studying my puffy face.
I shrugged. “Marginally. Les is coming over.”
He looked enormously relieved. We all knew Les was much better equipped to deal with a crying woman than Frank was.
“You need me to watch Stump?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Les and I can go get some coffee or something.” I still felt antsy, like I needed to keep moving. “I'll bring back dinner,” I promised.
I grabbed my purse again and waited for Les on the front deck of my trailer.
We drove to a little breakfast place that was mostly deserted at this time of day. He ordered coffee for us both, but when it came he looked at the cups, frowned, and said, “Milkshake?”
I nodded. I had skipped on the bottle of Chivas. I deserved a milkshake for that if nothing else.
After the shakes came, Les listened as I poured out everything that had happened that afternoon.
“It's crazy, because before those words came out of my mouth, I never thought that. I never thought Tony was with me out of some self-righteous desire to lord it over me. But now I can't stop thinking about it.” I looked at Les. “What if I'm right? What if he's somehow dependent on me screwing up because it creates this—this hero role for him to play?”
Les leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “What if it does?”
“Don't do that now, okay?”
“No, we're doing it. Once you say ‘what if,’ you have to follow it all the way through. What if he's codependent?”
“Then...that means he doesn't love me for me. He's invested in my dysfunction.”
“And what's bad about that?”
“He might not want me to get better. He might subconsciously undermine my progress.”
“Has he done anything to make you think he would do that?”
“Not yet, no.”
“But?”
“But he might.”
Les shrugged. “He might. What can you do about it?”
“What can I do about it?”
His lips tilted just a bit. “Nope. I ask the questions, you give the answers.”
“I don't know!”
He sat back and shrugged.
“There's nothing I can do about that, is there?”
He shook his head.
I sat back and tapped my straw against the glass. “You know what else? I wasn't even mad at Tony to start out. I was mad at my mother because she didn't want me as a bridesmaid in the wedding I don't even want to be a bridesmaid in.” I groaned and dropped my arms to the table and buried my head in them. “Seriously. I don't want to be her bridesmaid. But she didn't ask, so I didn't get to reject her.”
“You're making terrific progress, Salem.” Les reached over and patted the top of my head awkwardly.
“I am a self-involved, childish fool,” I mumbled against my arm.
“You're human. Understanding why you were mad in the first place is huge. It brings you one step closer to not letting that anger get misdirected.”
“One step. I'm still at least three football fields away, though. Do you remember what Bonnie was talking about in the meeting last week? About wearing the world like a loose garment?”
That was actually a fairly common phrase heard in recovery circles. It meant not being too invested in the outcome of anything. Just relaxing and letting whatever was going to happen, happen. So easy to say. So difficult to execute.
“I want to be like that. I want to not be bothered by the world. I want to be so—so content and at peace that I barely even notice what's going on around me. And when I do notice, I want it to be just like noticing something in a movie. It's not me. It doesn't mean anything to me. It doesn't change anything.” I frowned and took a pull on my straw. “But I feel like the world is actually a big static sticker that I push off one hand and it just sticks to the other one.”
“Oh, I hate those,” Les said.
I raised my head and looked at him. Then I burst out laughing.
He smiled and slurped on his milkshake.
I waited for more words of wisdom, but they weren't forthcoming.
I dipped my straw in my milkshake, scooped up a bit on the end and then put it in my mouth. “I feel like he's just waiting for me to fail.”
“I know.”
“I feel like I'm just waiting for me to fail.”
“I know.”
“If you know so much, tell me what to do about it.”
He gave me a you're-not-going-to-like-this smile and said, “One day at a time.”
I sighed. “Does it ever seem inevitable, though? I mean, like the one day at a time is really just marking time until the inevitable happens.”
“Every day is a choice, Salem.”
“I know,” it was my turn to say. Although my “I know” sounded much less sure than Les’s “I know.”
Les lifted his brow.
I sighed. “It doesn't feel like there's much choice, though, does there? I mean, in theory, yes the world is wide open. But it feels more like there's a lot of...predestination, I guess? I mean, we're all born into certain circumstances that play a huge role in what kind of life we have.”
I frowned because I knew it sounded like I was deflecting responsibility. I remembered the verse about Jacob. “Like, look at Jacob. Did you know his name actually means ‘heel-grabber’?”
He nodded. “Sure.”
“Of course, you did. Well, I didn't. I mean, what kind of thing is that to do to a kid? Give him a name like that?”
“People gave names based on the events or circumstances of their birth.”
“I know, but...doesn't it seem unfair to you? He was an infant, literally. It's not like he was already a schemer at birth, right? But with a name like that...” I shook my head. “What would that do to your self-esteem? The way you saw yourself?”
“Don't forget, his mother was a real piece of work herself.”
I nodded, although to be honest, I had to think for a moment to remember what Les was talking about. I got my Old Testament guys mixed up sometimes and got Jacob and Abraham confused the most.
“She's the one who sold out the older son so the younger one could get the inheritance or whatever?”
“The birthright, yes. She clearly favored one son above the other.”
“Between the dysfunctional mom and the negative label for a name, it's not like he was going to turn out to be some upstanding citizen.”
“Everyone has free will, Salem. Even the heel-grabber.”
“But don't you see how that kind of label could totally skew the way you looked at the world? The way you looked at yourself?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, your entire life you would know that people were just waiting for you to live down to your name. You would be waiting for you to live down to your name.”
“Is that what you're doing?”
I chewed my lip. “Yeah, I think so.”
He studied me for a moment. “You didn't go into that liquor store, Salem. You made that choice.”
“You don't know how close it was, though.”
“Doesn't matter. Not really. A miss is definitely as good as a mile, in this case.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the tabletop. “No, that's wrong. It does matter how close it was. Temptations come in all sizes, and you stared down a big one. Size does matter.” He winked at me.
I rolled my eyes.
“I've told you, you can't expect the day to come when you never want to drink again. It's not going to happen.”
“I know. But what if it happens again and Stump is not there? I mean, if I hadn't been looking right at her and feeling like I had to stay sober for her...”
He put his hand over mine. “You'll face that moment when you get to it. It's not going to do you any good to fight your battles in advance.”
I sighed and leaned back, staring at the melting milkshake in the bottom of my glass.
“You know, he got a new name. Jacob.”
I frowned, thinking. “Is that why I keep getting him mixed up with Abraham? Did he become Abraham?”
“No, Abram became Abraham. Jacob became Israel. Remember, he wrestled all night with the angel until God gave him a new name? Israel.”
I tried to picture what that would be like and couldn't, but it did remind me of what Serena had said about Peter Browning—he was wrestling with demons.
“Maybe I should wrestle with an angel until God gives me a new name,” I said. I stretched.
“Maybe you should, if that's what you want.” He put a tip on the table and got to his feet with a groan. “You could just stick with ‘heal-grabber’, though. Grabbing your healing. Get it?”
I rolled my eyes again, but I couldn't help but smile. I slid my arm through Les’s and put my head on his shoulder as we walked back to his car.
It turned out that while Les was feeding me a milkshake, his wife Bonnie was talking to Tony. On the surface, that seemed like a good idea. Bonnie knew what it was like, living with someone in recovery. Tony needed someone who could understand what he was going through.
It made me uneasy, though. I wanted to know what they were saying. I hated the idea that they were discussing me. I hated the idea that they were coming up with a plan to manage me, even though I had no trouble admitting that I needed to be managed.
“Should I call Tony?” I asked Les as he dropped me back at Trailertopia.
“What do you think?”
Dread bloomed in the pit of my stomach. “Do you think he needs some time?”
Les shrugged.
“Would it be cowardly for me to just text him and tell him he can call when he's ready to talk to me?”
Again with the shrug.
“It's a good thing you buy me milkshakes,” I said.
“How about this? Call him, tell him you'll be happy to talk when he's ready, and then leave it to him.”
That sounded like a decent plan, so I did that—and breathed a sigh of relief when I got Tony's voicemail.
“I'm sorry,” I said first. “Really. I'm sorry for what I said. I've been with Les, and I didn't drink. I'm just...I wanted you to know that, and to say that I'll leave it to you to decide when we talk again.”
I hung up and tried not to envision him sitting, staring at his phone and refusing to answer because he knew it was me.
He didn't call back until right before I fell asleep.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I am. I'm sorry.”
“I'm sorry, too, Salem. I didn't mean to crowd you.”
He didn't say anything about the hateful words I'd spoken. But I couldn't let it go unsaid.
“You were concerned about me. You have every reason to be. Tony, I'm so sorry for saying what I did. I didn't mean it.”
He made a sound—not a sigh, but not a word, either. More like the sound he was making if he didn't know what to say.
“Listen, Salem.” He breathed deep on the other end of the line. “I shouldn't have pushed. I should have given you space. Space would be...would be good right now.”
My heart thudded. I didn't really care for the sound of that. “I just needed a few hours to myself, you know. I wasn't—” I bit my lip, afraid. Space would be good right now. “I wasn't even mad at you. I was mad at my mother and took it out on you.”
“I know.”
“I don't want to do that. I don't want to be like that.”
His voice was tender. “I know, Salem.”
“I keep thinking about what I said.”
“Me, too.”
“I wish I could erase it from your mind.”
“Maybe it doesn't need to be. You're not the first one to call me Saint Anthony, you know.”
“I'm sure I'm not. I mean, you really are such a good—”
“You're not the only one to call me that and mean it in a...not complimentary way. Rey used to say that, too.”
Rey! That freak. “Everyone looks like a saint next to Rey. I look like a saint next to Rey.” Since Rey was currently serving prison time for participating in the murder of one of Tony's employees and helping frame Tony for that murder, I could legitimately claim the higher ground here.
“The point is, there is a part of me—a part I'm not proud of—that does need to feel superior. I like being the hero. I like being the good guy, and I like knowing that people see me as the good guy.”
“As personal faults go, Tony, that's not such a huge one.”
“It was big enough to make you feel small, Salem.” He waited a beat. “Wasn't it?”
He sounded so truly remorseful that my nose began to burn. I couldn't answer.
“The thing is, I've been talking to Bonnie. I have to admit, I don't think I really grasped what I was getting into here. With your addiction. With all the...there's just so much out of my control.”
He sounded so overwhelmed that I wanted to hug him. Welcome to my world, I wanted to say, but just said, “There is, yes.”
“The more I think about what you said, and what Bonnie said, the more I see the danger for someone like me—someone with savior behavior.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “That's what Bonnie called it. This could...this could be very bad for both of us.”
My throat was too tight to speak, and I didn't know what to say. I wanted to reach through the phone and grab onto him, but I was afraid to make a sound.
He waited a few interminable seconds, then said, “You know what I realized? You...you're the first thing I ever failed at. You and me, I mean. Us. The baby. Fixing you.”
“Tony, it was never your job to fix me. It was never within your power to fix me.”
“I know that, now, of course. And I don't think I ever really thought of it on a conscious level like that. But after talking to Bonnie, and looking back at it now, with the benefit of hindsight...that's definitely how I saw it. That I had failed. And I had no experience with that. I didn't know how to handle that.”
I chewed my lip. I was terrified to ask the next question, but I had to know. “Is that why you stayed married to me? Because you couldn't admit that you'd failed?”
He was silent, and the silence sent daggers of ice into the pit of my stomach.
“I don't know,” he finally whispered. “Maybe partly. Maybe I hung on because letting go would be an admission of defeat. And I couldn't handle that.”
I didn't know what to say to that. The silence on the line was huge, all encompassing.
It seemed like pitifully little to build a marriage on.
“But we have to be honest,” I said. “With ourselves and with each other.”
“Exactly. Maybe we were moving too fast.”
“Maybe.” My heart began to thud again. Maybe he was saying 'too fast' but what he meant was 'in the wrong direction.'
“Can I have a few days, Salem? Just to think? Go to a few meetings? Bonnie gave me this schedule of Al-Anon meetings and I'd like to—”
“Of course. Of course. Take all the time you need.”
“Just a few days.”
“Sure.”
He breathed deeply, and I realized he'd been at least partially holding his breath. “It's going to be okay, Tony,” I said, but it was as much for me as it was for him.
“It is.” He waited a beat. “I do love you, Salem—”
“I love you, too,” I said quickly. “I'll talk to you...well, you just let me know, okay?”
I hung up and sat clutching the phone in silence for a long time, staring at nothing. The trailer was silent.
I do love you, Salem...
There had been a 'but' coming. I had sensed it coming, so I had cut him off. He'd been about to say, “I do love you, Salem, but...”
The enormity of what I hadn't allowed him to say grew like a black hole, its inky darkness threatening to swallow me. I curled up on the bed, Stump tucked into my side, and eventually fell asleep.
I woke the next morning with that sense you have when something important has happened but you can't quite remember what.
It took only seconds before it all came flooding back, of course. I trudged to the front door to let Stump out, and wondered if I was really in any shape to go to work. It wasn't like I could call in worried, though. Flo would have dogs ready to be groomed, and I would need to be there to help her do it.
I looked at the sky, though, and felt somewhat relieved to see dark clouds forming. More rain. That would keep the numbers of dogs down and might mean I could get done early. I would definitely not mind that.
After Stump came back in, I headed to the second bedroom of my trailer, where I did my morning quiet time. I lit the candle and sat back, settling my mind for the daily Bible verse and prayer time.
My mind wouldn't settle, though. I finally sighed and picked up my daily devotional book.
A thought occurred to me as I was flipping through the pages to find today's date.
Good Lord. What if today's verse is from Proverbs 31?
I slapped the book closed.
Proverbs 31 is all about the ideal woman, and I'm reasonably sure it was written to be an encouragement. At least, I'd like to think that. Usually when I read it, though, I felt wholly inadequate. It was like looking at a list of all the good things I wasn't.
I chewed my lip. On the whole, I had begun to trust that God would speak to me through whatever verse happened to be in the devotional that day. Many times—many times!—it felt like God had selected that verse just for me, because something in it pertained to something I was thinking, something I was struggling with, something specific to what was going on in my life at the moment. But even when that wasn't the case, there was almost always a time later in the day when I thought about the verse, when I saw how it related to my life.
I just did not think I could handle a Proverbs 31 moment like that. Not today. Not with that unsaid “but” hanging in the air.
I chewed my lip some more. Did I just...skip it for today?
I stared at the candle. I tried to remember if I had skipped a single day of my quiet time since I began it. I know there were days when I felt distracted, when I was frustrated with God because my prayers weren't being answered the way I wanted them to be, but I couldn't think of a time when I didn't at least go through the motions of reading a verse.
I frowned and grabbed my Bible. Better not start today.
As I flipped it open, I remembered what Les had said about Jacob getting his new name. Wrestling with an angel.
That's what I wanted to read about, I decided. Jacob getting his new name. Maybe I could get some pointers.
––––––––
Genesis 32:
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,[a] because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
––––––––
I closed my Bible and watched the candle for a while, trying to get some comfort from this. Finally, I sighed and gave up.
I knew Jacob was one of the big patriarchs of the Old Testament and everything, but that guy was a piece of work! First stealing his brother's blessing (my heart broke a little bit every time I read about poor hairy, smelly Esau's anguish that there was only the one crummy blessing left for him) then running like a complete chicken-booty to his uncle's, where he had the unmitigated gall to be successful and prosperous, when by all rights he should have ended up starved and feverish and covered in oozing sores. Everything the man did turned to gold. Frigging heel-grabber.
I went through the verses again, thinking there had to be some lesson in there for me somewhere.
I had originally pictured Jacob coming upon the angel and jumping him. Like a car thief spotting a shiny new Mercedes and being unable to resist. But reading it again, it didn't seem that way. The verse said that Jacob was alone, and a man wrestled with him “until the breaking of the day.” The angel. It was as if the angel had come to take Jacob, but when it came down to it, he just couldn't defeat the guy. So he touched his hip socket and put it out of joint.
I wrinkled my nose. What the actual heck? He could put his hip out of joint (ouch, by the way) with a touch, but he couldn't overcome him in wrestling? How did that even make sense?
And right away, Jacob was back to demanding blessings. Even after the huge one his father gave, even after the years of prosperity with his uncle, this greedy guts is demanding more. He was like a spoiled toddler. I'll hold my breath until you give me candy!
And why did the angel ask Jacob's name? Surely he knew it already, unless he was some kind of fallen angel who just roamed the earth, looking for guys on their own so he could show off his divine half-Nelson.
To rub it in his face? To say, “What are you, a heel-grabber or something? Okay, fine. Now you're a God-wrestler.”
You have striven with God and with man, and have prevailed.
He didn't just wrestle with God and man. He prevailed.
It was like an Internet meme. “One does not simply...prevail against God and man.”
And why, when Jacob asked the angel's name, did the angel say, “Why do you ask?” and then bless him instead? I thought the name change was the blessing, but no. He got the name change and the blessing.
I sighed and sat back again. So was that the secret? Don't bother being Mrs. Nice Guy? Wrestle. Demand what you want. Go for it!
And if that was it...did I have it in me? Did I have the...well, we'll be polite and say “inner fortitude” Jacob had, to wrestle an angel to change my name?
Chapter Ten