After landing in Bangor, I dried my face and got ready to deplane.
I met James before I went into the terminal, and he looked consolatory.
“I’m sorry to see you go, Caitlin.” I was surprised that he was wasting the time to talk to me personally.
I shrugged with a pitiful smile. “It happens. Thanks for flying me back home James, you really didn’t have to.”
“Good luck,” he said. He saluted me and I deplaned, feeling a little better that he sympathized with me.
The airport wasn’t very crowded, just a bunch of small groups of people clustered around some of the middle gates. Those were the more popular outbound flights, heading to New York or going up into Canada.
I felt sick, that stale air becoming a little too familiar. I sighed and pulled out my phone, psyching myself up to confess to my dad. Every time I talked to him, my gut reaction was to think of him as a drunk, so it was always refreshing being reminded that he wasn’t anymore. It was almost a little surprising when I was reminded of reality.
“Hello, Dad?”
His voice was loud and clear, “Hey, kiddo, how’s it going?”
“Not great. I need a ride from the airport.”
“You’re in town?” His tone changed, and he sounded consolatory. “Not great huh? I can come get you in about ten minutes. Just sit tight, I’m visiting your mom so I’m kind of close.”
“Okay, I’ll see you soon.” I hung up. I was standing at one of the terminal windows, overlooking the numerous planes. Carts full of luggage zipped across the tarmac. A handful of aviation flaggers were having a coffee break.
***
Fifteen minutes later, I headed out into the baggage claim and found my dad. It was always easy to tell if someone was looking for something, that searching and distant look in their eyes. He was especially obvious, always putting his hand on his forehead like he was shielding his eyes from the sun, even if it was dark outside.
I surprised him by sneaking up behind him, and saying “Hello,” a bit louder than I needed to.
He jumped and turned, a smile spreading across his face.
“Hey!” he yelled, “I’m not thirty anymore! You’re going to give me a heart attack.”
I was grinning, but it faded all to quickly when my feelings boiled back up to the surface. I felt like crying, and I’m sure he could tell.
“Let’s get you home, alright? We can talk about it in the car if you want.”
I nodded, and followed him out into the steaming and hazy parking lot.
***
On the drive home, I decided to spill my guts on the whole situation. To try and make it clean.
“Hugh thinks I have a drinking problem.”
“Is that why he isn’t here?” My dad put on his turn signal, the gentle ticking barely audible over the oldies radio station. He turned the volume down a bit to listen to me.
“I — I think so.” I swallowed hard, trying to keep my voice from cracking. “Well, I know it is. I don’t know why I’m avoiding it. He told me he couldn’t be with me if I was going to keep drinking.”
My dad hissed like he just cut his leg. “That’s... harsh. But it’s hard...” he seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. “What brought that up?”
I realized I hadn’t told him about my hospital stay yet. For a moment, I thought about withholding it, but what good would that really do me? If I came back here and just kept up my lies and kept myself an arms length from my parents and my friends, could I really change?
“I ended up in the hospital a couple nights ago.”
“What?” My dad looked away from the road and stared at me. I wished the seat would swallow me whole.
“I had alcohol poisoning.”
He was silent, and he turned to watch the road. I couldn’t tell if he was mad or not. I tried to explain, “It hasn’t happened before, but I was under a lot of stress,” I groped for the words, “Hugh still wears his wedding ring from his wife. He’s a widower. How am I supposed to deal with that? He proposed to me, Dad. He’s weird and distant, and I hate that I feel like I can’t be with him.” I broke down, and lost it. “Like I’m not important.” My dad turned into our neighborhood.
My dad’s jaw moved, as if he were silently formulating a sentence. “I think,” he began, “that’s hard. I know it’s hard, Caitlin.” After he pulled into our driveway, he lurched the car to a stop and put it in park.
He turned in his seat to face me, resting his arm over the steering wheel, and his knee bumping against the console. “Caitlin. I’m an alcoholic. It was really hard for me to come to terms with that, but I did. Even though I’ve been sober, I can’t drink. For the first year, I couldn’t even be near people who were drinking — every single day was a test of my will power with your mom.”
“But didn’t you stay at home?”
“I didn’t. I mostly stayed at friends houses and motels in town for the first six months. I literally couldn’t be around your mom because of her drinking. I don’t know if that made her worse, but I had to do it for myself.”
I was silent. He wasn’t with my mom for that long? I hadn’t even known.
He continued, “He won’t let go of his wife, but he proposed to you? Do you think he made a mistake?”
I squeezed the seat and stared out the window. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense to me to wear your wedding ring and propose to other people. I think I was just confused.”
“Everyone deals with grief in their own way.”
“So he just proposed to me as part of his grief? He didn’t actually care?”
“He didn’t have to say anything to me when he saw me. He could’ve just walked away. He approached me. It isn’t my fault.” I felt like I was burning holes into the windshield.
“Forget him, Caitlin. He’s not here, and that’s over. You can’t fix him and he can’t fix you.”
“I didn’t ask him to fix me, I just wanted...” I cringed, “something good in my life.”
“You can have something good in your life. But you have to start with cutting out the bad, getting rid of the rotten parts. If we’re not going to put him aside right now, let’s look at it this way.”
I perked up a little bit, feeling like I was finally being listened to a little.
He said, “If what you say is true, then you guys weren’t doing well together. It sounds toxic.” My dad looked at the house. “It is toxic. It was with your mother and I, but we stuck through it.”
I cringed, shuffling my feet. “I tried. I tried to help him.”
“I knew even though your mom wasn’t sober, all she needed from me was to try and be there for her. She told me at the hospital before you showed up. If I wasn’t around and clean, she wouldn’t be alive anymore.”
“So you fixed her?”
“No, Caitlin. I didn’t. When I got clean, I realized I couldn’t fix her, I could just support her.”
“So I could support Hugh, couldn’t I?”
“I couldn’t support her when I was a drunk. All I could do was enable her, or push her away. Neither of those things are what she needed.” He sighed, his eyes looked tired. “I should have pushed her harder to get sober sooner, but she wasn’t in the right mind, she wouldn’t have listened.” He rubbed his temples. “I wasn’t either.” He smiled at me, and added, “I’m glad you’re home again, Caitlin.”
We sat in silence for a little bit, and he finally shut his car off. I didn’t want to move, trying to let it all sink in. I’m not healthy, and I can’t help Hugh if I’m like this.
My dad climbed out of the car and grabbed my bags out of the trunk. He disappeared in the house.
I sat in the increasingly hot car and thought about what my dad said about Hugh and I being toxic. “Damaging, dangerous, lethal, fatal...”
Definitely not the things love and cure-alls were made of.
After some time, I finally went into the house. I found my dad making food in the kitchen, and almost forgot that my mom wasn’t home.
“Can we visit Mom later?” I said. He turned away from counter with a bowl of salad he was mixing together. He dried his hands and answered me, “Yeah. We can visit her tomorrow. She’s getting better every day. Tomorrow should be really good for you to see her, you’re going to be amazed.” He turned and topped off the salads with tomatoes, before mixing them in.
***
The next day, we got up early in the morning to go see my mom at the clinic.
We sat in the makeshift lobby while the nurses made sure my mom was ready to have guests.
The clinic wasn’t stylized like a traditional clinic. The building obviously used to be an old house that was renovated to meet the needs of the business, but while retaining some old charm. Decorations and paintings lined the wallpaper, and fireplaces seemed to be spread out into every single room. It was cozy, and not nearly as sterile and whitewashed as I expected it would be.
A nurse peeked her head out of the entryway and looked around. “Daniel Winters?”
My dad elbowed me and stood up. The nurse nodded and asked us to follow her.
At the end of one of the wings of the house, the nurse leaned over to open a door to a small bedroom. My mom was sitting on the bed, looking bright and a lot less miserable than when I last saw her.
“Oh my god, I didn’t expect to see both of you!” She cheered, looking excited and bright. She smiled, standing to meet us. I hugged her, holding her tight enough to squeeze the air out of her in a gasp. She laughed, and gestured to two chairs that were facing the foot of the bed. “What pleasure do I have for a visit today?”
My dad chuckled a little. “I was just here yesterday, Tammy.”
“Yes, but she wasn’t.” She pointed at me. “You’re back from Reno already? Where’s Hugh at?”
“He’s in Reno,” I answered. I gnawed my tongue a little, “Things went south.” My mom raised her eyebrows.
“What happened?” I was surprised to see so much energy in her. The only other time I remembered her being so vibrant was when I was in elementary school, when she’d take me to soccer practice. I gathered my thoughts.
“A lot of things...” I didn’t want to go over it again. “Is it stressful here?”
“Oh no, I’m fine. If anything, I’m a little bored. I’ll admit, it’s weird not having a drink first thing in the morning.” She smiled a little. “But when I woke up this morning, it was like I just discovered life again.”
“Wow — that’s fantastic!” I leaned forward. “You look good too, not nearly as...”
“Run down? Old?” My mom laughed, a kind of chortling laugh that couldn’t decide if it was a belly laugh or not. “It’s okay, I was run down, ragged, and spent. I thought that was just what life was for me.”
“But it isn’t,” my dad said. “It’s crazy how when you start drinking, you think it’s your ticket to really enjoying life — you get all fun and uninhibited, and it softens the edge on the harder things. Then you realize you aren’t enjoying life at all anymore.”
It felt more like he was talking to me than her. My mom nodded heavily, and reached across the table and took my hands.
“It’s good to see you again Caitlin. You’re just here to visit me then?”
“Yeah, I really wanted to see you. It’s been a hard couple of days.” I glanced at my dad, and he nodded as if to say, ‘tell her.’
“What’s wrong?” my mom asked.
“Hugh and I broke up.” My mom’s expression faded, so I quickly added, “But the reason why is the big deal. I had alcohol poisoning the other night, and Hugh broke up with me because he said he couldn’t watch me die.” I lifted my hand, miming a drinking motion. “Drink myself to death.”
My mom studied me, her expression growing more serious. “Why?” she asked.
“Is that a trick question?”
“No, but I’m curious. Until I ended up here, I know I thought about it; ‘Real drunks are homeless aren’t they?’ I told myself. I just agreed to come to the clinic, hoping that maybe if I just went along, things might get better.” She laughed, covering her mouth for a moment. “I even thought that they might tell me I didn’t belong here! Isn’t that ridiculous.”
“I thought that too,” my dad confirmed.
I steeled my nerves. “I think about drinking more than I like. Sometimes I’ll just want one right after I wake up. I tell myself it’s just to get going.”
“Sounds about right,” my mom said. She looked at my dad, who nodded in turn. “You can’t beat yourself up though, Cat. Going to an AA meeting probably wouldn’t hurt... they’re having the weekly one tonight actually.” She let go of one of my hands and gripped my dad’s hand.
“That... I don’t know, it sounds hard.” I suddenly didn’t want to be there anymore. I felt like I was being pressured, pressured to do something I didn’t want to. What if I didn’t have a problem? What if I was normal and everyone else was just messed up?
My dad chimed in, “Do you ever feel like there’s a weight constantly pushing against your chest?” He held his hand against his heart. “Wearing you down, killing you slowly.” He held his hand there, and I watched it. “I still wake up somedays and I want to drink, Caitlin. But I have a new life now, I have all these reasons to not drink. That being sober keeps me sane is one of the big ones. Being a rock when needed for you mom was another.”
“Okay...” I clenched the table, as if I was fighting myself to say the words. “I’ll try.” It was probably one of the hardest things I had to say, because of what it meant. “Anything has to be better than what I’m doing now. Nothing makes sense, and I feel... sick inside.”
“No one is making you,” my dad said. “We just want to see you succeed, to be happy.”
I slumped in my seat.
I grabbed a nurse from the hall and asked if I could attend the AA meeting that night.
She nodded, glancing at her clipboard. “Yes, we usually encourage it actually. Let’s the family see how everything works in here. We just need you to sign up because we only have so many seats.”
“Okay, where can I do that?”
She smiled. “I actually have the form here.” She handed me her clipboard and I wrote my name in. The time for the meeting was scribbled in the top left corner: 7 o’clock. I gave her back the clipboard.
My mom met my dad and I at the door and gave us each a hug. “You two shouldn’t stay here all day though, that’d be a waste.”
“We’ll go catch a movie, how’s that sound?” My dad slapped me on my shoulder. I nodded, liking the idea of getting my mind off things until tonight.
“We’ll be back later, Tammy,” my dad said. My mom kissed me on the forehead, which made me almost start crying. She hadn’t be so sweet or kind in years.
***
After seeing a movie and getting a chance to spend some time with my dad, I drove over to the clinic to sit in the AA meeting. A sign at the entrance pointed me in the right direction, where I found an almost empty room. Chairs were circled around an empty space in the center, and two banquet tables lined the far wall and were covered in snack food for guests and patients. As I looked around the room, feeling anxious and out of place, a young woman with brown hair and a splash of freckles on her face caught my gaze and approached me.
“Hello,” she said. I jumped a little and looked up at her. She couldn’t have been younger than thirty, but I couldn’t pin her age. “I’m Vicky.” She extended her hand and walked to me. I shook it.
“I’m Caitlin...”
“Are you new here?” She was hard to read, but friendly.
“I think? I’m just here for the meeting.” I thought about if it was rude to ask her if she was new. “How long have you been here?”
“Not long, two days.” She had a fixed gaze, like like she was looking through me. I felt a bit odd. I tried to figure out if she was trying to scare me.
I looked past her into the room. More people were showing up, I figured the meeting would start soon. “How is it?”
“The first two days? Depends on how bad off you are. For me? Absolutely punishing, but you have nurses to take care of you. They check up on you, make sure you don’t die.”
“Die?” I felt sweat on my back. “You can die?”
“If you’re bad enough off, you can.” She leaned against a table with some food on it, taking weight off her feet.
I lowered my voice, “Have people died?”
“Well the saying goes around here, if you don’t get sober, you’ll die anyway, just slower... more painful.”
I gulped.
She looked horrified for a moment, her hard expression melting away. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t be scaring you.” She chuckled and stood back up.
I laughed nervously, wishing she would leave.
“I’m really sorry,” she repeated. “Someone gave me the same spiel the first day, it only seemed right I pass it on.” She came closer to me and hugged me, which was surprising. I patted her back lightly in return.
A couple of minutes later, I saw my mom walk in. We found two seats next to each other. As the other seats filled with people, everyone quieted down. To my surprise, Vicky was the first to speak. She cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention in the circle.
“My name is Vicky Riveras, and I’m an alcoholic,” she said. Everyone greeted her, and she started in on her story. She came from a wealthy home, but spiraled out of control into depression and ultimately alcoholism after her first divorce in her mid twenties. She had been sober for three days.
I felt my throat tighten, I really didn’t want to go up in front of everyone. I mean, I couldn’t have been as bad as everyone else.
“Just a little bit ago I met a young lady named Caitlin and I’d like to welcome her to her first session,” she said. Vicky gestured to me. Everyone briefly turned their attention and I wanted to die. Relief washed over me when my mom broke the awkward silence and greeted me, encouraging other people to join in. They sounded cheerful at least.
I leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “I didn’t know you had to do this.”
“You don’t have to talk in front of everyone, but it’s amazing what it does for you,” she whispered back. “No one forces you,” my mom assured me.
I nodded to Vicky when she glanced at me. Her talking about her divorce made me think of Hugh, what he might be doing right now. Was he with another woman? Was that all he did before he ran into me, and I was just another girl in his line of conquests?
I held my breath, trying my best to stay calm.
Another couple of people presented, and they all had different stories. Some came from wealthy jobs and families before their alcoholism crippled them into debt. Others were functionally rich, and maintained the illusion of control until they woke up one morning and saw the garbage bags full of beer filling their garage. They all admitted their names, their strife, and that they were so much happier.
I wanted to be happy too, because I certainly hadn’t been except for some fleeting moments with Hugh in the last couple of weeks. Without him, I felt like I was nothing, and I at least knew that wasn’t right at all.
I swallowed my spit and raised my hand to volunteer. Everyone quieted down and turned a little in their chairs to face me. I started my story as everyone else had: “Hello, my name is Caitlin Winters, and...” I looked at Vicky, I don’t know why, maybe assurance. “I have a drinking problem, and I want to get better.” It was cathartic, and it already felt like this weight was lifted off my shoulders. This grand structure I had created that held me down, where if it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t change it.
By saying it was, I could. That night, I decided to check in. Four weeks wouldn’t kill me. It might make me stronger.
It just might make me stronger.
***
The first day and night sober were fine, but the second night was brutal. I woke up every hour on the hour with a shaking fever, trying to break itself. Hot flashes would make me feel like I was on fire, and cold sweat soaked my sheets. Nurses were in an out, making sure I had enough water and wasn’t passed out and dead.
After waking up on the second day, I realized it was the longest I had gone without a drink in two and half years. I couldn’t believe what it felt like.
A dark fog had finally lifted, and I felt rejuvenated. I didn’t have any more anxiety, and my mouth wasn’t dry. I had this sense of life blooming, this glow and aura I had missed for so long.
It was great being able to catch up with my mom, almost privately. There were some activities that the clinic held for the patients, which included a movie night once a week, and board games were free to pass around.
On the fifth day, my mom and I were eating lunch. For most of the meal, we’d been making small talk.
“When are you going to talk to Hugh again?” she asked me. I almost dropped my fork.
“Talk to him again? Why would I?” I picked at my food, feeling a little agitated.
“I thought that was one of the things he told you when you two broke up. He just couldn’t be with you if you were drunk.”
“That’s not all though,” I said. I lazily gestured with my fork while I talked. “He has his own problems too. I really should have been the one to leave in the first place. When I saw his wedding ring, I should have walked away.”
“You couldn’t have known,” she said. “How bad it was.”
“I should have though, I should have.” I finished my plate, scraping the remains with my bread. I looked at her as I swallowed my last bite. “Hindsight, I know.”
***
That night, I sat in my bed with my legs crossed, and held my phone with Hugh’s number on the screen.
I held my breath and pushed the call button, letting it ring. Every second between rings felt like eternity, but finally, it clicked over to his voicemail. I breathed a small sigh of relief, and waited for the beep.
“Hugh, It’s Caitlin. I wanted to call you and say I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry if you feel like it was your fault I got drunk that night. I’m better now, I’m getting help, and I’ve been sober for almost a week. I just wanted to call, and say I’m sorry for stressing you out. I hope you’re having a good life.” I couldn’t think of what else to say. The first words that sprang to my lips were “I love you,” but I couldn’t make myself say them. I was shocked that they appeared so easily.
I ended the call, probably awkwardly adding twenty seconds to the end of the voicemail. I fell back into my bed and cried. I felt mixture of relief and regret. I let myself cry, letting it all go. Finally letting it all go.