The room fell into silence as people waited for me to explain. But what could I possibly say? That I had just discovered my future husband was gay? That I was going to live the rest of my days surrounded by nothing but empty lasagna pans and an overloved cat destined to die before me?
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I was just reminded of something very painful.” And I guess that wasn’t a lie.
IN AUGUST, ALMOST 60 days after I stopped drinking, Anna went into labor back in Texas. This was the best news in ages. I kept my phone with me at all times, even taking it to the bathroom.
In our early 20s, Anna and I had a pact. If one of us got pregnant (and there were a few scares), we’d move in together and raise the kid. We’d both become mothers at once. I understood Anna had a different partner now, and I would not be required to throw my fate in with hers. But I still wanted to be available, because I had been unavailable for so long, dominating our phone conversations with my own self-pity.
I heard the double beep in the early afternoon, and the news popped up on my screen. Alice. Seven pounds. Healthy. And I typed back on my phone, “See? I knew it was a boy!”
During her pregnancy, Anna and I had a playful banter about the gender of her child, which she refused to find out beforehand, and I wanted to make her laugh. I’ve never been satisfied with being like other people, throwing yet another “congratulations!” on the pile.
But she didn’t respond. I kept checking the phone, waiting for the news of her laughter. After a few hours of not hearing back, though, I began to question my strategy. Maybe that joke wasn’t so funny. Maybe jokes were better suited for less momentous occasions, ones that didn’t involve IV drips and hospital beds and squalling newborns covered in goo. That evening, my phone did not beep. It did not beep many, many times.
The next day at work, I became so consumed by remorse I couldn’t concentrate. I dragged Thomas to lunch, and I explained the whole saga.
“She’s probably very busy with the baby,” he said. Thomas was not quite indulging in this crisis as much as I’d hoped. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he said, although he winced slightly when he said it, which meant the joke might have been more wrongheaded than I’d feared. I tried out the story on three more people. They all told me it was no big deal, and I was pretty sure they were all lying.
I grew panicky. Was it possible to crater 15 years of friendship with one poorly timed text? I suspected I was overreacting, even as I spun out, but I had spent so many years apologizing for things I did not remember that I had lost faith in my own goodness. Every pocket of silence felt like fingers pointed at me. Certain newly sober people will swallow the world’s blame. Everything ever done must be their fault. Just add it to their bill.
I sent Anna an overnight care package, a collection of pop-up books for Alice. The Hungry Caterpillar. The Little Prince. The House on Pooh Corner. A few days later, though, I decided this was not enough. I compiled another box of gifts, kitschier this time. Apparently I wanted to be the first person in history to win back my best friend with a CD containing lullaby versions of Bon Jovi hits.
I was obsessed with my tiny failure. Why hadn’t I just said: I’m happy for you. I’m here for you. Congratulations. Would that be so hard? What was wrong with me?
For years, I’d hated myself for drinking, but I didn’t expect to hate myself this much after I quit. My self-loathing was like a bone I couldn’t stop gnawing. Pretty soon, it morphed into anger at Anna. Didn’t she understand what I was going through? How could she cut me out like this? Such an opera of despair. No wonder I drank, I thought. It made my own self-created drama disappear.
About a week after the delivery, Anna finally called. I was reading in bed one lazy Saturday with Bubba curled up alongside me when I saw her name on the phone. My breath hitched as if the call were from a long-lost boyfriend.
“I’m sorry I haven’t called you before now,” she said. Her voice was soft. She sounded exhausted and maybe a bit scared. But I heard a tenderness, too, and it assured me the long, cracked desert I’d just crawled across was a punishment that existed entirely in my mind. “Do you have a minute?”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting up. “I have about a thousand.”