FOURTEEN
“Mommy!”
I blinked, rolling onto my side, running through my own internal whiteboard. Today is TUESDAY. It is five-fifteen. The next meal is DINNER, and you’d better start cooking. I heard, then saw, the doorknob of my bedroom turning back and forth.
“Mommy’s resting!” I called, and closed my eyes again. I’d been working flat out from five in the morning until it was time to take Ellie to school, and then from the moment I’d gotten back home until one. I’d decided to take a nap, and, after three blue Oxys failed to do the trick, I’d chewed up two more, then shut my eyes, and it was like I’d been punched hard in the head. I hadn’t just fallen asleep, I thought, trying to get my legs moving. I’d been knocked out, plunged into unconsciousness.
My phone was blinking. There were three new e-mails and a pair of texts from Sarah. CALL ME BACK, read the memo line. R U okay? read the second. U sounded weird.
Oh, God. I had no memory of speaking to Sarah. What had I said? What had I done? Panic surged through me. I pushed myself out of bed, pressed the phone to my ear, dialed Sarah’s number, and hurried to the bathroom so I could pee and talk at the same time.
I got her voicemail. “Hey, Sarah, it’s Allison. Um. Sorry if I sounded a little out of it.” I wiped and flushed, feeling frantic and sick and disgusted with myself, wondering how to gracefully ask what I’d said. “Call me back—I’m fine now!”
I opened the bedroom door and almost bumped into my mother. As always, she had her face on—foundation and eyeliner and a gooey lipgloss pout. A studded black leather belt showed off her tinier-than-ever waist, and her French manicure looked just-that-afternoon fresh, but her expression was worried as she twisted her hands and looked me over. “Allison, are you okay?” she asked.
“Fine!” I edged past her, down the stairs. Had I remembered to defrost the chicken? Was there a vegetable I could cook to go with it? And—oh, God—had I said something to my mother after I’d taken all that Oxy?
“You seem . . .” She followed me down the stairs, impressively managing to keep pace with my half trot, even though I was barefoot and she was in heels. “You seem like you’re not doing well.”
“I’m okay!” I pulled a box of rice out of the pantry, along with a can of hearts of palm. The chicken was still half-frozen in the fridge. I put it in the microwave. “Really. Just, you know, lots of stuff with work . . . and I’m worried about Daddy.” Normally, changing the subject to my father would be enough to start the waterworks, but my mother was looking at me with an unfamiliar intensity, narrowing her eyes as she studied my face.
“You know,” she said, “if you needed to take a break . . . if you and Dave wanted to go away somewhere, I’d be happy to stay with Ellie.”
I blinked. Was this my mother? My mother, who could barely take care of herself?
“That’s really generous of you. But I’m fine. Like I said, just a little overwhelmed right now.” My mind was running on its typical three tracks. There was dinner to be prepared. There was work to be considered—I’d filed my blog post, but I still had to throw some red meat to the commenters, whom I’d been neglecting. And, as always, there were the pills to count, and count again. Did I have enough? Were there more on the way? Had I sent money to my Penny Lane account?
I shook my head. Ellie and my mother both watched me as I cracked eggs, shook breadcrumbs into a bowl, set the table, and preheated the oven.
“Ellie, let’s go play cards,” said my mom. They filed into the living room.
Everything’s cool, I told myself, vowing to apologize to Sarah in person and to be more present—or at least more awake—for Ellie. I am fine.
I heard the garage door creaking upward. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” Ellie chanted, sprinting toward the door. I wasn’t expecting Dave for dinner. Hadn’t he told me that he had some dinner thing to go to, some bash one of the big union s was throwing that he needed to attend? Or had that been the night before?
“Ellie, help me set the table,” I called. I could hear Dave’s low voice mixing with Ellie’s bright chatter, and then the two of them came into the kitchen with Ellie’s feet balanced on Dave’s shoes, clutching his hands and giggling as he walked.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Fine! Busy!” I bent to check on the chicken.
“Mommy was sleeping,” Ellie announced.
“Mommy was tired,” I said, feeling grateful that Dave couldn’t see my face. I hadn’t told him about my run-in with Mrs. Dale. Ellie hadn’t, either. At least not yet. I knew better than to tell her not to say anything—that, of course, would guarantee that she’d go running to Dave with the whole story, about how Mommy fell down and Mommy got her dress all bloody and Mommy got put in a time-out by a teacher. My hope was that her typical five-year-old attention span would save me, and that events from the other day would be, to Ellie, as distant as things that had happened years ago.
“Do you know Mommy snores when she sleeps?” Ellie inquired.
“I do not!” I was smiling so hard that my cheeks ached as I cracked ice cubes into a pitcher, then gave the hearts of palm a squeeze of lime juice, a drizzle of olive oil, and a sprinkling of salt.
“You do too. And you DROOL. There was a whole PUDDLE underneath your face.”
“Tough day at the office,” I said, and turned to get the milk out of the refrigerator. When I shut the refrigerator door, Dave and my mother were looking at each other.
“What?” I said. Neither adult answered.
“What?” I said again, trying to sound happy, trying to look happy, trying to pretend I hadn’t spent the past five hours passed out in a puddle of my own saliva.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” my mother finally ventured.
“I’m all right,” I said. Smile still in place, voice still untroubled. Dinner in the oven. Blog post filed. At least, I thought I’d filed it. I would cut Ellie’s chicken, then I’d run upstairs just to double-check. And have another pill. “Everything’s good.”
My mom and Dave exchanged a look. “Hey, Ellie, how about you and Grandma go out for sushi so Mommy and Daddy can talk,” Dave said.
“Sushi, sushi!” chanted Ellie, grabbing my mother’s hand and towing her toward the door.
“Do you need a ride?” I asked.
“We’ll get a cab!” called my mother. The door swung shut behind them.
“Let’s sit down in the dining room,” Dave said. I felt my knees start to quiver as I followed him there. The dining room was low on my list of priorities, which meant the only furniture in it was the table and six cheap IKEA chairs. The walls were bare, covered in an unattractive greenish-blue wallpaper that I’d planned on removing as soon as I had the time and then the money.
“What is it?” I said, trying to sound casual and unconcerned.
“Sit down,” Dave said.
I curled my fingers around the back of a chair. “Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”
He sighed. Typical Dave. He could never come right out and say something. There had to be a few moments of prefatory sighing and throat-clearing first. “You and I need to talk.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, buying time. The news began to register in my body. My chest felt heavy, and my knees had that airy, trembly feeling. Was he going to ask me for a divorce? My heart stopped beating as Dave reached into his work bag and pulled out a FedEx envelope. From Penny Lane. Shit, I thought. Oh, shit, shit, shit.
“What is this?” He hadn’t opened it. And the return address probably said something banal about Computer Parts or eBay Services. Maybe there was a chance I could talk my way out of this.
“It’s a SIM card for my cell phone.” I widened my eyes. “Terrifying, I know.”
“You’re telling me that if I open this envelope I’m not going to find drugs?”
My heart was thudding so hard I was surprised Dave couldn’t hear it. “Oh, Jesus, Dave. What are you, McGruff the Crime Dog? You think I’m”—I curled my fingers into sarcastic air quotes, rolling my eyes at the very notion—“doing drugs?”
He lifted the envelope and shook it. I braced myself for the sound of rattling, praying that the package had come from one of the vendors who was liberal with the bubble wrap. No rattle. Thank you, God. But Dave wasn’t giving up.
“Why don’t you open the envelope and show me what’s inside.”
Maybe it was the smug look on his face, or the accusation in his tone. Whatever it was, it infuriated me. “Because I don’t f*cking have to!” I yelled. “Because I didn’t sign up to play show and tell! Because you’re my husband, not Inspector Javert!”
A wave of dizziness swept from the base of my spine to the crown of my head. There was a ringing in my ears, a high-pitched chime. My mouth was dry. My palms were icy. I wanted a pill. I needed a pill. Just the thought of them, crunching between my teeth, that familiar bitterness flooding my mouth, helped me relax the tiniest bit.
Dave continued to stare at me. I thought about that day at Stonefield, and how, a few hours ago, I’d called Sarah but had no idea what I’d said. I thought about the money I was spending, the naps I was taking, the sleepless nights, my racing heart. This needs to stop, said a voice in my head. It can be over right now. This can be the end.
“I don’t—” I blurted. I made myself shut my mouth, take a seat, look him straight in the eye when I spoke. “Okay. I will tell you the truth. I have been buying stuff online. But it’s prescription medication. You know I’ve got herniated discs.”
Dave reached into his work bag. From the inside pocket he pulled out a Ziploc bag full of empty prescription bottles. He reached in again and pulled out a sheaf of papers. I squinted until I could see what they were—printouts from Penny Lane, detailing every purchase I’d made.
Closing my eyes, I turned my face toward the wall.
“I called Janet last night,” Dave said into the silence. “I told her I was worried about you. I asked if she’d seen anything alarming—if you were late dropping Ellie off, or picking her up.”
“I have never been late,” I said. That, at least, was pretty much the truth.
“And then,” he continued doggedly, “I called the school.”
Oh, shit. “Dave . . .”
“Mrs. Dale called me back. She said you seemed like you were—the word she used was ‘impaired’—when you came to get the kids a few days ago. She said you told her you were drinking. That you’d had a glass of wine with a prescription medication, and you’d forgotten that you weren’t supposed to.”
I tried to interrupt. “Dave, listen . . .”
“You were going to drive drunk with Ellie in the car!” He started yelling, his face red, a vein throbbing in the center of his forehead, tears in his eyes. “What if she died? What if you died? What the f*ck is the matter with you?”
I started to cry. “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t like having a husband who won’t even talk to me anymore. Maybe I’m sick of being the one who does everything around here.”
He glared at me, unmoved by my tears. “Don’t make this my fault, Allison.”
“You don’t know.” My voice cracked on the last word. “You have no idea what it’s like. Dealing with Ellie. Dealing with my parents. My work . . .”
“Maybe not,” he said coolly. “Maybe I don’t know. But I think there are people in the world who manage to do all of those things without becoming drug addicts.”
“I am not a drug addict!” And f*ck that bitch Mrs. Dale for ratting me out. I mentally tore up the check I’d been planning to send to the Annual Giving campaign. I’d take myself shopping instead. “Okay. Obviously I shouldn’t have been drinking on top of the medication. I was tired, and I made a mistake. I’m not perfect.”
“You aren’t yourself. I don’t know any other way to say it. And everyone’s noticed. Me, your mom, Ellie . . .” He reached across the table, but I pulled my hand away before he could touch me. “If you want to get some help, I’ll support you as best I can.”
My laugh was high and shrill. “Help? What, like rehab? You think I need to go to rehab? You think I’m Lindsay Lohan now?”
“I don’t know what you need. But I know you’re taking more of those pills than you should be. I’m worried about you . . . and, quite frankly, I’m worried about you taking care of Ellie.”
I thought I’d been scared before, that day at Stonefield, when Mrs. Dale hadn’t let me drive. I was wrong. That wasn’t anything. This was real fear. This was true terror. And the best defense was a good offense. My father used to say that all the time. I drew myself up straight, grateful that I was wearing makeup, that I’d washed my hair that morning, that my clothes were clean. “Are you suggesting that I’m an unfit mother?”
Dave shook his head. “I’m saying that I’m worried about you, and I’m worried about Ellie when she’s with you. You need to take this seriously, Allison. People die from what you’re doing.”
“Okay! So fine! I’ll quit!” I made a show of extracting a bottle of Vicodin from my purse, uncapping it, and pouring the pills down the drain. I had a small secret stash, of course—a mints tin stuffed in my purse, a dozen Oxys in the bottom of my tampon box, a few Percocet in the glove compartment.
I turned on my heel and made what might have been a grand exit if my hip hadn’t caught the side of the table. I stumbled, and would have fallen if I hadn’t grabbed the wall. Dave was right behind me, holding my gaze, glaring at me, with no trace of goodwill or humor or love in his expression.
“I don’t want to have to spy on you,” he said. “But I will do whatever I have to do to keep Ellie safe.”
“Ellie,” I said, with all the dignity I could muster, “is perfectly safe. I would never, ever do anything to put her at risk.” Except, of course, the thing I’d done a few days ago.
“If you want help, I am here for you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great. See if you can send me to the place the guy from Friends went. They have Pilates.”
“Allison.”
“I promise,” I roared, before he could get off another adult-sounding, well-meaning warning. “I promise I promise I promise.” And I kept my promise all the way up the stairs, down the hall, and into the bathroom, where I fished pills out of the tampon box where I’d hidden them, and swallowed them, one, two, three.