NINETEEN
I walked out the door and onto the sidewalk. The fresh air felt good on my face after the recirculated staleness I’d been breathing inside. I was halfway across the lawn before I heard someone yelling. “Hey,” he called. “You can’t walk there! Hey!”
I turned and saw a young man in khakis. “That’s the men’s path.”
I looked around to make sure he was talking to me, then down at what seemed to be gender-neutral pavement. “Excuse me?”
“Men and women have to walk on separate paths. Yours is here.” He pointed. I shrugged and started across the grass. “No!” he hollered. “You have to go back and start at the beginning! No walking across the grass!”
I stopped and stared at him. “Is this like Simon Says?”
“?‘Half-measures availed us nothing!’?”
“Excuse me?”
“From The Big Book. You can’t take shortcuts.”
Whatever. I went back to the door, got on the proper path, and found Aubrey and Mary standing in the middle of a fenced-in oval, staring uneasily at a big horse with a brown coat and a sandy mane, which was ignoring them as it nibbled on a clump of grass. I waved at them, then ducked through the fence and was crossing the muddy ground when a woman in a cowboy hat held up her hand.
“I think you missed the entrance.”
Shit. I sighed, went back through the fence, walked the long way around the ring, and pushed open the gate. “What’s up?”
The woman in the cowboy hat didn’t answer. Aubrey, whose glittery eyeshadow and high-heeled boots looked strange in the June sunshine, said, “We’re supposed to put this on that.” This was a tangle of leather straps and metal buckles. That was the horse.
“Why?”
“This is equine therapy,” Mary explained.
“How’s it supposed to help us?”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure, dear.”
Aubrey handed me the straps and buckles. It was some kind of harness. At least that was my best guess. My experience with horses was limited to taking Ellie on pony rides at the zoo. “Excuse me,” I asked the woman in the cowboy hat. “Can you tell me what the point of this is?”
She didn’t answer. “I don’t think they’re allowed to talk to us,” Mary said.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered. Aubrey shifted from foot to foot, rubbing her arms with her palms. “Do you have any idea what this has to do with anything?”
Aubrey shrugged, shaking her head. “Maybe it’s about working as a team? Or building confidence or something? I don’t know. Half the shit in rehab doesn’t have anything to do with anything, and the other half’s so boring you could die. Just wait till Ed McGreavey does the ‘Find Your Purpose’ lecture.”
“You didn’t like that?” Mary asked. “Oh, I’ve heard that it’s very inspiring.”
Aubrey began finger-combing her hair. “Yeah, I thought so, too, like, the first time I heard it. But after you’ve heard it, like, three or four times, and you’ve seen Big Ed cry at the exact same part . . .”
“When he talks about how his brother broke his leg when they were heli-skiing?”
“You know it.”
I looked at the harness, then looked at the horse. “So we just have to get the harness on the horse somehow?”
“And,” said Aubrey, “we have to be touching each other while we do it.”
“Huh?”
“Like a conga line,” Mary explained, and put her hands on my hips.
“Okay.” With Mary holding my hips and Aubrey holding hers, we inched across the ring and approached the horse. It lifted its head and gave us the equine equivalent of a raspberry. Aubrey squealed, and Mary flinched backward.
“He’s more afraid of us than we are of him,” I said. I found a vaguely loop-shaped opening in the complicated mess of straps and pushed it over the horse’s head. Then I tied the remaining dangling straps in a bow. “There. Done.”
Mary was frowning. “That doesn’t look right.”
“They said it had to be on. They didn’t say it had to be pretty.” I pulled on the straps. The horse didn’t move. I yanked harder. “Come on, you.” Finally, reluctantly, the horse lifted one foot, then another.
“It’s moving!” Aubrey cheered.
“We did it!” Mary cried. The stone-faced woman in the cowboy hat said nothing as she watched our progress. We were almost done with our second lap when a golf cart zipped up to the fence and a kid in khakis called my name. “Allison W.?”
I handed the reins to Mary and caught a ride in the cart, which dropped me at a single-story building that looked like it was made of wood but turned out to be covered in vinyl siding. The couch in the waiting room looked like leather, but wasn’t, and the Twelve Steps framed and hung on the wall were simplified: I Can’t, read Step One. God Can, said Step Two. Let Him, Step Three advised. God again, I thought, and collapsed onto the couch. The God thing was going to be a problem. I’d been raised Jewish, with a vague notion of God as a wrathful old guy with a long white beard who was big on testing and tormenting His followers: casting Adam and Eve out of the garden, punishing poor Job, drowning Egyptian soldiers. Was that God—a God I wasn’t even sure I believed in—actually supposed to keep me from taking too much OxyContin? Especially when He let kindergartners get shot in their classrooms and young mothers die of cancer and millions of people suffer and die because of their skin color or religion?
There were no magazines I recognized in the waiting area, just battered copies of something called Grapevine, which appeared to be a cross between True Confessions and MAD, only for drunks. In the hallway outside, I saw a constant flow of people, men and women, alone and in groups, slouchy dudes with shifty eyes, pretty girls in jeans so tight I wondered if they were actually leggings with pockets painted on. Finally, a door flew open and a willowy African-American man in a linen suit smiled at me.
“Allison W.?”
I nodded, getting to my feet and breathing deeply as another wave of dizziness swept over my body.
“Come on in.”
His office was by far the nicest place I’d seen at Meadowcrest. There was a plush Oriental rug on the floor. The walls were painted a pretty celery green, the carved and polished wooden desk looked like a genuine antique, and the chair behind it was leather. The obligatory copy of the Twelve Steps hung on the wall—did they buy them in bulk?—but at least his had a pretty gold-leaf frame.
Nicholas took my hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said. Maybe it was the way he actually appeared to be seeing me when he looked my way, or maybe it was that my gaydar was pinging, but Nicholas reminded me of Dr. McCarthy in Philadelphia. Dr. McCarthy, in whose office I’d taken that quiz, Dr. McCarthy, who’d asked me so kindly what I was doing to take care of myself. How different would things be if I’d told him then what was going on, or even if I’d just stopped it all right there, before I’d learned about ordering pills on the Internet?
I took the chair on the other side of his desk and looked at a picture in a silver frame. There was Nicholas and an older white guy, both of them in tuxedoes, each with one hand on the shoulder of a pretty dark-haired girl in what looked like a flower girl’s dress.
He saw me looking. “Our wedding,” he said.
“Is that your daughter? She’s beautiful.”
“My goddaughter, Gia,” he said. “You’ve got a little girl, right?” There was, no surprise, a folder open on his desk, with my name typed on the tab.
“Eloise,” I said, feeling my heart beating, hearing her name catch in my throat.
“From the book?”
“From the book,” I confirmed. Ellie, I thought, remembering her funny, imperious gestures, the way she would yell every fifth word, or complain that whatever I was doing was taking for HOURS, or come home crying because “everyone else in kindergarten has loosed a tooth but me.”
Nicholas sat down, flipped open the first page of my folder, and ran his finger from top to bottom.
“So, painkillers.”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He crossed his legs, folded his hands in his lap, and looked at me steadily. “Why were you taking so many painkillers? Were you in pain?”
“I guess that’s how it started. I hurt my back at the gym.”
“So you were taking them for back pain?”
I shook my head. “Just . . . pain. Pain in general. Or to unwind at the end of the day. I thought it was sort of the same as having a glass of wine at night. Except I never really liked wine. And I did love pills. I loved how they made me feel.”
He lifted one arched eyebrow. “Twenty pills,” said Nicholas, “is more than one glass of wine.”
Blushing, I said, “Well, obviously, things got a little out of hand. But not, you know, rehab-level out of hand. That’s why I asked to see you. I really don’t think I need to be here.”
Nicholas flipped to another page in the folder. Then another one. “I had a conversation with your husband while you were in Equine,” he began.
I felt as if I’d swallowed a stone, but I kept my voice calm. “Oh?”
“He was able to fill me in on a little more of what’s been going on in your life.”
My lungs expanded enough for me to take a deep breath. “So you know about my father being sick?” That was good news, I told myself. If he knew about my dad, and maybe even about Ellie, if he had any sense of my job, and what it was like to get torn apart in public, maybe he’d understand why pills were so seductive . . . and he’d know that someone who was managing that kind of life, keeping all those balls in the air, was clearly not someone who required this kind of facility.
“He told me about your father, yes. And the incident at your daughter’s school?” His voice lifted, turning the sentence into a question.
I winced, feeling my face go pale at the memory. “That was awful. I had a glass of wine with a friend after I’d taken my medication.” I congratulated myself for the use of the phrase “my medication,” even though I knew the pills I took had been bought online rather than prescribed.
“I’m sure you know that David is very concerned. About your safety, and also your daughter’s.”
“That was a terrible day. What happened—what I did—it was awful. But I would never do anything like that again.” My sinuses were burning, my eyes brimming with unshed tears. “I love my daughter. I’d never hurt her.”
“Sometimes, in our addiction, we do things we’d never, ever do if we were sober.” His voice was low and soothing, like the world’s best yoga teacher. “David also said there was an incident with your business? The misappropriation of some funds?”
I sat up straight. How did Dave even know about that? “Th-that was a clerical error,” I stammered. “I was just being careless. It was the end of a week from hell; I was trying to get my parents’ financial stuff over to our accountant so they could admit him at the assisted-living place . . .” I shut my mouth. The thing with Ellie had been a mistake. The thing with the money—another mistake. The word “unmanageable” was floating around in my head with dismaying persistence. I pushed it away. I was managing. I was managing fine.
“Have any authorities been involved?” asked Nicholas. “The police? The Department of Youth and Family Services?” I shook my head. “Teachers are mandated reporters, and normally, in a case like that, they’d be obligated to tell someone at DYFS what was going on.” He gave me a serious look. “You’re very lucky that no one got hurt . . . and that you still have custody of your daughter.”
I felt sick as I nodded numbly, accepting the reality of how badly I’d f*cked up. They could have taken Ellie away. I could have gone to jail.
“You’re an intelligent woman,” said Nicholas. “I think that if you’re here, if you agreed to come here, even if there were extenuating circumstances, probably a part of you thinks you need to be here.”
I opened my mouth to say No way. Then I made myself think. An intelligent woman, Nicholas had said. What would an intelligent woman do under these circumstances? Would she resist; would she fight; would she argue and continue to insist that she didn’t have a problem and that she didn’t belong? Or would she fake compliance? Would she nod and agree, march to meetings and activities with the rest of the zombies, eat the crappy cafeteria food and drink the Kool-Aid? If I did all that, if I toed the line and recited the slogans and—I glanced at the poster on Nicholas’s wall—made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, I could probably get out of here in a week. Two weeks, tops.
“You know what?” I said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe there was a part of me that knew it was time to stop. I was concerned about how many I was taking. I was concerned that I needed to keep taking more and more to feel the same way. Then I was worried about having to take them just to feel normal, and always worrying about whether I had enough, and if I was going to run out, and which doctor I could call to get more. And I didn’t . . .” I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat, letting Nicholas hear the catch in my voice. “I didn’t want to be all spaced out around my daughter. She deserves a mom who’s there for her.”
“Had you made attempts to stop before?” Nicholas’s voice was so calm, so quiet. Did learning to talk that way require special training?
I shook my head, thinking about that afternoon at Stonefield, Mrs. Dale wrestling the car keys away from me, telling me that I wasn’t safe to drive my own daughter, and how I’d sworn to myself that I would quit, or at least stop taking so much. I thought about that terrible AA meeting the next morning, and how by noon that day I’d been right back in the bathroom, staring at my face in the mirror as I shook pills into my hand. In spite of my best intentions, and the very real threat of being exposed or shamed or worse, I hadn’t even been able to make it halfway through one day without a pill.
Nicholas pushed a box of tissues across the desk. “What are you feeling?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and swiped at my face. “I’m not feeling well.”
“That’s completely understandable. You’re still going through withdrawal.”
“I feel so stupid,” I blurted. “I’ve never been in trouble my whole life, you know? I’ve been successful. I’m good at my job. I have a beautiful little girl. I had everything I wanted. And now . . .” Now I’m a drug addict. The words rose in my head. I shoved them away. I wasn’t. I wasn’t. I was just having a little problem. I was experiencing technical difficulties, like they said on TV.
“I’m worried about being here,” I said. I figured this was exactly what someone who’d come to a place like this would say. It also happened to be the truth. “My mom is staying with us, but, really, she’s not going to be much help. My husband works full-time, and I’m the only one who can write my blog posts. There’s not, like, a substitute I can call in.”
“You’re going to be surprised at how people step up,” said Nicholas.
I shook my head, brushing tears off my cheeks. I made myself take a deep, slow breath. What was the stupid slogan I’d seen on the church basement wall? “One Day at a Time.” I would get through this place, one day at a time. I would fake contrition, pretend acceptance, act like I bought every bit of the Higher Power hooey, and sort out the rest of it when I was back home. I sniffled, wiped my face again, and gave Nicholas a brave look. “I don’t suppose you have massages here,” I said, feeling the tiredness, the sickness of withdrawal, the sadness that had colored everything gray settle inside me.
“Every other week, we have someone come in.” He leaned forward to match my posture and kept his voice low. “I can’t promise you it’s going to rival what you’d get at Adolf Biecker.” I suppressed a smile. Somehow he’d landed on my favorite Philadelphia salon, the one I never told my mother I patronized, because she operated on the assumption that anyone named Adolf was a Nazi.
“And in our common room, you’ll find any number of board games.” He smiled, then made a show of looking around, making sure we were alone. “You haven’t lived until you’ve played Jenga with someone having DTs. We’re talking guaranteed victory.”
I smiled in spite of myself. Then I remembered my mission. “I want to make a phone call,” I said. “Michelle said I needed permission from my counselor, but I don’t have one yet, and I need to tell my daughter . . .” I felt the lump swelling in my throat again, remembering how I must have looked in the throes of withdrawal. “I want to tell her that I miss her, and that I’m thinking about her. I want her to know I’m okay.”
“I don’t think that should be a problem,” he said, and scribbled something on the back of a business card. “You can use the phones behind the main desk back in Residential. And you have my permission to skip drum circle, if you’re still feeling woozy.”
Drum circle? “I am,” I said, grateful that not everyone here was a robot who’d treat me like a junkie. “Two other things. I’m supposed to be on TV next week.” I tried to sound casual, as if I were the kind of woman who was on TV so regularly that mentioning it was akin to saying that I was the snack mom for that weekend’s six-and-under soccer game. The Newsmakers on Nine people, perhaps unsurprisingly, had asked me back, this time to talk about abstinence-only sex ed in public schools. “And my daughter’s birthday party is on the fourteenth, and I can’t miss it.” That, I decided, would be my endgame. I’d be out of here in time for Ellie’s birthday party. I would meet her at BouncyTime, where she’d asked to have her party (in hindsight, she had decided the giant slide was the most fun she’d ever had in her entire life), and then, when the party was over, I’d load the trunk of the Prius with presents and leftover pizza, and we’d drive back home.
Nicholas steepled his fingers and rested his chin on top of them. “That,” he said, “might be a problem.”
“I can skip the TV thing,” I said, eager to show that I was a reasonable woman, able to compromise. “But I can’t miss Ellie’s birthday.”
“Normally, twenty-eight days is twenty-eight days. It’s your time to focus on yourself.” When he saw the look on my face, his voice softened. “Your daughter is going to have other birthdays. She probably won’t even remember you weren’t at this one.”
I gave him a thin smile. “You don’t know my daughter.”
“Well, I won’t tell you we’ve never made exceptions.” He turned to his computer, tapped at the keyboard. “It looks like you’re going to be in Bernice’s group. Why don’t you mention it to her, see what she says.”
“Okay. When will I meet her?”
“Monday.”
Monday? I blinked in disbelief. Today was Thursday, and I wasn’t seeing a therapist until Monday? I filed that factoid away for the letter to the director of Meadowcrest that I was already composing in my head.
“All I’d suggest is that you keep an open mind,” Nicholas said. “I know you’re not in the best place physically to process a lot of new information, but just listen as much as you can.”
I got up, with the card in my hands . . . and then, before I could stop myself, I blurted the question that had kept me awake for months. “What if this doesn’t work? What if I can’t stop?”
“Honesty, willingness, and open-mindedness,” said Nicholas. “You’re being honest already, telling me what’s scaring you. Are you willing to try? And keep an open mind about twelve-step fellowships?”
I looked out the window—gathering clouds, trees stretching their budding branches toward the sky, shadows flickering across the grounds. Girls strolled along the path, carrying what I now knew were copies of The Big Book, and they didn’t look like drunks and junkies, just regular people, leading ordinary lives.
Across the desk, Nicholas was still looking at me, waiting for my answer. “I don’t think I believe in God,” I finally said.
He smiled. “How cheesy would it sound if I told you that God believes in you?”
For what seemed like the first time since I’d landed in this dump, I smiled. “Pretty cheesy.”
“For a lot of beginners, their Higher Power is the group itself—it’s the other people working toward the same goal, supporting your sobriety.”
I pointed out the window at a guy I’d glimpsed from the waiting room. He had pierced ears and a tattooed neck, and wore a baseball cap pulled low over his brow. His sweatshirt hung midway down his thighs, his jeans sagged off his hips, and his enormous, unlaced basketball shoes looked big as boats. “Does he get to be my Higher Power?”
Nicholas followed my finger. “Maybe not him specifically.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Lunchtime,” he said. “Hang in there. I know this part is hard. Just try to keep an open mind. Try to listen.”
I nodded as if I was listening, as if I believed every word he’d told me, and walked back across the campus, taking care to stay on the women’s path. Inside Residential, all the women were lined up again, in front of a window from which a small, plump, dark-skinned woman with bobbed black hair and big, round glasses was dispensing medications.
“Boy, did you miss all the fun,” said Mary. “We had to figure out a way to get the horse to jump over a puddle.”
“F*cking bullshit,” Aubrey muttered. “How is leading around a horse on a rope supposed to help me not shoot dope?”
“You are a poet!” said Mary. “I bet you didn’t know it!”
Aubrey snorted, then gazed down balefully at her mud-caked feet. “These f*cking boots are ruined.” In front of the window, a woman gulped her pills, then opened her mouth wide and waggled her tongue at the nurse.
“How desperate do you have to be,” I wondered, “to convince someone to save their saliva-coated pill for you?”
“Just wait,” Aubrey said. “When you’ve only slept for two hours a night six days in a row, you’ll give anything for that pill.” She banged a boot heel against the wall, sending a shower of flaked dirt onto the carpet.
“Aubrey F., that’s a demerit,” called the teenage boy behind the desk. I wondered what it meant, and made a mental note to find out later. Aubrey rolled her eyes and, when he turned back to the desk, shot him the finger. Mary giggled as the cafeteria doors swung open, releasing the smell of detergent and deep fryer, and we filed in for lunch.