That night, after my first real day of school, after she fake-ate dinner, she fixed my algebra worksheet. When she was done, she pulled a crumpled soft-pack of Parliaments from her shoulder bag, flipped open the top, and shook a white pill the size of a vitamin into her palm. She put it on her tongue as if she was buttoning it into her skin, as was her ritual, and then took a swig of my orange juice. “What’s that, Mar?” I asked, and she shrugged. Maybe it actually was a vitamin—she was even fascinated by those, the bottle of horse pills my mom kept on the counter, with their promise of health. Then she popped open the house pin on her chest and caught the disc that fell out, placing that in her mouth, too. “For my vapors,” she said. “To keep my strength up.” I laughed at her, like it was all a funny joke. Because at that point, it still was, I didn’t know any better yet, or maybe I did, maybe I always knew, that’s the problem with my memory.
Within an hour, her voice had a little slump, like her words were wearing dirty clothes, having trouble standing up straight. Her pupils pinpricks, lids heavy. Next door, Sal was alone, fridge empty, curled under a pilling blanket as he watched South Park on a junk TV. Deep in the woods, Marlena’s dad was shut up in that railcar with Bolt, making something that had already killed people Marlena knew and loved, and that would keep on killing until even the ones that were left would be changed forever, would walk around with parts of them already dead.
Meth was a drug, but pills were a cure.
I told you the good things. It was the first best day of a life I thought I wanted, and for just a moment, even in the act of looking back—well, to keep it like that I needed to leave parts out. But I don’t know why I lied about sneaking, as a child, into the living room, and seeing Mom and Dad on the couch. A few times I crept down there after they put me to bed, to steal a snack and read, as I said, or watch more TV. But not once did I find them together. That part was my invention, I will admit it now, but they must have had moments like that, even if I wasn’t there to see them.
And doesn’t that mean both versions can be true?
II
New York
Our apartment is in a newish building near the Gowanus Canal, all glass and shiny angles. Liam likes clean edges. Most of the area has been developed into blocks of condos like ours, but right next to us there’s an empty lot studded with broken glass and needles, where a colony of feral kittens runs wild. I emerged from the subway, checking my phone—a little after seven p.m. Because I’d left work early, it wasn’t much later than I usually got home. The hour made me feel less drunk. I stopped in the bodega across the street, to buy a six-pack of Stella, Liam’s favorite, and a can of Fancy Feast. I pulled off the lid and left the puck of meat near a tire. The kittens watched from underneath piles of wood and flutters of shredded plastic, their eyes flashing gold. A few brave ones darted out toward the can, then back into hiding, then toward the can again, waiting to see what I’d do. When I turned to leave they all tumbled out, fighting for whatever they could get.
I gave Sam, the doorman, a dizzy nod, and pushed the elevator button. Sam and I struggled with eye contact; he hadn’t half carried me to my door in months, but still. In the apartment, a blast of heat and sautéing garlic, and then Radish, butting her head against my shin. “Hey, babe,” I said, going for loud, cheerful, sober. I never knew whether it was better to confess that I’d had a couple, or to wait until Liam asked.
“Hi,” he shouted back, a little distracted. I stepped out of my shoes and hung my coat on the rack. Left the six-pack on the floor and went straight for the bathroom. I hiked my dress to my waist and peeled off my black tights, hanging them, phantom feet dangling, from the towel rod. After I peed I stared at myself in the mirror for a minute. Why four? My eyes were okay. Brown, brown, mascara a bit iffy, but fine, as far as I could tell. Steady. Liam said that they went in, kind of, their focus off, when I was hammered, and I actually knew what he meant, because Mom’s do that too. A not literal in-ness, but visible to intimates. She’d been so young when she had me and Jimmy that now she was wilder than ever, her and Roger—when they came to visit New York, they always overdrank and overate, Mom getting loud and silly, her eyes drifting by dessert. My wrinkles were also following Mom’s pattern—deepening V between the eyebrows, trapezoidal outline from nose to corners of mouth. I was thirty before I felt attractive in my body, and now, just a few years later, I could already see the ghost of my older self in the faint lines on my face.
And what secrets was Liam keeping from me? We’d met at twenty-four. We were coming up on ten years, three of them married. He wanted to have a baby, but that wasn’t exactly a secret. I still had time. I told him soon, I told him later. My body, I said. What about our Saturdays? I didn’t say I was afraid of being sober for nine months. Afraid I couldn’t do it, or worse, afraid I’d find myself pregnant and ambivalent, still wanting my nightly drinks. Or that it would stop me—pregnancy, a baby with grasping fingers and Liam’s serious face—and I really wouldn’t drink anymore. The part of me that I hated most missed those drinks preemptively. And what if I did stop, for a while, but when the kid was five, six, ten, I started again? A glass or two, some nights a couple more, me like Mom was, there but muffled, there but gone.
Our apartment is a bright, clean square, the walls bare except for a few black-and-white photos of landscapes. We have a big TV, and built-in shelves of books. The fixtures are new, even though they’re not, not really—classic steel and granite, glazed wood floors. Nothing here has any history. I slid the six-pack into the fridge and asked Liam if he needed help.
“I’m okay,” he said, pushing up his glasses. He was suspicious—probably my too-extreme hello—but it would have been weird of me not to stop, hug him a little around the waist. Liam is tall, all elbows and knees and floppy black hair, with a narrow frame. I pressed my face into the place where it fit, right between his shoulder blades.