I leaned closer to be heard over the music. “Not tonight.
Maybe some other time.”
She blinked, nonplussed. I untangled my hand from hers and scanned the room for John. As usual, he was relatively easy to find. I just looked for real y tal girls.
I told him I thought I had food poisoning and was ditching for tonight, and he fol owed me to the door, looking worried.
“Hey man, you need me to drive you home?”
“Nah, I’m good,” I told him. “Cal ed a taxi already.” I waited outside in the heat, the effects of the party slowly fal ing away. I’d only had one drink, hadn’t smoked anything or swal owed any pil s. It felt good to be in the open air. A little warm, but nothing like digging holes for trees or tamping down sod in ful summer sun. I had to laugh. Reid Alexander, landscaping a yard. Man. No wonder the paparazzi were having seizures over it.
Unsure what to do with Mom now, I leave her on my bed and go shower. When I come back, she hasn’t moved. I scoop her up, wishing I’d done so before showering, because her breath is sour, and even her perspiration exudes a noxious odor. As I carry her to her room, I’m sucked into a memory—a day prior to her earliest round of rehab.
I was ten or so, and must have just come home from school because I was wearing the uniform of the most elite private elementary school in the state. Mom was in her sitting room with her wedding album on her lap. “Reid!” she said when I peeked around the corner. “Come look with me.”
My parents’ wedding had been a social event, organized with a precision usual y reserved for royalty, the whole wedding party arrayed like beings from a fairytale hosted by exclusive designers, courtesy of old money. I don’t remember the photos themselves, just my impression of them, except for one snapshot of the two of them emerging from the church, thick wooden doors braced open behind them. My mother—petite, blonde and beautiful in her ivory gown, stood with her arm tucked through Dad’s, his opposite hand covering hers. My father, in his early thirties, was tal and good-looking. Impressive. No different from his present day look and demeanor—except in these photos, he was beaming. And he had more hair, not as closely shorn as the present salt-and-pepper version.
My mother’s fingers hovered over the photograph, one frosted pink nail tracing her own torso in the stunning ivory gown. “My gown had seed pearls sewn into the bodice,” she told me. “I felt like a princess. And your father was so handsome.” They made a striking pair.
“Reid,” she said then, her fingers shaking, suspended over the princess in the photo, “Mommy’s going to be gone for a little while.”
I frowned at her. “Gone where?”
She swal owed, and it seemed like she was trying to breathe normal y. Maybe she was trying not to cry. I stared at her, concerned, and she smiled through watery eyes.
“Wel , it seems that you are going to have a little brother or sister, and I need to go away for a little bit, to make sure I don’t… make sure I don’t…” She stared at her shaking hand and the photograph underneath it.
“Don’t what?” I asked, reeling with the news of a sibling. I remember feeling happy initial y, but something was upsetting my mother, so I pushed the joy aside until I had time to understand what I should feel.
“To make sure I don’t hurt the baby.”
I had no idea what she meant. I was sure my mother could never hurt anything or anyone. She couldn’t even stand to punish me when I was bad—and I was bad pretty often. There was no way she’d hurt a baby. I said as much to her, and she started to cry in earnest, the opposite of the effect I was going for. “This wil al work out; everything wil be wonderful,” she said, taking my face in her hands. “And I hope he or she is just like you.”
She’d gone to rehab, lost the baby anyway, came home and started drinking again.
I lay her on her bed now, turning the lamp on low and folding the comforter over her. There’s probably more I should do, but I have no idea what. She’s getting worse. I know the pattern, know what comes next. We’re almost to her rock bottom, a slow drifting downward until we al slam into the ground. Sometimes, she jerks up momentarily only to crash again. I realize I haven’t seen her sober in days.
I’ve told myself this is only because I’m not around much, but that’s a lie. Every time she stops drinking, I forget how bad it can be until we get here again.
She flops onto her back, starts to snore damned heavily for such a smal person. I rol her less than gently back onto her side, not that she notices, and prop pil ows behind her. I don’t want her to puke while she’s on her back. She’d most likely wake up rather than breathe it into her lungs… but I can’t take that chance.
I sit on the settee facing her bed, my fingers tracing the patterns in the carved teak frame. This is my mother. I would do anything to help her, but there’s nothing. She must hate her life to need this escape so badly. I understand that desire, at least. Just make it numb. Make the failures vanish, from the loss of the baby to her mother’s disappointment to her husband’s withdrawal. And my own disappearing act, from the moment I could pul it off. I don’t know if the misery begets the drinking or the drinking begets the misery. I don’t have a clue where it al started. Al I know is there is no end.
I wake to my father shaking me. “Reid,” he says. “You can go now.” His mouth is a tight line as he glances at her and back at me. He’s failed her. I’ve failed her. She’s failed herself.