Bess
The sound of gravel crunching alerted me to a car coming down my driveway, and I ran to the door, flinging it open.
“May! Brooks!” I ran out onto my porch without a coat, not caring that it was only twenty degrees outside.
May got out of the car, and before she could walk around to the passenger side, my Lab came barreling out the driver’s side door.
“Hey, sweetie!” May called to me as she shoved her car door closed.
“Hi, May. How was my big guy?”
Brooks had run up to the porch and shoved his snout into my leg, demanding a pet before he ran back down the hill and lifted his leg.
“He was just fine. He’s so lazy,” she said with a big smile.
“Good boy,” I said to my dog when he came back up the stairs. “He’s not lazy,” I said to May.
“Well, we’re glad to have him, lazy or not,” she said as she came up the steps. As soon as she’d crossed the threshold, she gave me a knowing look, then plopped down onto the sofa without an invitation. “Okay, spill.”
So I curled up on the other end of the couch with my legs tucked under me, still dehydrated from stale airplane air and feeling sore between my legs, and told her all about Florida.
Except for the naughty details.
When I was done, she gave me an approving look. “See? You came clean and let it all hang out, and survived to tell about it. Proud of you, girlie.”
Then she said her good-byes and headed for home, leaving me all alone with my thoughts and memories.
The next morning, I got up early. I was due back to work, but had somewhere I needed to go first. Pulling up to the church, I spotted Shirley in her Buick. Bundled in my parka with a hat tight on my head, I braved the cold to walk over to the only car with the engine idling.
She cut the engine as I approached and stepped out of the car. “Bess, honey. You okay? How was it?”
Before I could answer, Shirley pulled me in for a hug, squeezing me tight as she squished my face into her big boobs. I relaxed in the warmth of her scent, a homey mix of grease from the diner and an overly flowery perfume. I wasn’t sure why it felt familiar, but even with no mother or grandmother to speak of, the combined scents of cooking and heavy perfume brought me comfort. If I’d had female role models in my life, I was sure that was what they would smell like.
“It was unreal,” I said in a low voice, trying to keep my lip from quivering. “So unreal, but now I’m back.”
Shirley grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the building. Even though I convinced my lip to remain still, my glassy eyes probably gave me away.
Squeezing my hand, she said, “Oh, honey. It’s okay to be happy and have an unreal time. And even more okay to be sad to leave it.”
I nodded and then said, “But now that I’ve had a taste of what could never be, I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same. And I’m already unsure of who the heck I am.”
She just squeezed my hand a little harder and said, “Come on, you’ll feel better after this.”
The morning meeting was mostly people who were happy to have survived the night without drinking or indulging in whatever their poison was, grateful to have made it through another twenty-four hours. In my mind, they were the most distraught meeting-goers, the ones teetering the closest to falling again.
As Shirley blew through the doorway with me in her wake, it occurred to me that was probably why she went to the morning meetings. She was a mother hen, always wanting to help other people, to save them, and we were all her chicks.
I knew most of the people there, but there were two or three newcomers, probably recently released from the full-time rehab program where I went. People in that situation usually decided to stay on in the day program until they were truly able to go back to their lives or what was left of them.
Together we huddled in the cold basement as cheap coffee percolated in the background, next to a carton of doughnuts left open on the table. As we waited for the meeting to begin, each of us looked around the room and saw pieces of ourselves in each and everyone there. And hoped we weren’t as bad off as the next person.
Shirley got up to speak today, and I sat up a little straighter in my chair. I’d never heard her share her story before, had only heard bits and pieces, so I kept my eyes and ears focused on my new friend.
“Hi, my name’s Shirley—everyone calls me Shirl—and I’m an alcoholic. I’m pretty sure I’ve always been one. Since I was a teen or something like that and I watched my dad railing on my mom. I tried to make a new life for myself when I left home. Back then, I was going to school in the Midwest to be a nurse. But it was taking forever to put myself through school, and I never finished. That was when my drinking and using got real bad. When I felt like a failure for not making anything of my life.”
She paused to look at her feet, and I thought I saw a tear drop to the floor. She sniffed a time or two before continuing.
“Then I started babysitting and sort of cleaned up my act again. I lived in a neighborhood where there were a lot of young families, and some of them asked me if I could help them if they needed a break or to go to work. So I did their laundry and cooking while I watched their kids. I know, I know . . . how could I care for children while I was drunk? I rationalized that I didn’t, that I wasn’t drunk the next day. I loved those kids so much. I’d sober up on black coffee in the morning after passing out from being drunk every night, but it wasn’t right. I know that now.”
Shirley cleared her throat and nervously smoothed her hair into her tight bun.
“There was one family; I loved these people like they were my own. They often invited me to stay and eat with them, giving me care packages to take home. If I’d had a different family growing up, I wanted this one. They had the cutest kids I ever laid my eyes on. They used to snuggle up to me and say, ‘Read us a story, Miss Shirley,’ until I let them down.”
Tears gathered in her eyes, and as one slid down her cheek, I felt the telltale pricking in my own eyes.
“One day,” she said, “I wasn’t quite myself. It was the anniversary of the day I should’ve graduated nursing school a few years before, and I really tied one on that night.” Her voice wobbled and she swallowed, trying to clear her throat.
“The next day, I let those kids down. I had to lay down, take a rest, do something to get rid of the ache in my head and my heart. My head was throbbing and I sat down on the couch with them and said we would watch some TV. But I must’ve fallen asleep and after a while, they got bored. One little guy got into something real bad. After that it was over. Destroyed . . . everything was ruined . . . because of me . . . and they . . . they moved and I lost them all.”
Shirley put her head in her hands, crying in earnest at this point. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed, but she finished her story with her mascara running and strands of hair coming loose, falling around her face.
“It was after that, such a tremendous loss, that I dried up and moved here and made a quiet, boring life for myself. Now I’ve got a life with a man who loves me, a steady job, and lots of good friends. It’s not perfect, but it’s good.”
She stared out at us with a tearful half smile. “There are days I wish that I’d faced all my demons. That I didn’t move, but faced life where I’d been living it . . . or not living it. But I did the best I could, and I’m here. And I wouldn’t have met you all if I didn’t come here.”
Her story finished, Shirley gave us a bittersweet smile. As the group applauded and called out their support, she came back to her seat next to me. I squeezed her hands in mine and kissed her on the cheek before handing her a tissue, then helped her wipe her freckles free of makeup and dry her pretty green eyes.
With all the emotion bled out of me, work felt like a breeze.
I ended up a little late to work because of the meeting, but served breakfast in between chatting with Ernesto, and stayed on through lunch. The hotel was full and the restaurant was busy. My sections might have been packed all morning and afternoon, but that didn’t stop me from taking a quick peek over at the bar and picturing Lane sitting there on Christmas Day, or frequently conjuring up his smiling face.
I tried telling myself that it was okay, giving myself permission to ache for the man and the loss of what might have been if I didn’t have so many ghosts in my closet.