Chapter Sixteen
The hospital kept my mom overnight. “For observation,” they said. They also hinted, none too lightly, that with the amount of cough syrup and vodka she’d consumed, they suspected she’d been trying to commit suicide.
I refused to let myself think about that.
When my phone alarm went off, I got up and went to work my shift at the coffee shop, dead on my feet, then walked to campus for my classes. I tried not to think about my mother, but it was impossible.
Things like this had happened in the past, and always the question was, had she done it on purpose? A few of the times, the overdoses had been legitimate accidents. Some of the others? Maybe not. Had this time been a serious attempt, or just another cry for attention? It was possible I’d never know.
Did it matter?
Did I care anymore?
Did it make me a bad person if I didn’t?
I tried instead to think about Vinnie, who had stayed with me for half the night while I dozed in the warmth of his arms. He’d promised to call me later, and I clung to that vow, the only bright moment ahead of me.
It was shortly after noon when he called. “I wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. Before he could ask about my mom, I said, “Thanks so much, Vinnie.”
“No need to thank me.”
“Well, still.”
“Is there anything you need?”
“No. No, I’m fine.”
“Well, at least let me take you out for pizza, since we never got to finish our date last night.”
Our date.
I wanted to say yes, but there was no way in the world I could take him up on the offer. I still had a shift to cover at the restaurant, plus a paper to write when I got home, and another early shift at the coffee shop the next day. “I have way too much homework, Vin. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Just tell me when I can see you again.”
Was it pathetic how much the protectiveness in his voice made me melt? I actually found myself smiling. “I have Thursday off.”
“Thursday it is. I think it’s well past time we got the fountain out of the way.”
My smile hurt my face it was so big. “Probably so.”
“Call me whenever you want, okay? No matter if it’s day or night.”
“I will.”
“Promise me you will.”
I could fall in love with him, I realized. I really could. Maybe I was already there. “I promise.”
By the time I got back to my house after work that night, my mom was home from the hospital. She was on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, a cup of tea in her hand. She was in full apology mode.
I braced myself, knowing I didn’t dare buy one word of it.
“Trey, I’m so sorry—”
“Save it.”
“It won’t happen again. I promise.”
“I don’t want your goddamn promises. You never keep them anyway.”
“Honey, I was just so lonely. And I’d had a bit to drink—”
“No kidding.”
“—and I must have taken my pills earlier in the day, but I forgot, and I guess I took them again. I don’t know—”
“Mom, forget it, all right?” I turned at the foot of the stairs to face her. “You’re sorry. I’m sorry. Gram’s sorry. We all know how it goes.”
She hung her head. “I didn’t remember taking them.”
She looked so old, and so beaten. She had so little. A couch. A TV. A bottle. Lots and lots of bottles. Everything else was gone. Granted, outside of my father’s death, it was all gone because of her drinking. It was her own fault.
That didn’t make this single moment any easier.
I felt a hint of something—something I hadn’t felt for her in a long time—a hint of sympathy.
Once upon a time, things had been different. She’d been drinking then too, but I’d been too young to understand. All I’d known then was that some days she was confused and clumsy. On the other days, she was my friend.
I’d told Vinnie how she’d taught me to aim for the 100s in skee-ball. At least once a week we’d go to Orecchio’s to play, or go out for ice cream, or maybe go to a movie. Back then, she’d tried so hard to make up for the fact that my dad wasn’t around. But as I got older, the drinking got worse. She became more of a hermit too.
In those days, I’d wanted to understand, but she began to embarrass me more often than not. She’d show up drunk at my school events. Back then she’d had a job, and more than once, her boss had called me to come and get her because she’d gone to work drunk. Of course, she ended up being fired.
That had been a turning point. Even in high school, I’d worked part-time. My grandmother hung on to her job as a secretary at the junior high for as long as she could. She could take shorthand and had designed their entire filing system. The problem was, those skills were no longer needed. After forty-five years of work, they looked at her as nothing but a dinosaur who couldn’t understand how to use a computer. They’d forced her into retirement only three months before my mom lost her job. Suddenly, working part-time wasn’t enough. I was the sole breadwinner in the family.
My mom had other jobs after that, but none of them ever lasted. The drinking became a daily thing. I was seventeen the first time she ended up in the hospital.
I’d thought maybe it was my fault.
I’d thought I could help her or change her.
Of course, I’d learned Al-Anon’s three Cs later: I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, I can’t cure it. Coddling, threatening, bargaining, begging. None of them worked.
Neither did anger or indifference. That was the part I struggled with.
She was still on the couch, crying quietly. I couldn’t control her, no.
But I could control me.
“Do you still have the stuff for chicken parmesan?”
She looked up at me, her eyes red and swollen. “Yes.”
“I need to write a paper, but I really am hungry.”
She smiled at me, and I tried to tell myself it was worth it. “I’ll call you down when it’s ready.”