Lars
MOLLY WAS PISSING me off.
First of all, she was in my space and I didn’t appreciate it. Second, she was ordering me around like she was my wife, which she was not anymore–her choice. Third, she was keeping me from my favorite “forget about Molly and all the things that are wrong with the world” pastime. Drinking any liquid that had the slightest percentage of alcohol.
The second time I woke up that day was worse than the first. I knew she was near. I could smell that almost too sweet vanilla stuff she always smelled like but refused to admit she wore.
There was a warmth to the air that filtered through my nostrils and made some of the pain dull.
It was her. She always did that. It was like her warmth reached out to me in the darkness.
I tried to sit up but a wave of nausea hit me so hard that I thought sitting up the rest of the way may make me heave up all of my organs at once.
What I needed was a drink to make it all go away.
The nausea. The urges. The wife. It all could go away with one swallow.
Ex-wife. Molly was my ex-wife.
“Sick to your stomach?”
Yes, your Kool-aid voice is making me sick to my stomach. Go away.
“You’re still here.”
She laughed a little. I saw nothing funny. In fact, my vision wasn’t clear anymore. Black spots pockmarked the walls and the ceiling.
“At least you’re not still asking me why I’m here.”
I heard her shuffle on the floor, and if I didn’t already feel like a piece of crap with her here taking care of me, having her sleep on the floor put the final nail in the coffin.
“My hands…” Both of my hands felt like anvils at the end of my arms, yet at the same time they shook. They were earthquakes attached to me.
“It’s okay.” She cooed at me and I hated her for it. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be using that voice–the one she only uses when someone is dying or sick.
I couldn’t tell which one I was–dying or sick.
“It will be okay if you just give me a drink.”
“That’s not happening. Don’t you want better than this for yourself? This isn’t a life, Lars. This is some kind of journey to hell, slow and painful and dark. Don’t do this to yourself.”
“I’d stop drinking for you,” I whispered, hoping to God she didn’t hear me.
“The next few days are going to be hard, Lars. I need to know that you want to get clean as much as you need to get clean. Don’t you want a life that’s more than drinking and bumming off friends and neighbors for meals? I know your mom raised you better than that? Where’s the guy with more bravery than I’ve ever known?”
He died a little when you left him. Then died most of the rest of the way when he returned home and every car horn startled him. Every holiday that fireworks were involved, he nearly peed his pants and hid in the closet like a kindergartener.
Bright lights felt like being next to the sun itself.
Darkness was like being plunged into death.
After I came home, I was scared of never having a life, so I dug my own trench with bottles of Crown and whatever else I could get my hands on.
Either way, she was right, this was no life.
I was tired of waking up in my own filth, the smell of vomit and garbage so thick in my nose that it took days to get rid of it. Of course, by the time I did, it was time for another drink.
In the past year, I’d only gone about a day without succumbing to the urges.
Urges became needs.
Needs became obsessions.
Some days I thought about nothing else than the next burn down my throat.
I didn’t eat.
I considered my time on the floor, passed out, the same as sleeping.
But if I fought through this, what would I be fighting for?
The one thing in life that I’d ever loved was now on my floor pitying me with her nursery rhyme voice.
Pathetic.
“Lars, can you hear me? You in or you out?” Molly now kneeled by my bed. Her brown hair was tied up in a bun. It was–or used to be–her chosen hairstyle for working out in the yard. She didn’t want to get dirt in it while she was gardening.
She didn’t want to get the dirt of me in her hair.
My eyes finally focused on her face. She looked the same yet so different. She was thinner–way thinner from what I could see. Her fingers were bony, yet kept the same gentleness. I almost reached out with one of my shaking hands to touch her face out of pure habit.
Once this woman was mine.
Once we had planned a wedding.
She had even named our kids.
I left half of my heart with her when I left.
She stomped on it.
I cleared my throat. It stung from throwing up. “Are you in for this? I know you run when things get tough.”
She sighed and I hoped it carried all the self-loathing I wished on her. “I’m in this for the long haul. One day at a time.”
“You sound like one of those books.”
“Well, at least we know you can still read. The first step is admitting you have a problem.”
I thought about that for a minute, still laying on my back. Even in my stupor, there were dreams dangling in the back of my mind. Bucket lists–goals–things I wanted to accomplish.
I probably wouldn’t find those at the bottom of a bottle.
“I have a drinking problem. I know that.”
Unexpected tears rivered down my face. Warm, soft fingers laced through mine and another thumb brushed the tears from my face.
“There you go. That was the easy part. I know you already hate me, Lars, but over the next few days you’re going to wish me dead. You’ll think about killing me and anyone who comes around here. You need to pick something to hold onto. God, good thoughts, your parents, something. Pick something to hold onto when things get rough–just like you did when you were in Iraq. What was that one thing you held onto?”
I almost laughed–almost. Molly was the one thing I held onto. Her face was in the forefront of my mind all the time, even after the letter and the divorce papers. Even deep in the sand, holding my rifle, I kept hope alive somehow. It was all I had to cling to. There was some hope that when I got back, I could change her mind. I cooked up grandiose schemes of badgering her with flowers and showering her with all the affection I’d kept from her while I was gone.
She kept me alive.
I didn’t know that when I came back, she would be gone.
“I, um, I’ve got something in mind.” No way was I letting her have the satisfaction of knowing she was still what kept me alive.
“That’s the spirit. First things first, tons of water and Gatorade. Let’s get the poison out of you.”
Sure didn’t taste like poison.
“Fine. Whatever. Give it to me. I don’t promise not to puke though. My stomach still feels like it’s in a grinder.”
“Little bit at a time.”
FOR THE REST of the day, several things happened. I knew they would but I didn’t know if that knowledge was a good thing or a bad thing.
It almost made it worse to know beforehand.
The shakes moved from my hands to the rest of my body even as Molly flitted about, trying to shove gallons and gallons of water and Gatorade into me. I was surprised she hadn’t put a needle in my arm with saline solution.
“You still a nurse?” I asked with a straw perched at my mouth, ready to down another jug of the weak orange liquid.
“I am. Not labor and delivery anymore though.”
“Pediatrics?” She always loved children and wanted to be around them as much as possible.
“Geriatrics, actually.”
That didn’t seem right, even in my stupor.
“Old people?”
“Yes.” She was folding towels for the second time that day. I only owned a handful and when I’d thrown up before, plus the two cold showers she’d forced me into, they were dirty already.
“Doesn’t seem right.” I managed to grumble. I eyed the sandwich she’d made for me still setting on the plate on the countertop. It looked good but my stomach was having none of it.
“I can make you some soup. I think I saw a can of it in the pantry. We are gonna need to get some groceries sooner than later.”
The only thing I went to the grocery store for lately was another bottle.
“Soup might be good.”
“Okay.” She got a pot out of the sink and scrubbed off the fur coat of whatever leftover food was growing on it. She must’ve washed it three times before deeming it worthy of being cooked in. “While this is cooking, there’s something we need to take care of today. I need to know where everything else is in this house. And don’t think you can lie to me, Lars. A lot of things have changed, but I can still read you like the back of my hand. Where are they?”
“Where are what?” I rolled my eyes at myself. Playing dumb wasn’t going to get me far.
“The bottles. All of them. Where are they?”
I shrugged. “Most of them are in the cabinet above the fridge. Some under the bed. Some in the closet.”
I watched on, sipping that awful drink while she gathered my precious friends in a black garbage bag like they were–trash.
“Is that it? Doesn’t seem like a lot of bottles for someone who was out for three days.”
Three days? Is that how long I was out?
I shrugged again. There was a bottle hidden in the sofa and one that she would never find. I didn’t care how well she thought she knew me.
“Lars Grekov, you and I are about to have a come to Jesus. Either you tell me where all this crap is or I’m going to lose it. This is my one law of staying here. You have to be honest with me.” I dropped my chin to my chest. “That means right now, soldier. Where else is this–this stuff–that’s killing you.”
Killing me? I never thought the stuff was killing me. In fact, sometimes that stuff stopped me from killing myself.
You don’t want to kill yourself when you’re numb.
You just don’t care.
“There’s another one on the top of the light fixture.”
“The light fixture? Really?” Molly wasn’t much shorter than I was and while she reached for the bottle–make that two bottles–on top, I couldn’t help but look at her. She was skinnier. I was right. She still had perfect hips and the way she leaned up on her toes to reach reminded me of a ballet dancer.
“Hey, I grew up in Russia. You learn where to hide the vodka early.”
My mother was American, but my father was Russian. They lived in Russia from the time they were married until I was about twelve. Then we came here and my father and I became citizens.
“Oh give me a break. You lost most of your accent in high school. Only when you said certain things did you...never mind. Is this the last bottle?”
What she was about to say was that I really only got my accent back when we were in bed. But we were only married for a short while before I had to leave.
“That should be the last of it.”
When the words left my mouth, a shredding pain hit my temples and one of my eyes as if someone was twisting an electric screwdriver in my eye socket. It came out of nowhere and nearly knocked me off the barstool at the kitchen counter.
“What is it?” she asked calmly, but I could hear the concern in her voice. At least it wasn’t the cooing from before.
“Headache. I think I have some Tylenol in the bathroom.”
“I brought plenty. Let me see your arm.” She took my arm with two fingers on my wrist and looked at her watch on the other hand. “Your heart rate is elevated a little. Let’s get you back into bed. I’ll get some Tylenol.”
My eyes were closed and I tried to get to the bedroom without her before running into a wall.
How did that wall get there?
“Wait for me, Lars. Lean on me. Put your arm over my shoulder.”
She acted like I had a sprained ankle instead of a case of the “need liquor stumble”. Molly had always been good like that.
“I can do it by myself.” I heard the growl from my throat but didn’t recognize it as my own.
“Let me help you.”
It took me stubbing my toe at the very next step to give in.
“Fine.”
As soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out, even before she could give me the Tylenol. Sometime later I felt a cool washcloth on my head. I heard her voice in my dreams telling me that she loved me and that she wasn’t leaving me.
Detox dreams are jerks.