Best Kept Secret (36 page)

“My mom’s such a
bitch
for not letting me move back home,” she says suddenly. Her words are coated with venom. “How am I supposed to kick this shit without her support? You know, because
she
didn’t have anything to do with my turning into an addict. Same thing like your husband.” She repeatedly pierces the same piece of lettuce over and over again, attempting more to maim it than eat it.

I pause, considering how best to respond. I don’t blame Martin for my drinking. I never did. Laura drew that conclusion on her own. No one
made
either of us do anything. No one stuck the needle in her arm. No one poured the wine down my throat.

The server delivers Laura’s drink along with our dinners. She gulps it down, like a parched man after crossing the desert, emptying it without setting down the glass. That’s it. I can’t stand it anymore.

“You need to stop,” I say. I want to pull the words back as soon as they leave my mouth. They’re only going to piss her off.

Her skinny shoulders twitch, as though she was trying to shake off something uncomfortable against her skin. “What?”

I lean in, try to grasp her hand in mine, but she yanks away. “I
can’t be around you when you’re drinking, Laura. I didn’t know you were already drunk or I wouldn’t have picked you up.”

“I’m not drunk!” Her eyes are wild, indignant.

“Yes, you are.” My eyes fill. “I’m sorry, but I can’t be a part of this. It’s too hard.”

“Whatever. I need to go to the bathroom.”

She tries to stand up, pulling the tablecloth with her. I have to grab her untouched dinner plate to keep it from landing on the floor. As she stumbles toward the ladies’ room, I take a few deep breaths. I feel sick. Was that how I looked when I drank? How I spoke, smelled, acted? Is that what Charlie saw every night, his mother loose and out of control?

I pull my cell phone out and call Nadine. “I don’t know what to do,” I say when she answers and tell her what’s going on with Laura. “I don’t want to be around her when she’s drunk. It’s completely freaking me out.”

“Then don’t be around it,” Nadine says. “Put her in a cab.”

“I can’t leave her alone like that.”

“Why not?” Nadine is matter-of-fact. “She didn’t think about how her being drunk would affect you. She’ll be fine. You need to keep yourself safe right now, Cadence. Trust how you feel.”

A few minutes later our server approaches the table. “Your friend is getting sick in the bathroom,” she says quietly.

“Oh God,” I say. “I’m so sorry. Can you please call her a cab?” I hate myself for it, but I cannot take Laura home. It’s too much. I can’t have her in my car. I can’t handle it. This is horrible. This is not the night I had planned.

“There’s already one outside. They sort of count on this kind of thing happening on Friday nights.”

“Thank you,” I say, handing her a stack of bills from my wallet. “I’ll go take care of her.” I head toward the bathroom, only to find Laura spread out on the small couch in the waiting area. The hostess is looking at her like she is a disease. I squat down next to my
friend, push her hair out of her face. She smells strongly of vomit and booze. I have to swallow back the gorge that rises in my throat.

“Laura?” I say. “Come on. They have a cab waiting for you.”

She grunts but doesn’t move. I stand up and sigh, reaching to pull her into a sitting position.

“Hey,” she slurs, lifting an arm in sloppy dismissal. “Leaf me ’lone.”

“I can’t. You have to get up.”

“Sleep,” she groans.

I look up just in time to see our server stepping over to help me. “Thank you,” I say, relieved.

“No problem,” she says. Together, we manage to get Laura to her feet and shuffle her out the door into the waiting cab. I give the driver her address, a stack of cash, and ask him to take good care of her.

After she is gone, sadness presses through my body as a physical ache. I bend at the waist, bowed by the kind of grief that will not allow me to stand. The server places her hand flat against my back. “She’ll be okay,” she says, I’m sure assuming my posture is due to worry over my friend. “Someone will get her well.”

I don’t have the heart to answer, to tell this woman how wrong she is. No one can do this for Laura. Or for me, for that matter. If she wants it, she’ll have to do it herself.

T
he next day, I
call Martin’s cell phone and it rings four times before he picks up. One more and it would have gone straight to voicemail; he must have been deliberating whether or not he was going to talk to me.

“Hello?” he says. The word is short and hard in my ear.

“Hi,” I say. “I was wondering . . . I know it’s not my weekend, but I’d really like to see Charlie. Just for a little bit. An hour or so.” I am missing my son; there is something in me too hollow to be filled by anything other than having my child in my arms.

Martin pauses before he answers. “Why?”

I have to take my own deep breath to keep from snapping at him. “I just miss him.”
Please,
I think.
Can you please just do this for me? He’s my son, for God’s sake. He came out of
my
body.
Heated humiliation floods my cheeks. I shouldn’t have to beg to spend time with my child. Only another few weeks, I remind myself, and the decision will be made and he’ll be back with me. I won’t have to go through this anymore.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” There is a sturdy wall built around his words. His pause is expectant—awaiting further explanation. I can picture that handsome face, elevated eyebrows raising impatient waves across his forehead.

“Martin,” I say after taking a few calming breaths. “Please.” I can hear the contemplation ticking through his mind.

“He’s at my mom’s,” he finally says. “I’ll call her and let her know you’re coming.”

I let go a sigh of relief, despite having to endure another encounter with Alice. “Thank you. I appreciate it.” I know, despite the custody dispute, at his core, Martin is a good man. The part of him that loved me once understands how much I need this.

He pauses. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I say. For some reason, his question brings on an onslaught of tears. “But I will be.” I hope he realizes I’m not just talking about today.

“Okay.” He hangs up without saying good-bye. I redirect my car toward Alice’s house. All I can think of is pulling Charlie into my lap, feeling his solid little body pressed against mine. I need to be reminded that there is good left in the world. Charlie is the best evidence of this I’ve ever known.

I park and take a couple more deep breaths to calm me before going inside. Dusk has already fallen, the pale afternoon haze melted into fuzzy gray shadow. She is waiting at the front door, opening it just as I am raising my fist to knock.

“It’s nice to see you, Alice,” I say, stepping inside. I look around, noting how little her house has changed in the years I’ve known her. Flat white walls, salmon velour couches, and teal plush carpeting grace the living room. Every windowsill and flat surface holds hundreds of porcelain trinkets collected over the years at garage sales. This is probably the only thing about Alice that clearly frustrated Martin, a minimalist. Dusting was a daily ritual with her, a habit she tried—and failed—to get me to adopt.

“Mama!” Charlie rushes in from the kitchen, throws his arms around me. Tears flood the muscles in my throat in response to his touch. I squat down, pull him close, breathe him in.

“I love you so much, Charlie bear.” There is more ache in my heart than it can hold. I feel it spilling throughout my body, weighing me down. “I missed you.” I can’t help it; the tears start to fall.

Charlie pulls back, looks at me, worried. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head, try to wipe back the evidence from my cheek. “I’m okay, honey. I just had a hard couple of days.”

“Oh,” Charlie says.

I look up at Alice, who stands back, regarding the scene. There is an odd look on her face. I might venture to call it compassion.

“It’s cool out,” Alice says.

“It is,” I say, nodding, wondering if we’ll ever be able to talk about more than the weather.

“We were just about to have some cocoa and cookies. Why don’t you come join us?”

I know the invitation is born out of manners but I accept anyway, wanting Charlie to witness us getting along. I settle myself down in one of the breakfast nook chairs with Charlie on my lap. He chatters away about his day while Alice sets a plate of shortbread before us and begins to warm milk on the ancient avocado-colored stove.

“And then Omi took me to the park and I climbed to the top of the monkey bars and she told me to get down from there so I didn’t break my neck.”

“Ah,” I say with a smile. “That was probably a good thing. I’ve seen you on monkey bars. You fell once, remember?”

“I fell?” he asks. “Did I bleed?”

I nod, reaching up to touch the small scar over his right eyebrow. “You needed two stitches. Right there. I was very, very scared.”

“See, Charles?” Alice says. “Even your mother agrees with me.”

“Wow,” I say, hoping the intended levity in my voice comes through, “we might want to mark this as an historic day, huh, Alice?”

To my surprise, she laughs, though her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She stirs powdered cocoa mix into three mugs, setting Charlie’s in front of him, then turns to open the cabinet above the stove where I know she keeps her liquor. She pulls out a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream, unscrews the lid. “I hope this doesn’t bother you,” she says. “I just like to have a drop in my cocoa.”

I watch her pour substantially more than a drop in one of the
mugs. I lean over and wrap my fingers around the handle of the mug she left alone, pulling it toward me. “Doesn’t bother me a bit,” I say with a smile. I’ll be damned if she’s going to get the response she’s looking for: me eyeing her drink longingly, or rushing home because I can’t stand to be around the booze.

I snuggle Charlie in closer. “Want to go read a book after we’re done with our snack, honey?”

“Okay!” he says, kicking his legs out and letting them fall back again. His heels smack against my shins.

“Sh—Ouch!” I’m thrilled that is the only word that pops out of my mouth. It could have been—and almost was—much worse. “Watch it, there, Mr. Man. Your mom bruises easily.”

He twists his head around and lands a wet, cocoa-scented smack on my lips, then looks up at me with adoring eyes. He knows I’m a sucker for his kisses. “Sorry, Mama. I didn’t mean to.”

I set my forehead against his. “I know you didn’t. It’s okay.”

“Martin was that way, too,” Alice says, sipping from her mug.

I lift my gaze to her. “Really? What way was that exactly?” I’m not sure how successful I am at masking the automatic defiance I feel.
Don’t you dare criticize my child,
I think.
Don’t you
dare.

She lowers her drink, curls up the corners of her mouth. “A little careless with his movements.” She shrugs. “Not intentionally, of course. Just a little wild.”

“Huh.” “Wild” is not a word I’d associate with my ex-husband. Ordered? Definitely. Charismatic? When he wanted to be. Moody? Too often. But wild? Not that I’d ever seen.

“Charles reminds me so much of his dad.” Alice winks at Charlie, which makes me think she must have something in her eye. Charlie happily munches away on his second cookie. “Don’t you?”

“Yep!” Charlie exclaims, spraying crumbs onto the table in front of him and into my cocoa. I set my drink down.

“Charles, be careful!” Alice says, though not as sternly as I’ve heard her be with him before.

“Sorry, Omi.” He bats his big blue eyes at her and I see her body immediately soften. That’s something new. A few months ago, she was barking at him for staining his jeans. Apparently, he’s learned how to charm her.

“It’s okay.” Alice looks at me and lifts her jaw, blinking a couple of times. “He’s a good boy, Cadence. I want you to know that.”

I hesitate, unsure what to say. Maybe the Bailey’s is stronger than I previously thought. Or maybe she started drinking it before I got here. I can’t think of any reason outside of inebriation that she would be this nice to me.

“Mommy knows that, Omi,” Charlie jumps in, saving me. “She helped
make
me, remember?”

Alice watches my face and I don’t let my eyes drop. “You’re right,” she finally says. “She did.” She stands up, steps over to the counter. She grabs a dish rag from the sink behind her and vigorously wipes the stove of invisible spills. “Stay as long as you like,” she says.

“Thank you,” I say. I take her words for what they’re worth. It’s as close to a truce as we’re likely ever to come.

After leaving Charlie at Alice’s house, I try not to think about what Mr. Hines might have gathered from the meeting with Martin or what further conclusions he is coming to about me, my ability to parent, my drinking. The fact that I ever put my child in danger causes my heart to constrict. It threatens to stop beating altogether when I allow myself to consider the possibility that I won’t get him back at all. The thought strikes me that Martin might really succeed here—he might take my son away from me.

There’s still my mother,
I think as I pull into my driveway.
But who knows what she’s going to say.
I’ve left her alone since our last conversation, not wanting her to feel pressured to give me an answer, considering all the painful memories my drinking brought up for
her. And yet. She is my mother. Part of me wishes she could just let down her guard and show up for me once in my life.

Then I remember how her own mother abandoned her. First emotionally, with her drinking, then physically, when she died. Tenderness wells up in me as I close my eyes and put my mother in Charlie’s place—a little girl, unable to protect herself from her mother’s unstable, drunken rage. How she must have hidden herself—first in her room beneath the covers, then in the deepest recesses of her own soul. The walls she built were high and strong; I knew, because as her child many years later, I couldn’t break through them. She learned that cutting off emotion was the only way to keep herself safe, the only way to survive, then she passed that lesson on to me. If I hadn’t stopped drinking, I wonder if Charlie would have eventually learned that same thing from me.