I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway (28 page)

After an hour or so and a bunch of crudites, my high begins to subside, and some of my self-consciousness (er, paranoia) wears off. Then my worst nightmare occurs.

Nora, the pert, short-haired mother of little Olivia (or Amelia, or Isabelle, or some such turn-of-the-century name), perkily says to me, “Tracy, were you really
stoned
when you got here?”

She doesn’t mean anything by it, but my stomach sinks. Or rather, drops like an elevator in an action movie where the bad guy has just cut the cable with a dozen innocent people inside, including children and old people.

“No,” I lie halfheartedly. And, I hope, convincingly.

“Ohhh,” Nora trills, “because you seemed, well, really stoned.” She’s smiling broadly. It’s almost as if she, too, is a pot smoker and was hoping I’d hook her up with something. But what she’s saying is way too close to the truth for me, the truth I’ve been trying really hard not to have to acknowledge.

Later, that night, I’m at home with Dan. The baby is asleep. I am thinking of what Nora said with an intensity that I usually save for thinking about the power lines and Gwyneth. “She knew, Dan,” I say plaintively. I feel caught. I’m angry and desperate. “She
knew
!”

“Oh, Tracy, calm down.” Dan’s dismissing me, as usual, not so much because he’s being mean but because if he doesn’t, he’s going to catch what I’ve got. Anxiety is more contagious than chicken pox.

“I’m
serious
!” I’ve never wanted Dan to concur with me more. “I’m a terrible mother.”

I burst into tears, or what passes for tears for me—a moistness at the corners of my eyes, accompanied by a manic, stormy energy. “I don’t think I can do this anymore,” I say quietly. “I don’t think I can.”

Dan looks at me, worried. He knows that if my life changes—any part of my life—his life will change, too. And he’s very well adapted to the way things are. It’s like how none of your appliances work in Europe because the shape of the plug is all wrong. He’s worried that if I change, his battery charger will be useless. So he tells me not to change.

“You’re fine, Tracy.”

“I’m not fine, Dan.”

“You’re fine.” That’s it. Dan’s final answer.

I know I’m not fine. This isn’t how I wanted to be a mother. I was
determined to do better than my parents, and alcoholism and drug dependency—even if I can convince
you
that I’m okay—do not fit with that picture.

Here’s how I know for sure. I give myself what I call the Grocery Store Survey Challenge. I imagine myself emerging from Ralph’s, where there are a couple of college kids with matching T-shirts holding clipboards. They’re taking a survey.

“Excuse me, ma’am, can I ask you a couple of quick questions?”

“Sure,” I say. I like to think of myself as a nice person who helps out when possible.

“Great,” says the girl, smiling brightly. “Okay, first question.” She adopts an officious voice, like a community-organizer version of Alex Trebek. “If you were the mother of a baby and/or toddler, would you drink a bottle of wine every day?”

Oh. This one’s easy. “Of course not!”

The girl checks the “of course not” box. She smiles. I think I got that one right. “Next.” Her pen is poised. “How about smoking endless joints?”

I yank my neck back a couple of inches in an exaggerated gesture of
fuck no!
“No way!” I say, chuckling. The idea is so ludicrous I can laugh at it.

At least in my fantasy I can.

But in real life, it’s not so easy. It’s not
how much
I drink, or
how much
marijuana I smoke, or
how often
I do whatever other drugs are put in front of me—I could easily rationalize, or minimize, or justify all that, and you would believe me because it’s really not all that much and I hide it well and you’re probably doing even more than me because I like to hang around with people who do more than me, since they make me feel a lot better than people who don’t—it’s that, in my heart of hearts (per the Grocery Store Survey Challenge), I know I’d rather not be doing what I’m doing. Which leads me back to my original question. If I’d rather not be doing what I’m doing, then why am I doing it?

I already know the answer: because I can’t stop.

I really don’t want that to be the answer.

TURNS OUT REHAB
is not really that bad. I went outpatient. Six nights a week for thirty days. Dan would come home from work, I’d hand him the baby, and he’d hand me the keys to the 1977 wood-paneled station wagon we bought on a whim for $800. Then I’d drive—in rush-hour traffic—to Van Nuys (an act of willingness if there ever was one), and sit on a folding chair from six to ten
P.M
. in a circle with a dozen other losers fortunate enough to still have spouses, jobs, and health insurance. Or spouses with jobs and health insurance. It is the most time I’ve ever spent away from Sam.

For the first hour I can’t get over how bad the fluorescent lights are, but right after that this amazing thing happens: I really want to never drink again. Really. Never. And I am willing to do anything not to have to.

Almost a year later,
I’m
still going strong, but my marriage isn’t. I first allow my real feelings to come to the surface during a phone call with my dad. He wants to know, as usual, how the marriage is going.

“Fine. I guess.”

“You
guess
? What do you mean by that, Tracy Renee?” My dad’s not stern, he’s just inquisitive.

I really want to tell him what I mean by that. I want to tell
someone
. But I’m afraid to say out loud what I’ve known since that first night in rehab, because things that are said out loud have a way of coming true. So I crack a joke.

“Well, the marriage is fine. But I’m ready to start dating.”

I laugh. My dad laughs. He knows exactly what I’m talking about.

But it’s not funny. I really can’t stop wanting to leave Dan. This is just the first time I’ve dared utter it. I’m filled with this driving urge to be alone, to ruin something, and to have sex, all at once. It’s like the Pimp’s Daughter has resurfaced—she’s been safely contained in
a Ziploc bag (of weed) all this time, and now she wants to party. But not with drugs. Those are messy and debilitating.

With men. (Like they aren’t messy and debilitating.)

That part of me—the Pimp’s Daughter—whispers in my ear about how different I am now, how I’ve changed since I’ve had a baby, how it’s time to explore my sexuality—finally.
You’ve been holding back so long,
she tells me.
It’s time to find out who you
really
are.
And I can’t stop believing her.

But I’m not a cheater, and I’m a crummy liar, so only one choice remains.

Leaving.

I have a million “reasons” to leave: Dan only married me for the baby, Dan never really talks to me, Dan didn’t want me to stop drinking, Dan’s super shut-down, Dan refuses to dig deep into himself (and digging deep has now become my raison d’être), Dan’s dismissive of me, Dan hardly ever spends time with me when there isn’t a gaggle of band members around us. And also, did I mention Dan’s super shut-down and he refuses to dig deep within himself?

Dan’s a very big problem for me, apparently.

But hindsight will show me that underneath all of these reasons is a realer, larger reason. I don’t know how to just
be
with a man. Oh, I
think
I do. I think that all I need to do is find a more talkative guy who “understands me” and I will be able to form a real partnership. I think it is my choices that have been the problem—my so-called “picker” is broken—because when I was drinking I just didn’t know myself well enough to choose well. And that’s sorta true.

But secretly I would just like to have another spin of the wheel, another roll of the dice, another walk in the park, another go at falling in love. It feels so good, and I’m not ready yet to
never
feel that again. Never is a really long time.

I’m like a kid at a carnival who throws a dart at a balloon and wins a prize and now wants to bring it back and win another one. It’s not so much that I don’t like the prize. It’s that I really
like throwing darts. I like the high of popping the balloon and hoping that this time I’m going to get the super jumbo-size stuffed animal.

I spend hours debating what to do about my marriage with girlfriends who have zero experience in any kind of successful long-term relationship. They totally support my vision for the life I’m
really
supposed to be living. It’s a vision that involves two things: “getting what I want” and “getting my needs met.”

ME

I really don’t know what to do. I want to leave. But I feel guilty.

MY FRIEND

Guilty? It doesn’t sound like your needs are being met.

ME

You’re
right
. That’s the question. Are my needs being met?

MY FRIEND

It doesn’t sound like it. I mean, is this what you really
want
?

ME

God. Right. Is this what I want? Not really. I mean, Dan barely even talks to me. The other day, I said something about, oh, I don’t know, the weather, and he didn’t even look up from his newspaper!

MY FRIEND

That’s, like, abusive. To be ignored like that.

ME

But what about Sam?

MY FRIEND

He’s better off with two happy parents apart than miserable parents together. He’ll be okay. Look how I turned out.

ME

That’s true. [Deep sigh.] I guess it’s over.

MY FRIEND

Sounds like it.

…and
scene.

This is much, much more difficult than leaving Kenny. My guilt is so much bigger. Dan is a good person who deserves better than this, better than me, better than my crazy life. I feel terrible for getting him all mixed up in this. At least I gave him an amazing son. Which goes some, but not all, of the way toward assuaging my guilt.

Although I worry about the long-term consequences of my choice, the truth is, nothing—not even my beautiful baby boy—can stop me from going. I console myself with the knowledge that a person can only make decisions based on the information at hand. And since I believe that everything unfolds perfectly, I trust that if I was supposed to know, right now, in 1999, that Dan is a totally fine husband, I would know it.

I just wish it didn’t have to end like this.

PAUL AND I AREN’T
the only ones who want to see the hugging guru—there are thousands of people here. We’re at an ashram set on a back road about thirty-five miles from San Francisco. People are milling about everywhere while they wait for their hugs (called “
darshan
” in Hindi), giving the place the feeling of a Grateful Dead Show, except with meditation. There are people from every walk of life here, Silicon Valley technocrats, Marin County housewives, San Francisco urban-primitives, devotees clad head to toe in Indian garb, and children—dozens upon dozens of lovely, sparkling children.

The ashram is set on acres of rolling hills, just exactly as you’d expect. It’s a wonderful place to spend the day. Or it would be if I wasn’t twitching with anxiety. Ever since Paul and I got here, took a seat, and started waiting for our hug, I’ve had this awful sense of foreboding.

“I’m going to go look at the books for sale,” Paul says.

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll be right here.”

Paul gets up and heads for the area where the vendors have set up stalls with books, jewelry, and clothing for sale, leaving me to sit in the big hall by myself. It’s a very large room, about the size of the sanctuary at Hope Lutheran Church, with many rows of chairs facing forward, where the guru receives her acolytes. If you imagine one of those Renaissance period paintings with Jesus surrounded by a whole mob of people, you’ll get a pretty good idea of the scene. I watch quietly as the guru clutches to her chest
each
and
every
person who comes forward to get the hug. It’s pretty amazing. Then she throws a few rose petals on their heads and they’re ushered off the dais as the next person comes forward. On and on. For hours.

“Are you here for the first time?” the woman next to me says. It takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me. She’s a nice-looking lady in her fifties, the kind who probably drives a late-model Volvo and is still married to her original husband. She’s obviously looking for a little conversation. My forte.

“Yeah.” I smile. “I’m here with my fiancé. We’re getting married in nine days! I talked him into coming here to get a blessing for our marriage.” The lady smiles at me like that’s a pretty good story, which it is.

“Oh, how wonderful,” she says. “Congratulations!”

“Thanks! We’re excited.”

“Well, this will change your life,” the lady says, nodding toward the newly hugged people staggering off the stage. She turns back to her meditation.

It’s not the first time I’ve heard that getting one of these hugs will
change your life. It seems kind of an overstatement, but then again, a lot of the people saying so are wearing, like, saris.

I sit there a while longer, suddenly aware that Paul’s not back yet.
Where did he go?
The familiar sensation of fear—the rapid heartbeat, the inability to take a deep breath, the scrambled thoughts—begins to descend upon me. When this happens, there’s nothing I can really do but wait until it subsides. Since I’ve quit drinking (and it’s been five-and-something years now) I’ve learned to listen for the exact wording of the obsessive thought as it races over and over in my mind. It’s always a clue to the underlying trauma I’m reliving as an anxiety attack.

I sit and tune in to my mind’s ear, which is blaring more or less what it always blares, one way or the other:

He’s gone.

SAM AND I ARE BACKING
out of the driveway. It’s a steep driveway and you have to be really careful as you go, taking it at just the right angle, or you’ll crash into someone coming down the narrow street below, or at the very least bottom out the car. I crane my neck around to look behind me, my arm slung wide over the passenger seat, which gives me a full view of my perfect little angel tucked—or should I say crammed—into his car seat in the back. His eyes are looking even more doleful than usual. I think it’s because he knows.