The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance (15 page)

I called on Zack. I missed most of what he said, trying not to look at my mom.

After the meeting she slipped out. She didn't stay for the part at the end, where we stand in a circle and say the Serenity Prayer. She sort of spun away without any noise about it. I thought maybe I'd dreamed the whole thing up.

Zack came up to me and said, “Hi, Cynthia.” Nobody called me Cynnie now. I never even had to ask them not to. They just sort of saw on their own that I had grown up some. But until Zack said it just then, I didn't know what he called me anymore. Because we hadn't talked for a long time. Zack said, “I had something like that happen to me.”

I thought he meant his mom showed up at a meeting. I had my mom on the brain. Also, I was upset because he was talking to me. I couldn't look at his face so I looked at the floor. My throat felt weird inside. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, I went back to this guy I used to work for. Told him I lifted a few dollars out of the till. I said I'd pay it back when I could. He said, ‘Admitting you're a thief doesn't make you any less a thief.’”

“Oh. Like Richie, you mean. What'd you say?”

“I said, ‘Well, maybe so, but I'm not going to steal anymore, and
that
makes me a
lot
less of a thief.' He never did cut me any slack, though. Even when I paid him back. Hey. You got a minute to talk?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

I heard myself say it to him like I was listening to somebody else. I could've sworn I was about to tell him to go to hell. But then somebody with my voice said “okay.” And all I could do was watch it, like I was in some other part of the room. Like I wasn't even in my body.

We sat in a couple of chairs at the very back.

“I wanted to make an amends to you,” he said. Right away I felt like I wanted to cry, but I didn't let that happen. “I handled things so wrong with you and me. I'm so sorry. I
do
like you. I always did. Just not like that. But I didn't know what to say to you or what to do and I ended up making a big mess of things, and I know I really hurt you with what I said. I should've said something sooner. And I'm sorry for that. Really sorry. But what I'm most sorry for is sort of … I don't know how to say it.” A long pause. “The loneliest I ever was in my life is when I was with Rita. I shouldn't have used you to try to fix it. I'm not just saying it because I need to say it to get through a step. I really feel bad about it.”

I still couldn't look at his face.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“So … you forgive me?”

“Sure.”

But we could both hear by the way I said it that even if I was trying to forgive him, I wasn't doing such a great job.

Just before we walked out the door together he said, “What was your mom doing here? Is she in the program now?”

So. I hadn't dreamed the whole thing up.

“Zack,” I said, “your guess is just about as good as mine.”

Pat was waiting for me outside.

“I'm real proud of you,” she said.

“For what?” Now I had Zack on the brain. I thought maybe she was proud of me for sitting down and talking to him, or maybe she even thought I was back there making my amends.

“For your six months, what do you think?”

“Oh. Right.”

“I know that thing with your mother threw you.”

“You have no idea.”

“Anyway. Got a present for you.”

“You do?”

She looked at me sideways and laughed because of the way I said it. I guess I made it sound like she'd just said I won seventy million dollars or something. “Didn't anybody ever give you a present before?”

We started walking together, toward her car. “Not lately,” I said. “And even when my mom used to get me stuff, it was bad stuff. She'd get me dresses. I hate dresses. But she wanted
me to like them. So she'd get me dresses. Which is even worse than most lame presents, because it wasn't even really a present. I mean, it wasn't for me. It was for her. I always really resented that.”

We got to her car and got inside, and she threw this little envelope into my lap. It didn't look like a present. It just looked like a card.

“It's not a dress,” she said.

I picked it up and shook it, just to be funny. Just to be a punk. “You sure?” Something slid around in there.

I opened it up, and inside was a phone card. A prepaid phone card.

“Oh, my God,” I said. First I couldn't talk at all. Then, after a bit, I said, “This is the best present ever.”

“It's not
that
big of a deal,” she said. Like I was embarrassing her.

“Yes, it is. It totally is.” It was the first time someone gave me something that showed they were actually listening. That they actually listened to me, to hear what I would want. “It
is
a big deal,” I said. “Because it's actually for me.”

A minute later, while we were driving, I said, “Remember when you said that thing to me about not being able to feel my feelings? You said people will say something bores them, and they don't even know they're really scared? I was scared to death to get a job. Or even look for one. I didn't know it until just now, when I could feel how relieved I was that I didn't have to.”

“Everybody's scared of stuff like that,” she said.

“Really?”

“Especially when they're feeling vulnerable for some reason.”

“Yeah. I felt like, maybe later, when I sort of … have my feet on the ground more. But my life feels so … overwhelming. I just couldn't add on something scary like that.”

“Does this make you feel any more sympathetic toward your mom?”

At first I didn't even get what she meant, and I guess it showed.

“Didn't you jump all over your mom because she won't go out and get a job?”

“Well, yeah, but … she's the mom. She really should.”

“Okay, granted. But now do you get why it's hard?”

I knew I should. I heard what she was saying. But I wasn't quite feeling it.

“I'll work on it,” I said.

When I got home, my mom was in the kitchen, standing at the sink, pouring a big quart bottle of gin down the drain. She turned when she saw me come in. We looked at each other's faces for a minute. I don't think she was drunk.

I said, “So. You're serious about this.”

She smiled in that way that didn't make her look happy. “I guess I can do it if you can.”

I nodded, but I didn't say anything. I wasn't so sure about this. Those meetings felt kind of private. My new place. I wasn't sure I wanted to share all that with my mom. But it felt
like one of those thoughts you're not supposed to have. I figured I'd talk to Pat about it. I could talk to Pat about anything. Even weird stuff like that.

She went into the living room and sat down on the very edge of the couch, kind of perched there, like the couch was the wrong size all of a sudden. She looked uncomfortable.

She hadn't thrown the bottle away; it was just sitting there on the counter. Even though it was empty, it made me a little nervous. So I stuffed it way down in the kitchen trash. When I looked up she was sitting the same weird way, but with her fingers all laced together in her lap, like she had no idea what to do with them. She looked up and saw me watching her.

“What am I supposed to do all day, Cynthia?” I remembered how that felt. I went in my room and got my Big Book. That's what they call the book about AA. It's sort of like a textbook. I brought it out and set it in her lap.

“Here,” I said. “Do some reading. It passes the time.”

When I called Pat that night, like I did every night, we didn't really talk all that much about what happened with my mom. I mean, what was there really to say? We both knew it made me uncomfortable. But I had to at least try to be supportive. Besides, I didn't figure it would last. That's a horrible thing to say, I know. But it's the God's honest truth.

We talked more about Zack. “Do I have to forgive him for what he said to me? Just because he wants me to?”

Pat said, “That's actually a two-part question. You definitely don't have to do it because he wants you to. You're doing it for you. And you don't have to, no. But it really makes us sick when we hang on to resentments like that.”

“Why
should
I forgive him? Maybe that's a better question.”

“Well, let me see. How much time do you have? How 'bout because he said it out of caring for you? He saw you were on the wrong road, and he was trying to warn you. And ever since then you been on a better path. You might never have gotten sober and straightened around for real if he hadn't been there with that wake-up call. How 'bout the fact that it hurts you a lot more than it hurts him when you don't? You're hanging on to all this hurt and anger, and who is it hurting? You or him? It's like you're so mad at him, you're beating yourself up. It doesn't make good sense.”

I sighed. I sort of got what she meant. But I didn't feel any more ready to do it.

“Give it a little more time,” she said. “Work on another one in the meantime. An easier one. Like that boy with the weird nickname.”

“Snake's gone, though.”

“You can still do the work. Write down the amends. And then just put it aside. If you ever see him again, you'll give it to him. That's all you can do for now. Except you might say a little prayer that shows you're
willing
to make your amends to him. You know. If you ever got the chance. So long as you're willing. That's the most important part of the whole deal, right there.”

I sat up in my tree house having more thoughts I probably shouldn't have had. I was thinking, Now every time I go in the house she'll want to … like … talk to me. Or something. I'd gotten used to sort of living on my own almost. I wasn't sure how much I wanted to get to know her.

I knew I should've told more of this stuff to Pat.

Then I said a little prayer about Snake. I guess you could call it a prayer. I wasn't too sure about the whole God thing, but Pat said you don't have to call your Higher Power “God” if you don't want. She said at first use the group. A whole group of people trying to get healthy is bigger and more powerful than one little member, right? But I couldn't exactly pray to my AA group. So I just sort of said prayers and threw them out there, like when you put a message in a bottle and throw it in the ocean, and you don't know yet who's going to get it. Maybe I'd get clearer on that stuff later on.

I said I was sorry about what happened with Snake, and that I didn't know where he was, but if I did, I'd tell him. I'd try to make it right with him. I said, whoever you are out there, just so you know, if you want me to make amends to Snake, walk him by here. I'll do my bit.

I stayed up there all afternoon and evening, writing letters to Snake even though I wouldn't know where to send them. I wrote about ten. Each one seemed to get a little closer to the right things to say.

Somewhere around bedtime my mom came out and stood under the tree and called up and asked if we had any milk.

That seemed like a weird question. I mean, did she forget where we keep it, or what?

“I dunno,” I said. “Look in the fridge.”

“I did. There's none in there.”

“Well, where the hell else would it be?” I could hear my voice go up as I said it. I was trying not to be snotty to my mom, but this was just too much. “I mean, you just open the refrigerator door. It's either there or it's not. This is not brain surgery. Milk is in the fridge.”

Then everything just got quiet, and I got to feel bad for what I said. Just like the old days. I looked down and she was looking at the ground. Hurt.

That's when it hit me that she'd been asking me to help. I closed my eyes and sighed. “Want me to run to the store and get some?”

“Would you, Cynthia? That would be nice. I thought some hot milk might help me sleep.”

I climbed down and she gave me a couple of dollars and I ran to the market.

On the way back, there was this guy, this kid, walking behind me. First on the other side of the street. Then on my side. I was starting to get nervous. He was getting a little closer. I was just about to break into a run.

I heard him say, “Hey! Cynnie!”

I stopped and turned around.

It hardly looked like Snake at all. His hair was all grown out, and he didn't look chunky. He looked older. But I knew it was him. I guess I partway knew it would be.

I was kind of expecting him.