Marshmallows for Breakfast (44 page)

“I started drinking again.” Her voice was only a fraction above a whisper. So quiet, so devastating I wondered if I'd conjured up those words to further demonize her.

When she stilled her swing by putting her feet down and twisted to face me, I realized she'd said it. And it was the only thing she could say that would make me speak to her.

“I'm listening,” I said to Ashlyn.

“I haven't told anyone else,” she said, her voice barely above a fragile whisper. She spoke carefully, as though she might shatter with every word and not be able to continue. She looked down, away, at her satin- covered lap, her hands still gripping onto the chairs. “Jaxon knows. He found me passed out on the sofa. Summer doesn't know. Or maybe she does—she's started having nightmares, I think because she can smell the alcohol on me and it reminds her… Of this one time. She doesn't sleep through the night anymore …” Ashlyn's voice trailed away. “I stopped going to meetings,” she said. “It was too hard when I… When we first came here, I wasn't sure if he'd called the police, if he'd called my sponsor or if he was out looking for me. I didn't want to associate too much with people in case he found out so it was easier not to go. I had the kids to focus on.

“I'd forgotten how much work they were. All the attention they need. I'd only seen them for a few days at a time
here and there over the past six months or so. And before that… I'd been getting sober. Or so I told myself. I can see now that I was just a nondrinking alcoholic. I wasn't trying to stop being an alcoholic. I went to meetings but I wasn't doing the steps. I just stopped drinking and was miserable with it. I wasn't working towards anything, I was just not drinking and wearing it like a badge: ‘Look what a good girl I am, I'm not drinking.’

“I loved having Jaxon and Summer back. It felt as though a part of me had been returned. I didn't realize how numb, how dead inside I'd felt without them. And then my mother came to stay for a week.”

Her mother?
The bitch. The lying bitch. She did know where they were and she'd tortured Kyle like that. She had bluffed him with that thing of calling the police.
The bitch. I hope I never meet her. Never. I really will hurt her. If not physically, then verbally.

“I could get out of the house, so for something to do, I decided to go to a few meetings,” Ashlyn was saying.

Ashlyn could get out of the house, so for something to do, she decided to go to a few meetings. She hadn't told her mother about her problem; of course she hadn't. Instead she said she was meeting a few friends. Walking into the rooms was worse after the break from the meetings. She hadn't been drinking but it was awful. She said hello to a few people, got herself a cup of coffee and sat at the back in the corner on a fold-out chair. She was self- conscious this time around. Anxious. Probably because she hadn't been for so long. Or maybe because of what happened over the next hour. For the first time it really hit her what this meant.

She was like them. In the past, she'd sat there and listened and thought,
I'm not like them. I'm not that bad. Despite
what Kyle thinks, I'm not as bad as them.
Now she realized that she was. Maybe it was having the kids on her own. Maybe it was knowing that she couldn't talk to anyone else afterwards. But it was sinking in. She'd hurt her family. She'd repeatedly insulted her husband. She'd all but ruined her career.

The worst thing for her, though, was that she realized she could never have another drink.

Not ever. If she was an alcoholic, she could never drink again. Not to celebrate a birthday, not at a party, not to relax at night, not to take the edge off if the world felt prickly and unsafe.

It's not true,
she told herself. It couldn't be true. Maybe she was different. Maybe she was the alcoholic who could just control her drinking. She'd stopped for so long and hadn't really been to meetings, which showed that maybe she was different. She could just give it a go. Have one glass and prove to herself, prove to Kyle, prove to the rest of the world that she was better. She was cured of her alcoholism.

When her mother left she decided to give controlled drinking a try. She'd have one glass and that was it. She was better, she wasn't an alcoholic anymore, so she could do that. She'd never been able to have one drink in her life, not ever, but she could do it now. Just to prove a point.

She didn't drink the night she made her decision. She wanted it so badly so she stopped herself. Reminded herself that the craving would pass in a few hours. And it did. This was the reasonable side of her at work, the side that knew she wasn't an alcoholic. She had a problem if she was craving the drink, which would make her experiment fail. She'd wait until the craving passed and then have a drink. That would be how this would work out—she'd only drink when she didn't want it and she'd be able to stop. Who on earth would be able to stop once they gave in to a craving?

Two days later she bought a bottle of wine. Then a second one because she was going to prove that she didn't need it. She could drink one glass and have another bottle in the house and not even touch it. It was part of the experiment. Proving the point she was cured.

That first taste of wine was so clear in her mind, even now, two weeks later. How wonderful it felt in her mouth, sliding down her throat. The second mouthful was almost as delicious, her head swooned and she felt the first wave of that familiar warmth moving gently through her. She hadn't felt that free in what felt like a lifetime. She smiled. A grin that came from doing something she loved. This was what life was about. Not all that stuff, not all that needing to do things and think about things. You needed to relax sometimes, you owed it to yourself. The third taste sent her back to happier times.

She didn't remember the fourth taste. Nor the fifth or sixth. The next thing she did remember was waking up on the sofa. Jaxon was on the floor in front of the television with the sound turned down (because that's what she used to make them do when she had a hangover) and racing his car around one of the two empty wine bottles. She had one arm stuffed into her coat, the rest of her coat hanging off the end of the sofa, and her car keys were in her hand. She felt a thin thread of shame slither down her spine—she'd obviously wanted to get some more wine but had passed out first.

Her experiment hadn't worked. But that was because she hadn't tried hard enough. She bought more wine—four bottles instead of two. If she had more wine she wouldn't be tempted to drink and drive if the experiment failed again.

After a fortnight of trying and failing to prove she was normal, that she was cured, Ashlyn woke up again on the sofa. This time Jaxon was standing over her, desperately shaking her. His face was twisted with worry, his eyes wide and frightened. He'd obviously been trying to wake her for a while. It was pitch black outside; the only light in the room came from the television. “Summer's sick,” Jaxon said. Even through the fuzz of alcohol she could see how scared he was, then she heard Summer's screams from upstairs.

Oh God, oh no.
Ashlyn struggled to her feet, but she couldn't remember how her legs worked. They wobbled under her and she collapsed back onto the sofa. Jaxon was moving from one foot to the other, wringing his hands and constantly looking up to where his sister was screaming. Ashlyn pulled herself up again and, walking on legs of rubber and through a dense fug of sleep and wine, she managed to stumble up the stairs after her son.

“Summer was still asleep. She was covered in sweat, and thrashing about in the bed, screaming. I managed to wake her up and she started burbling about the goo. The goo was trying to get her. I couldn't even comfort her properly because I could hardly speak, could hardly hold her. In the end it was Jaxon who got on the bed and told her it'd be OK. ‘Don't worry Summer,’ he said, ‘I won't let it get you. Me and Garvo will protect you.’ And he hugged her. Patted her head. My six-year-old son was being mother to my daughter because I couldn't.

“I sat and watched while Jaxon comforted her. He ended up sleeping in her bed and I went to the other room and passed out again. I called Kyle the next day. I had a moment of clarity and I realized they had to be with Kyle right now. They need stability.”

I was stunned. Ashlyn had done this to her children. For real. Her voice had been full of sorrow as she talked, she had to keep stopping to take deep breaths, to pull herself together. But she had done this to her children. She had done this to herself and to other people.

“I know that one day I'll be able to give the kids stability,”
she was saying. “One day soon. I have to get sober properly, though. I have to get sober for my kids.”

“What about getting sober for you?” I asked.

Ashlyn glared at me with eyes slick with tears. “Summer and Jaxon are the two most important things in my life.”

“I know. But you didn't drink for your kids, you drank for you. Because you've got this sickness. So maybe getting sober should be about doing it for you, so you can be in good shape for them, rather than pinning success or failure on them. I'm always hearing that you have to take care of you first before you try to take care of anyone else.”

Even in the darkness I saw her cheeks flame up as fury spiraled into her eyes and embedded on her expression. She was angry. She hadn't heard what I said, she had heard me criticizing her love of her children. Which I hadn't. I was pointing out that “doing it for her kids” was a fast track to unhappiness. Because if she did slip again she would tell herself it was because she didn't love her kids enough, she would tell herself that she was a bad person, she would tell herself there was no point trying to stay sober. She had to do it for her.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I shouldn't have said anything, you obviously know what you're doing.”

“I'm telling you this,” she was struggling—and spectacularly failing—to keep anger out of her voice, “because I love my children. More than anything. I'll do anything for them. Being around me at the moment is not good for them. They need Kyle. He's steady and stable …” Her voice cracked. “I don't want to do this,” her words came out in a teary rush. “I want to be with them. I want to hold them every day in a bear hug. I want to watch Summer dance to TV theme music and Jaxon talk to his imaginary dog. I want to wake up every morning and know that they're going to say or do
something different from yesterday.” Tears were dripping off the end of her pert nose but she didn't wipe them away. “But that's all about me. They want a normal life. With me and Kyle back together, I know it. And that can't happen right now. Maybe in the future but not now.

“You have to decide what you're going to do.” Ashlyn was talking about me now. About me, to me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You have to decide if you're going to stick around or not. Summer and Jaxon love you. It tears me up inside to say that.” She put her hand over her heart, to show where it hurt. “They were constantly accidentally calling me Kendie, which reminds me how much you must be around them.” Her thin hand pressed harder on her heart. “I won't let them be hurt anymore. If you aren't going to be around for the foreseeable future, until the time when they don't need you, then you leave now. You go now. Don't let them fall even more in love with you and then you go off, decide to live your life somewhere else. If you stay in their lives now, you're in their lives forever. If you can't commit to that, then you leave.”

She slid off her swing, stood in front of me with her arms folded. Maybe against the cold, maybe to put the frighteners on me.

“I've been a terrible mother, and I'm going to stop anyone else doing that to them again. You stay for good or you leave.”

Just to be dramatic, I think, she turned and walked away.

I watched her leave as what she said sunk in. What she'd asked of me was the equivalent of me taking a pregnancy test and discovering that I was pregnant. Realizing I had to make a choice: keep the baby or not; stay with Jaxon and Summer or leave; say good-bye to the possibility of happiness and
marriage and adoption with someone I hadn't met yet or stay forever where I'd always be second-best.