The Stories We Tell (25 page)

“I came out to see if you were okay. You seem totally freaked-out. Who is this lady?”

“I don't know, Gwen.”

“God, Mom. Why don't I believe you?”

The discomfort, the alternating currents of disdain and accusation, keep us silent until Gwen throws a curt “Whatever” over her shoulder and stalks back to the store.

“What am I going to do?' I ask, not to anyone in particular, but to the air where my daughter just stood.

No one answers because no one can.

 

nineteen

No one tells you this—that you can love your child so much that the hurt she feels becomes your own. That the pain rummaging through her soul unpacks your own hidden past and together the aches entwine. That there is a kind of eviscerated pain that makes you feel utterly helpless because you can't take the hurt away from her and claim it for yourself. And no one tells you that the things you fear aren't the things that get you in the end.

“Mrs. Morrison?”

“Yes?”

“It's Dylan. I think you need to come get Gwen. She's not looking so good.”

“What do you mean ‘not looking so good'?”

“She's been drinking, Mrs. Morrison. She's passed out, and I'm scared.”

When I think of all the phone calls I've dreaded—the truancy, the accidents, the broken hearts—this call, the one that ripped me from my sleep, well … it didn't even make the top ten. But it should have.

I speed through the streets of Savannah, oblivious to anything but my need to get to Gwen. Dylan's home is downtown, a downtown so far removed from Preston Street that it could be in a different country. This is a manicured street, with sturdy ancient homes surrounded by palmetto trees and solid live oaks. This is an area made of wealth and history and ghosts. The ghosts of the past are always here.

I run up the stairs to the front porch and bang on the door.

“Where is she?” I ask a disheveled Dylan, who opens the door immediately. “And where are your parents?”

“My parents are out of town. Gwen's in the living room.” He moves aside to let me in. “She drank whiskey straight from the bottle. I couldn't stop her.”

The living room looks like it could be in a magazine spread for chintz—all flowers and vines, all pink and green. My daughter, in her black T-shirt and jeans, is an ink stain in the midst of all this floral clutter. She's lying on the couch, bent over in child's pose, a yoga position for rest. Except she's not resting. Facedown, she's buried in the cushions and her arms are spread before her in surrender. Her legs are bent and her knees are digging into her stomach. I rush to her and now I hold her, attempt to lift her up. “Gwen!”

She doesn't answer and she is too heavy, too limp to lift. I turn her over and prop her head up on a pillow. She's breathing slowly but rhythmically. I say her name again and again without response. I look to Dylan.

“Tell me what happened.”

“She came here. I promise. I didn't call her or anything. There was no stopping her. I'm telling you. She was so upset. Like completely undone.”

“Go get me a cold washcloth.” I point toward what I think might be the kitchen.

“Good idea. Good idea.” He hustles to the kitchen.

I brush Gwen's hair back from her face. Black mascara and eyeliner have been smeared to the edges of her hairline and down her cheeks. She's pale, but there's a high red sheen to her cheeks.

Dylan reappears with a towel wrapped around ice, and a cold dishrag. I take both from him without thanks and wash Gwen's face. “Honey, it's Mom. Wake up.”

Dylan's voice interrupts. “I swear to God, I tried to stop her.”

“Why was she so ‘undone'?” Seeing my girl like this, the word seems perfect, tragically perfect.

“She was going on and on about some woman stalking her. And then she said you'd gone to see her at work and…” He pauses and sits on the floor to touch Gwen's knee. “She said you were freaking her out.”

“How much did she drink?” I ask.

“I don't know, because she'd started before she got here. She had some girl drop her off. I know you hate me, but I swear I tried to stop her.”

“I thought you broke up.”

“We did.”

My chest, already caving in with the weight of sorrow, is now crushed. My daughter went crawling back to the boy who'd left her. She got drunk enough to pass out.

I wash Gwen's face and lightly shake her shoulders. “Gwen, wake up. Please.”

That's when I hear the sirens. Like I need to hear sirens again.

“I called nine one one,” Dylan says. “When you were taking too long to get here … I called a few minutes ago.”

At Dylan's voice, Gwen opens her eyes and bends forward. “Oh God. I'm gonna throw up.”

Dylan jumps up and runs toward the kitchen again. “Not on the couch. No!”

The paramedics knock on the door, a loud, authoritative knock.

“Dylan,” I holler out, and hold Gwen upright against my chest. I feel her shudder. From maternal instinct, I hold my palms out for … well, just in case.

The knock comes again and a deep voice calls something unintelligible. Dylan comes from the kitchen and tosses a porcelain mixing bowl my way. It clatters to the floor and I reach down to pick it up, hold it beneath Gwen's face.

I place my hand under her chin and lift her face to mine. “I'm here.”

She covers her mouth with her hand and hiccups with a sob. Tears run down the sides of her face and she wipes at them.

“Don't let her puke on the couch. My mom will kill me,” Dylan says.

Gwen looks up at him. “You're sush an assshhole.”

Dylan doesn't hear her because he's gone to the front door for the paramedics—a man and a woman in dark blue uniforms—who rush to our side.

“Ma'am,” the man says, “please move aside so we can assess the situation.”

I hold up my hand. “She's fine. There's no reason for you to be here.” My heart is thumping against my chest like a jackhammer. It's a wonder they don't want to treat me.

“Who called nine one one?” the woman asks, and sets a box on the floor, then takes a stethoscope from around her neck.

“I did.” Dylan's voice isn't so sure now. “I couldn't get her to wake up. But I guess her mom—”

“She's okay,” I say. “You can go.”

The woman kneels next to Gwen and asks me again, “Can you please move aside?”

“This is my daughter,” I say. “And no, I won't move aside.”

“I'm Cathy,” she says. “And I need to check out your daughter.” She looks at Gwen. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Gwen.”

“Do you know what day it is? Do you know where you are?”

Gwen points to the bowl I'm holding and then she throws up nasty brown liquid that smells rancid and sour, like the back alley of a bar. It splashes onto my pants, the collar of my shirt. She heaves two more times and I hold back her hair, use my sleeve to wipe her cheek. “Get a towel, now,” I say to Dylan. “A wet one.”

“Gross,” Dylan says as he moves toward the kitchen.

Gwen closes her eyes and moans before answering Cathy. “It's Thursday and I'm at Dylan's house.” Her eyes roll up as she looks at me. “It's still Thursday, right?”

“No,” I say. “It's actually Friday morning. It's two
A.M.
”

Cathy puts the ends of the stethoscope in her ears and then bends toward Gwen. She listens to her chest, asks her to breathe in and out. “Deep breaths … deeper,” she says. When she's finished, she stands and looks down at me. “It's good she threw up. It would be best if we take her in for IVs and hydration, test to see if there's anything else in her system.”

Dylan reappears with a dirty dishcloth and a wet paper towel. His face is twisted and sad; I swear he wipes away tears. “Here, Mrs. Morrison.”

Cathy now turns her attention to Dylan while the other paramedic steps away to answer his squawking phone. “Did you give her the alcohol?” she asks. “Do you know what she ingested?”

“No way. No.” Dylan holds up his hands. “She just showed up like this.”

I wipe Gwen's face with the wet towel and twist her hair behind her head. “Did you take anything else?” I ask in a whisper. “Or only the whiskey?”

“It was just the Daniel's.” She bends over again, another heave racking her chest. Tears pour down her face, but she doesn't move to wipe them away this time.

“The Daniel's?” I look at Dylan.

“Jack … Jack Daniel's,” he says. “That's what I think she means.”

“That's what I mean,” Gwen says, so quietly that only I hear her.

“She hasn't had anything but whiskey,” I say to Cathy. “There's no need to take her to the hospital. I'm with her now.…”

Cathy stands up and her partner motions that they need to leave, “There's a call two blocks over.” They rush out of the house, leaving the front door open.

“We need to go home,” I say to Gwen. “Can you stand up?”

She nods, and yet when she stands, she stumbles forward, her shin slamming into the corner of the coffee table. She cries out with a mewling sound, swaying toward me. I grab her shoulder to steady her, wrap my arm around her waist.

The bowl, the porcelain mixing bowl that saved Dylan's mother's couch, sits on the same coffee table. Dylan points at it. “You have to clean that up.… I can't.”

Gwen lurches forward as if she's going to grab the bowl; I stop her. “I've got it,” I say.

She sits in the wing-back chair to the left of the couch and drops her face into her hands. “The room … it's upside down, inside out … something,” she says.

“Sit with her for a minute, Dylan.” I pick up the bowl and take it into the bathroom to dump out the bile, the remains of a terrible night. Then I rinse the bowl in the kitchen sink, throw away the towels. My stomach rolls with sickening nausea and I wash my hands twice before returning to the living room, but the smell comes with me, stuck to my shirt. I stop to stare at Dylan and Gwen. She's bent over with her head on his shoulder and he is petting her back like she's a dog. “It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.” He's repeating this mantra over and over, as if these are the only words he knows.

“Let's go,” I say as I reach their side. I take the porcelain bowl with us—just in case.

Gwen is awake for the twenty-minute car ride, but she doesn't say a word. By the time we pull into our driveway, she needs the bowl again. And I still don't say a word. In some ancient ritual, I find myself making the soothing sounds I'd once used when she was a baby, when her colicky cries echoed through the house, unabated by any effort on my part.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “I'm so, so sorry.” Her words are put together in a slushy string of apology.

I hug her small body. “I know.”

I tuck my drunk daughter into bed and place a cold washcloth on her face. “I'm going to get you some coconut water and ice,” I say. “It will help.”

She holds up her hand. “Don't tell Dad,” she mumbles. “Don't. He'll kill me.”

“Not right now. Not yet…”

“He's going to kill me.” She buries her face in the pillow. “Dead.”

I hold her tighter, closer, then even tighter.

All the talking will come later because, thank God, it can come later. There's a difference in what seems to matter and what
really
matters, what loss can be tolerated and what cannot be. I hold what matters, what I cannot lose.

*   *   *

I sleep late, the fatigue like concrete in my veins. Gwen sleeps later. It's four in the afternoon by the time she gets out of bed. And she looks terrible. Her eyes are swollen and her face pale, almost yellow. I've spent the day cleaning the kitchen, making chicken soup, checking on Gwen every thirty minutes to watch her sleep, to listen to her breathe in and out, in and out. She comes straight to me at the stove, where I'm lifting the tea kettle from the flame. Her left cheek is marked with the wrinkled impression of her pillow. “Mom.” Her voice cracks as it rises from her parched throat.

I turn to hug her and then pour the boiling water into a mug. “Here, baby.” I hand her a cup of chamomile tea. “And I made soup.”

She sits on the stool at the island and drops her face into her hands. “This is the worst I've ever felt. I'm so … stupid.”

I go to her and from behind I wrap my arms around her, drop my chin onto her head. “Let me get a couple Advil for you.”

“I'm grounded forever, aren't I?”

“Can we save that discussion for later?” I hug her one more time before opening the cabinet for the medicine. “But we do need to talk, Pea. You've got to talk to me. You can't do these things, or something terrible will finally happen.”

“You'll lecture me. Ground me. You don't get it.…”

“What don't I get?”

“How awful it all feels.”

“Why wouldn't I get that?”

“Because to you, everything is just perfectly perfect.” She twists in her seat and looks over her shoulder at me.

“Really? Perfectly perfect?” I ask, setting two Advil in front of her. “That's not true. I want to hear from you what is so awful that you can't tell me.”

“Everything. I can't tell you that I almost slept with Dylan and then he broke up with me. I can't tell you that I don't believe Dad. I can't tell you that I want to get stoned so I won't feel so bad. I can't tell you how much I hate you for being so stupid.”

I want to know what “almost slept with Dylan” means, but her last words come with such great force, they take my breath away.
I hate you.

“You hate me?” I stand next to her, touch her face.

“God, I don't know what I'm saying.” She buries her face into my shoulder. “I—I don't—hate you,” she stutters between breaths. “I just … There's so much happening and nothing makes sense. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”