Walking on Broken Glass (11 page)

My shoes blurred as I stared at them through eyes brimming with tears. How deeply had I disappointed him? I hadn’t allowed myself to think about him until now. After Mom died, he was like a man who’d spend days preparing a Thanksgiving meal only to watch it all rot because no one showed up. When he visited, he’d shamble around the house, following me from pantry to kitchen to laundry room to kitchen again. I learned not to stop too short or turn too quickly. He wanted so desperately to be needed.

“What can I do? Do you need to hang any pictures? I can do that for you. I’ve been looking at your garden. I could put more cypress mulch around the bedding plants in the front. How about a trellis?”

I’d tell Carl, “My dad's coming next week. Don’t fix anything. In fact, break something if you can. Are any pipes leaking? Faucets dripping?”

I didn’t think he’d call, at least not so soon. I didn’t want to think about him, figuring out how to fix his daughter. I doubt if he’d talked to Peter. He and my brother heard life through separate radio channels.

Maybe it was better Dad didn’t have to prepare my mother for this disgrace and failure in my life. I pictured him standing in his kitchen, surrounded by the new, fingerprint-proof, stainless steel appliances and emerald-green granite countertops my mother had selected only a few months before she died. He’d be talking on the cordless phone while he sat on a wicker stool near the raised bar. Neither one of them ever bought into the concept of cordless phone freedom. They’d hover near the phone base as if secured by an invisible line. My mother would tell me to “hold on” when she’d hear the microwave beep. She’d set the phone on the counter, ignore my screechings that she could carry me with her, and then return after she’d pulled out her cup of hot water for her tea. After several fruitless attempts to yank my parents into some degree of advanced technology, I surrendered. My father still ignored call waiting and usually erased messages on the answering machine in his attempts to listen to them.

By the time my phone restrictions ended, Dad would have had time to stir the news around, letting it dissolve like an Alka-Seltzer in water.

The elevator doors clanged open.

“How did he sound? My dad, I mean.” I pushed my words over the dam in my throat that held back rivers of regret and guilt and shame.

“Kind,” Cathryn said. “He sounded kind and caring and concerned, Leah. He told me all he wants is for you to be well. He said something along the lines of, ‘You take care of my baby, now. You know, she's my only daughter.’ No pressure, huh? Oh, I almost forgot.” She smiled, pulled paper and a pen from the counter, and handed them to me. “He said to write what you want to eat on your first weekend home, and he’d be there to cook it for you. In fact, he promised to cook extras for the staff.”

“My father believes any problem can be solved by raw oysters, a crawfish boil, and Blue Bell Natural Vanilla Bean ice cream slathered on hot apple pie,” I said.

“Who am I to argue with that?” Cathryn chuckled. “Write on, girl.”

That night my new dysfunctional family and I went to the cafeteria for dinner. I hadn’t spent more than five minutes with anyone in the group since the time I met everyone in the communal playroom. And even though Theresa was admitted after me, the crew already welcomed her. She knew Doug, so that put her miles ahead of me on the rehab food chain. I watched her move around and envied how easily she laughed with the group, chatted with the staff. But was I supposed to want to be like the woman who felt comfortable checking in for round two? Something about that seemed skewed. So, did recognizing the lunacy of that logic mean I was better or worse?

I trailed Benny and Vince, who argued over who would serve first at the volleyball game that night. Funny how the more a person's world shrinks, the more otherwise insignificant acts grow. I suspected this wasn’t the first time they had discussed this.

“Man, you suck at serving,” Vince said. “Come on, you seen me slam that ball over the net so hard, old Doug wished he’d be on his way to another blackout.”

“What? You think we’re here for Olympic tryouts or somethin’?” Benny playfully shoved Vince into the elevator. “How much fun you think it was standing there watching you pound the ball at them? We wanna play volleyball, not watch you be hero-server boy.”

Their banter continued as we walked through the cafeteria door. Annie brought a magazine with her. What a shocker. Guess she didn’t plan to engage in a stimulating dinner conversation. Had to give it to her. The chick used those mags as her “no talking” signs. And it worked. Of course, Doug and Theresa yapped on, totally involved in their little festival of memories.

I’m an outcast among outcasts. How pathetic. But what was I going to talk to these people about? Symbolism in
The Scarlet Letter
? Not exactly a mystery as to what brought us all together. Besides, my life compared to theirs was beyond boring. It wasn’t like we were going to have reunions after we left Brookforest. We couldn’t find each other anyway; we didn’t even know one another's last names.

“Hey, Miss, you gonna get a tray or what?” said Benny.

“Sure, I’m on it. Sorry,” I said, embarrassed to be so mesmerized by my conversation with myself.

I wasn’t sure if it was the sight of meat slabs soaking in juices the color of oil spills or the cacophony of pungent aromas that created a ruckus in my gut, but my tray didn’t make it past the salads. A geyser of yesterday's meals came up from my stomach and crashed its way to the shore of my mouth. I bolted to the bathroom.

Benny's voice followed me, “Miss, you forgot your tray.”

I
was alone.

Well, about as alone as a recovering alcoholic can be in a treatment center. After my mad dash out of the dining room, I skipped dinner and headed upstairs.

Jan had already started her shift and met me as I stepped off the elevator.

“Whatever they’re serving down there must be toxic. You look terrible,” she said and steered me to the sofa.

“Happy to see you too,” I told her and plopped on the cushions. Jan started to sit next to me, but I held up my hand to stop her. “If you’re going to sit, please be gentle. My stomach is sloshy, but I need something. How's the stash of Diet Cokes and crackers?”

“That's not dinner. You haven’t eaten well since you’ve been here. What about a sandwich? Or soup? Both?”

“None of the above. How about peanut butter and jelly? I can handle that.”

“No problem. In fact, you’re in luck. We already have peanut butter on the floor. It's Matthew's, but I’m sure he’ll be a good boy about sharing. I’ll send him down for some of those packs of jelly Cathryn told me you’re so attached to.” Jan patted my hand and walked down the hall to find the peanut butter.

By the time the crew returned from dinner and the ritual volleyball game, I‘d retreated to my bed. The gaggle of voices in the hall reminded me my new roomie would be joining me tonight, and Jan would be calling “lights out” soon. My moment of decision.

I could: a) stay awake and attempt a mini-bonding experience with Theresa, or b) turn off the lamp, wiggle under the covers, face the wall, and let her think I was sleeping. The kicker was neither option was an honest one. I’d either be pretending to want to be friendly with Theresa or pretending to be asleep.

The door creaked open.

“Man, how does this little white bread chick expect me to see in this room?”

Theresa flipped on the overhead lights, and I flipped on the bed. I plowed my face in the pillow.

So much for any of the above.

“Hey, I wake you up?”

The next morning I woke up to an empty room. Theresa's bed was unmade, and her boxer shorts and T-shirt were on the floor. At least she wasn’t the queen of neat. Not that, judging by her disorganized hair, I really expected her to be. But, obviously, I’d been wrong before about lots of things. Having to share a room with someone as bizarre as Theresa was enough to deal with. I certainly didn’t need my mother's clean clone following me into therapy.

My mother had a place for everything, and everything had its place. Dad referred to their house as the museum. In the kitchen, the collection of four tin canisters on the left side of the cook top all faced large apples out. In the family room, the coffee table arrangement moved left to right: a stack of three books chosen because the hardcover shades coordinated with the room's harvest colors, a woven basket filled with large pine cones Dad merrily brought home from the golf course (“Aren’t these remarkable, Lola? Can you believe the size of these things?”), and three inches up and two over, a fan of four magazines that were replaced monthly. I wouldn’t dare move one of her knickknacks for fear some silent alarm would reverberate in my mother's clean control room.

One night, after too much ouzo at the Greek Festival, Dad zigzagged through the crowd to find Carl and me as we watched the Hellenic Dancers. “Quick, gotta tell you the new name I came up with for your mother. Sh.” He looked around, spotted her, and waved as she stood in the bakery line for more baklava. “I’m … I’m getting Morrie over at the trophy shop to make a plaque for her. It's going to have her name and—” He slapped the table with giggling delight, “—a line that says, ‘official rep for the FBI—Female Bathroom Inspectors,’ and he's drawing a little toilet underneath.” He must have changed his mind when the anise-flavored liquor worked its way out of his system, because he was still alive months later.

All those years of cleaning, dusting, polishing, vacuuming, swishing, and swashing had taken their toll. When I finally moved out of my parents’ house, I became a creature of clutter. I surrounded myself with a happy jumble of books and papers and dishes, both clean and dirty. The disorder comforted me. Drove my mother crazy. She’d wince when she walked in. Probably itched to grab a roll of paper towels and a spray bottle of anything with the word “disinfectant” on the label. Clutter had a life of its own, but it gave me a chance to make order out of chaos. I’d experience a spiritual, Genesis-like satisfaction in seeing the gleam of an empty sink, the bareness of the polished pine desk.

So now I had a partner in grime. Maybe there was hope for us.

Oddly, no knocking on the door this morning to wake me. Maybe installing Theresa in my room was alarm enough. I showered and pulled on slouchy sweats Molly insisted I pack. “You have to wear something that lets you eat another bowl of ice cream.” My butt-freeing sweats and I stood on my toes by the sink. I was trying to reach the mirror to determine how much time I had before my eyebrows formed a straight line when the bathroom door swung open.

Theresa's body filled the open space of the door frame. Her perfume—and that would be a kind description—occupied the rest of the space. “Girl, you gotta learn to lock this door if we gonna be sharing this room.” She didn’t move. She stared.