Walking on Broken Glass (35 page)

Another first. Driving myself to an AA meeting. Big girl Leah. I did feel alone walking through the doors after weeks of being spilled in with the gang. I looked around for familiar Brookforest faces, but Rebecca told me they’d attended an earlier nonsmokers meeting.

“I thought that would end with my discharge. Guess Trudie's holding her own.” I laughed imagining Doug when he heard they weren’t stopping those.

Rebecca gave me a quick hug. “How's it going?”

“How much time do you have?” I wished I hadn’t promised Carl I’d be home right after the meeting. Just being in the room provided emotional weight loss. Not that the problems disappeared, but I knew I was surrounded by people who understood.

“Based on the expression on your face, I don’t have that much time,” she grinned. “We’re supposed to meet for lunch tomorrow. Let's meet thirty minutes earlier, and we can use that as dumping time. How's that sound?”

“Like a gift from God. Thank you,” I said.

From the front of the room, Charles hit the gavel a few times. “Let's get started. My name is Charles, and I’m an alcoholic. By the grace of God and the fellowship of this program, I’ve been sober eight years, five months, and twenty-two days.”

“Hi, Charles.”

“Any newcomers here tonight who’d like to introduce themselves?”

“Hello. My name is Leah, and I’m an alcoholic.”

W
eek One. Every day was like walking through a minefield. Help was always a prayer or phone call away, but the temptations were usually only inches away.

I expected to be challenged when I first went to the grocery. Not only was alcohol available, but in the drunk days, I carried a drink with me in a Styrofoam cup or one from any number of fast food places to hide the olives. Now, in recovery, I faced aisles of gin, vodka, rum, scotch, bourbon, whiskey, tequila, liqueurs, beer, and wine—just to name the biggies. Both sides of the aisle offered dozens of labels of each. In one store, I noticed aisles with the alcohol and wine weren’t only a tad wider, their floors were highly polished wood, the shelves more substantial, and the bottles neatly displayed.

I wasn’t even safe in the big box stores. They not only sold all of the above, they often had sampling stations that featured wine or liqueurs. Avoiding the aisles, obvious choice. I felt ambushed by the aproned sample ladies who were placed all over the store. Shaped like squeeze-doll grandmas, they’d croon, “Can I offer you something to drink? Would you like to taste our new ChococoMaraschinoChoclairFramboiseCrème deFraisesGrand Marnier?”

Then there was the dessert dilemma. Was there real Amaretto in the Amaretto Cheesecake or was that flavoring? Could I order the bread pudding with the rum sauce on the side? What about the rum balls? I wasn’t going to a meeting to confess I backslid with three dozen rum balls and two bread puddings. As an active alcoholic I knew one drink was too many and a thousand weren’t enough. I didn’t care if the cook simply opened a bottle of Kahlua near the cheesecake so it would capture its aroma, I refused to eat it. Several servers reassured me about one dessert or another, “Don’t worry, the alcohol burns off.” Then what was the point? “The flaming dessert makes a wonderful presentation,” one waiter explained. Wasn’t it enough that my fireplace flamed? Hadn’t one of those caused extensive damage to a French Quarter restaurant?

Carl's approach at restaurants required more diplomacy, “She's a recovering alcoholic. Is there any alcohol in that?” I’d asked him if, for the next few months, he minded replacing “a recovering alcoholic” with “pregnant” as the results would be the same.

Without alcohol, I was at the mercy of my feelings. After years of being numbed, they were coming after me with a vengeance. I empathized with Superman who had to struggle to control his super powers and not drill laser holes through unsuspecting people. Bushels and barrels of feelings demanded my attention. I flailed in them. Struggled to find balance.

Before my AA meeting yesterday, I had looked for a book I needed to return to Molly. I found it in my dresser between my socks and scarves—no clarity there—and when I picked it up, there was a photo of Alyssa. She wore a smocked Feldman dress, the cloud blue one, with lace around the neckline. Her fine, silky hair was too thin to hold her monogrammed silver barrette. It had landed just above her right eyebrow. One white crocheted bootie covered one foot. Her other foot was bare. I held the photo in one hand, the book in the other. I turned from one side to the other, holding her picture out like something passed between runners in a relay. If I could find someone to give it to, the feelings would go with it. Six weeks ago I would have carried her picture into the dining room, placed it on the table, and returned with a bottle of something. The blessing that day was that I had a place to take my body filled with the jagged bits of broken glass: The Program.

In some ways, I was an alien who’d landed with the wrong operating instructions. Someone added the words “without alcohol” to what had been familiar, and I didn’t know the protocol. How does one celebrate without alcohol? How does one attend a party without alcohol? What do people talk about without alcohol? What do people drink at parties without alcohol? What do people remember the next day about the night before without alcohol? How do people act silly, sing, dance, and, most importantly, make love without alcohol?

Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Maybe that was it. One day at a time. One step at a time.

I came home from my lunch with Rebecca with hope, challenges, and information. She said sober thinking takes time. “In the beginning of my sobriety, I just kept repeating to myself all those, what I thought at the time, were hokey AA-isms: One day at a time. Live and let live. Let go and let God. Easy Does It. There but for the grace of God. And the Serenity Prayer. I wrote them on index cards and taped them on my bathroom mirror, refrigerator, computer monitor, telephone. If my kids would have let me, I would have taped one on each of their foreheads. Take baby steps. AA isn’t a program anyone finishes, so there's really no point in rushing.”

She challenged me to find a church, a place to worship, where I could fellowship with other believers and find ways to serve the Lord. “I don’t know what religion you were or are. It doesn’t matter. If you have a church now, fantastic. If you don’t, start looking for one. Visit. Keep visiting until you walk into one and you hear God whisper in your ear that you’ve found your place of rest.”

Rebecca suggested Carl and I visit a counselor, together and separately. “Here's a card for a Christian counselor. I think she might be about thirty minutes away from where you live, but she's worth the drive. She's someone I’ve recommended to people for years. People in and out of recovery. I really think you’ll like her.”

“Melinda Mendoza. That's a lyrical name. What are the odds of that hook-up? How did you meet her?” I slipped the card in my purse.

“I met her through my mother. Known her for years,” she laughed. “She's my older sister.”

“It's finally going to happen.” Carl rested his leather briefcase on the kitchen table.

My head popped up from my planner so quickly that I felt my neck muscle burn. I hadn’t expected him home an hour early. I’d been lost in nerd-land setting up my new planner and color-coding entries. Birthdays in red, OB appointments in green, AA meetings in blue (the color of the Big Book), anniversaries in pink. Organization was one of my goals, and one I had control over. Courage to change the things I can control. I’d spent hours at bookstores and office supply stores looking for the right planner. The winner was a red leather-bound binder that I could pick just what I needed to fill it. Now what?

He had the one-finger tie-loosening going on while he looked out the window that overlooked what was now a weed-infested garden bed surrounding a giant pine tree. “It's a mess out there. I think you were right about the koi pond. Let's talk to your dad about working on it when he's in town this coming weekend.”

“You’re messing up my color system here.” I looked at the calendar. “His coming as in three days? Why? What's going to happen?”

He pulled out a chair, sat on the edge, and reached over to hold my hands. “You know how long I’ve been at Morgan Management.”

I nodded.

“And you know the only offer that would pull me away from there.”

I nodded again, this time with less hesitancy.

“I knew about this three weeks ago. But there was Brookforest, then coming home, then the baby. I wanted to make sure it was definite before I told you.”

I’m beyond nodding. “Tellmetellmetellme.”

“My last day at Morgan is a week from Friday. I’m going to own forty-nine percent of Thornton Enterprises, and my first job is to open an office in Pine Knoll.”

He stood. I hopped up and down. “Carl, this is incredible, wonderful, amazing, and every other synonym. This is big. This is BIG news.”

He opened his arms and wrapped them around me. I pressed my hands against his chest, and laid my head between them, and felt the muffled beat of his heart. He rested his head on mine, and I felt warm and right. Safe. The way I used to feel and wanted to feel again. If I could just find a way. To stay sober, and to stay safe.

“It's what I’ve been waiting for ever since I graduated from college.” He loosened his hug, but still held me, his hands clasped behind my back. I leaned against them so I could see his face. “I did what he asked. I went to Morgan to gain the experience he wanted. And now he's making good on his promise.”

“I’m so proud of you. So proud you hung in. I know how important this was for you.”

“And for us.” He placed his hand on my tummy. “For almost the three of us.”

I sent a prayer of gratitude to God for this extraordinary event in Carl's life—for his job and for his tenderness toward this baby.

Carl headed to the bedroom to change out of his suit. I set the table, then opened the refrigerator. For a whiff of time, I wondered where the champagne had hidden itself. Nights like this, for Leah of the past, justified celebration of the bottled variety. I reached for the pitcher of iced tea and wondered if there’d ever be a time I wouldn’t think about drinking.

By the time Carl came back into the kitchen, I had everything ready for him to start the grill. He grabbed the platter with the steaks and stopped before he opened the back door. “I meant to tell you this earlier. I’d called your dad from the car on my way home to tell him the news. I wanted him to have a heads-up so he could plan his flights. Didn’t want you to think I was one-upping him over telling you.”

“Not a problem,” I said, and I meant it. I finished slicing the plump creole tomatoes.

We barbecued steaks and ate steamed asparagus and a salad of tomatoes and feta cheese. I’d freed the leaves and pine needles from the antiqued wrought iron table and chairs, and we ate outside. We ignored the steamy August evening, so miserly there were no breezes, just shifts of warm air.