Best Kept Secret: A Novel

With my mother due to arrive any minute the following morning, Charlie and I cuddle on the couch, him sitting between my legs, leaning up against me, using me like a lounge chair. I sip my coffee over the top of his head while he giggles at the easy, educational silliness of Go, Diego, Go!

“Mom?” Charlie says.

“Hmmm?” I lean down and kiss the top of his head, still slightly matted and warm from sleep. God, he smells so good. I wish I could bottle it and keep it with me always.

“What’s an alcoholic?” He asks this the same way he has asked me to define a thousand other things: an accordion bus or an avocado. My child, simply seeking explanation.

Still, my head lifts. Where was this coming from? Martin, I assume. It has to be Martin. Or Alice. The two of them, talking about me in front of my son. How do I answer this? Truthfully, I decide. Always the safest route to take. “Well, honey,” I begin a little shakily, “it’s kind of like having an allergy.”

“Like Anya’s ’lergic to peanuts?”

“Kind of. Only an alcoholic is allergic to alcohol. They have one drink of something like beer or wine and they can’t stop. That’s their allergic reaction.”

He twists his head so he can look up to me. “Like you drink wine?”

I tap the tip of his nose with my finger. “How I used to drink wine, yes. I’m not doing that anymore, remember?” Oh God, please tell me he doesn’t talk to Alice and Martin like I’m still drinking.

“Oh yeah!” he says, reaching up to touch my cheek. “That’s good. I didn’t like it when you did. Remember that time you spilled that bottle all over the floor?” He turns back to the muted television. “You swore. A lot. The F word, even.”

“You’re right, I did.” I pause, remembering that day, not too far from the night Martin came and took Charlie. I was in the kitchen and had just opened what would have been my second bottle of the night when I turned and knocked it with my elbow off the counter and onto the floor. It didn’t break, but it did make a horrible mess. And Charlie is right—I dropped enough F bombs to destroy a small nation. “I’m sorry for doing that. Mommy shouldn’t swear.”

He shrugs his pointy shoulders against me. “It’s okay. Daddy does it, too. It makes Omi mad.”

I smirk at this, probably taking more pleasure than is healthy for me imagining Alice dressing down Martin regarding the evils of profanity. I take a final swig of coffee, then reach over to set my empty mug down on the table next to us. Just as it touches the surface, there is a sharp rap on the door. I carefully disengage myself from my son, who wraps his arms around my leg and mockingly threatens to not let go. Another rap at the door.

“Just a sec,” I call out, lightly bopping Charlie on the top of his head. “Lemme go, buddy. I need to get the door.” I swing open the door and there stands my mother, smile as bright and wide as ever. She should have it patented. She wears jeans, a red knit sweater, and black boots.

I tuck the errant curls popping loose from my ponytail back behind my ears. “Hi, Mom.”

“Nana!” Charlie exclaims as he leaps off the couch and into my mother’s arms. My mother hugs him close, covers his face with kisses.

“Hello, baby boy,” she says, stepping into the house. Charlie clings to her leg now. Her movements are awkward, weighed down by a five-year-old boy. She gently detaches from him and closes the door behind her. She sets down a bright red Macy’s shopping bag. “I brought breakfast,” she continues, surveying the living room as though she was seeing it for the first time. I can’t remember when she was last here.

“What did you bring us?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light.

She reaches down into the Macy’s bag, pulls out a brown paper sack, and hands it to me. “Bagels and cream cheese. Nothing fancy, I know, but they’re still warm. I picked them up at the PCC.”

I open the bag and the warm, yeasty scent wafts up into my face. I breathe in deep. “Mmmm,” I murmur. “They smell great.” Closing the bag, I hold them out to Charlie. “Can you be a big boy and take these into the kitchen for Mommy? We’ll be right there.”

He snatches them from me. “Can I have one? Can I make it myself?”

I smile. “Sure, honey. Just be sure to use one of your safe plastic knives and not one of mine, okay?” I’ve always encouraged Charlie to be as independent of me as possible, to learn to do things for himself. He already ties his own shoes and picks out his own clothes. He races off and I am left standing in front of my mother, who is squinting at me like she doesn’t quite recognize me. “What?” I ask.

She presses her lips into a thin line, shakes her head. “You just look good. Healthier, I guess. Like you’ve lost weight.”

“I wish. But thank you.” I’m less puffy, I suppose, now that the alcohol aftereffects are working their way completely out of my system, but I haven’t dropped an ounce of fat. Even with all the running around I do at the restaurant, my flesh grips on to each calorie I feed it with the same vigor that I hold on to Charlie. It professes no plans to let any of them go.

My mother and I are quiet a moment, listening to the noise of Charlie in the kitchen, opening and closing drawers, the squeal of his pulling out a chair from the table. The air is heavy with unspoken words, weighting down the moment more than I am comfortable enduring. I can’t make small talk. I can’t pretend there isn’t an elephantine issue smack in the middle of the room. I decide to make the first offering, step directly into the fire. I have to unclench my teeth in order to speak.

“What did you tell him?” I ask.

She twists around, sending her arm out as though she was reaching to do calisthenics, setting her purse down on the table by the front door, then back to face me. A muscle above her right eyebrow twitches rapidly as she speaks.

“Honey, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was planning to say to Mr. Hines. I honestly didn’t know myself, so I thought that saying nothing was the better way to go. You seemed so . . . angry. I didn’t want to upset you any more than I already had.”

“I understand why you’re having such a hard time with this,” I say, pulling my arms back to cross them over my chest. “I get it. And I feel for you. But waiting . . . I’m not going to lie, Mom. It’s been hard.”

She sighs, leaning her head toward her shoulder while crossing her arms over her chest, too, rubbing her biceps up and down, a soothing self-hug. “I wish I could have figured it out and told you right away. But I didn’t want to tell you one day I thought Charlie should stay with you, and the next day say something different.”

Charlie screeches another kitchen chair around in the kitchen—likely moving it back from the counter where he stood to prepare his bagel. I experience the vague sensation that this might not be the best time for me to be having this conversation with my mother—I should be spending time, every moment I have, alone with my son—but I have to see this through. I have to tell her how I really feel—it’s taking up too much space in my head. My mind can barely hold another thought.

“Like I said, Mom,” I begin, “I know that my drinking must have brought up a bunch of ugly memories for you. Things you haven’t thought about in a long time.”

She nods, a tiny movement.

“My heart aches knowing you had a mother who treated you like that. Who treated herself like that. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot. And I have to wonder, if she had had a family who supported her, if her mother was in her life and had offered her the kind of love and acceptance that she needed, maybe she could have gotten well.” My voice breaks and I have to wait a moment before I can go on speaking. “I can’t change who she was to you. I can’t change what she did. But maybe you can give to me what her mother couldn’t.”

“What do you need?” my mother asks, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I need you to believe in me, Mom. That I’ll find a way to manage this.”

She unwraps her arms, lifts up her hands slightly—a gesture of surrender.

“So, what did you tell Mr. Hines?” I set up internal emotional scaffolding, bracing myself for the worst possible outcome.

“I told him I think you should have Charlie,” she says. “I told him you are the most tenacious person I know, and when you set your mind to accomplishing something, you don’t rest until you’ve given it everything you’ve got. I told him I can’t imagine you doing anything less than that when it comes to recovering from all of this.” I see the truest sense of pride in her eyes. Something deep inside me finally relaxes, a tight grip letting go.

Closing the gap between us, I slip my arms up around her shoulders, resting my chin on her shoulder. “Thank you,” I whisper in her ear, the feeling of tears thick in my throat once more. I’m beginning to suspect there is no end in sight to this new weepy tendency of mine. “Thank you so much.”

My mother hesitates a moment before hugging me back. She’s surprised, I think, to have me display such affection. She reaches up, presses her hand against the back of my head. “I’m not very good at showing it, I know, but I do love you, Cadence. You’re my daughter. I’ll do whatever I can.” She pulls back and looks at me. “In fact, I already have.”

I tilt my head and squint at her. “Uh-oh. Should I be nervous?”

She smiles. “Not at all. Derek told me you listed the house for sale.”

I nod. “I can’t afford it.”

“Well, I can. I signed the offer yesterday. I’m hoping you’ll let me buy it, and you can rent it from me at an extremely reasonable family rate until you’re back on your feet. Then, you can either buy it back or find somewhere else you and Charlie want to live.”

My jaw drops. “You want to be my landlady?”

“If you’ll let me.” She grabs my hand and squeezes. “You and Charlie have been through enough in the past couple of years. The stress of moving is the last thing either of you need.”

“I don’t know what to say, Mom. Are you sure?” I run a few quick calculations in my head. If she buys the house for what I’m asking, I can use the profit to pay off all my credit card bills. Living off my wage from the cafe won’t be easy, but if she’s serious about charging an extremely low rent, I might actually be able to bounce back from financial catastrophe.

“I’m positive,” she says. “What good is all my hard-earned money if I can’t help my child when she needs it?”

“I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” My eyes fill, and Charlie chooses this moment to come bounding back from the kitchen, interrupting us. The wooden door that sections off the two rooms swings wildly back and forth. His face is messy with smears of cream cheese, his eyes are bright. “I need help, Mom!” he says. Amazing. At least my child has no issue with asking for assistance when he needs it; I’ve done that much well with raising him. “I want some milk but the holder thing is really full and I don’t want to pour it and make a mess even though I know spilled milk isn’t anything to cry over, I still don’t want it to spill.”

My mother and I both laugh, wiping our eyes, but it is she who steps forward first. “I’ll help you, sweetie. Can you get the glass down you want to use?”

He doesn’t answer her. Instead, he regards us with a quizzical look. “Why are you crying? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, sweetie. Nana and I are fine.”

“Grown-up stuff again?” he asks, sighing with an edge of informed exasperation far beyond his years.

“Yeah, but it’s the good kind of grown-up stuff,” I say. “Guess what, monkey? We don’t have to move!”

“Really?” he exclaims. “I get to keep my room?”

“Yep.”

“What about my toys?”

“Those, too.” I reach for my mother’s hand, pull her along with me toward the kitchen. “C’mon, I hear that sesame bagel calling my name.”

Charlie turns and races in front of us, beating us to the kitchen. “Bagels don’t talk, Mom,” he says.

“Are you sure?” I say, winking at my mother, who is smiling, still holding my hand. “I just heard the plain one ask for peanut butter and strawberry jam instead of cream cheese.”

“Mo-om,” he groans. “Stop it.”

“What?” I say, my eyes wide, innocent. “Maybe it’s allergic to dairy, like your cousin.”

He laughs, his head thrown back, mouth open wide, a bright and beautiful sound that reaches inside me and makes me happy, too.

My mom leaves around two o’clock, promising to call me during the week. “I mean it,” she says, hugging me at the front door. “And make sure you get those papers signed with Derek, so we can get the ball rolling on the house.”

Charlie and I occupy the rest of our afternoon together baking his favorite chocolate chip cookies. I let him drop the butter, sugar, and eggs into the mixer; I handle the messy job of adding the dry ingredients. He sneaks a couple of handfuls of chocolate chips when he thinks I’m not watching. I let him get away with it.

“Can I take some of these to Omi and Daddy?” he asks after the last cookie sheet comes out of the oven. “I can telled them I baked them.”

“You can ‘tell’ them, honey, not ‘telled.’ And of course you can take them. That’s very thoughtful of you.” I help him fill a plastic container to the brim.

“But Mommy,” he says when he sees the container, “then you don’t have any cookies to eat.”

“Oh, Mommy doesn’t need to eat any more cookies. Trust me.”

When I get back home from dropping him off, I sit down at the kitchen table and turn on my computer, breathing a little sigh of relief. I lean back in my seat, stretching my arms far above my head. The muscles in my back are tight and tense, but as I stretch it hits me that I was never this relaxed when Charlie lived with me. My house was never this clean, my work was never quite done. I always felt like I wasn’t good enough at anything I tried to do. When I was working I felt like I should have been with Charlie. When I was with Charlie I should have been working. I was never in the moment—I was always looking in the direction I thought I should have gone.

Something within me drops down—an elevator plunging too fast, weighted by leaden guilt for having this sort of thought. I’m not supposed to find any kind of pleasure in my child not being with me. Isn’t it a requirement for mothers to constantly pine over their children when they are away from them? Maybe I just don’t have it in me to be a parent. I shake my head, as though to remove it of these heretical thoughts.

I push away from the table, just reaching to log off and power down my laptop, when my phone rings. It’s Vince.

“I missed you at the meeting today,” he says. On the weekends I don’t have Charlie, I’ve been going to a smaller meeting in Vince’s neighborhood, telling myself it isn’t to see him, but to meet more people in recovery.

“I had Charlie,” I tell him, “so I couldn’t make it. How was it?”

“Good, actually. That gal, Trina? The one I introduced you to at the Fremont meeting? She shared a little about drinking around her kids. It was pretty powerful.”

“I didn’t know she was a mom.” My nerves suddenly jangle around inside my body. After the e-mail I sent to her, I never heard back and hadn’t seen her at any meetings. Again, it becomes apparent I need to work on my friendship maintenance skills.

“Yep,” Vince says. “Her husband doesn’t know she’s going to meetings. She said she’s still drinking, too. Trying to figure this whole thing out.”

“Why are you telling me this? I thought we were supposed to be anonymous.”

“Not always. At least not among ourselves.” He sighs. “Anyway, I really just wanted you to know I missed seeing your smiling face.”

We hang up, and I drop back into my chair, feeling guilty for not making more of an effort to get in touch with Trina. If what Vince said is true about her drinking in front of her kids, I know her pain. I can feel it as alive in me as my own. Just like Kristin felt mine. It’s then that I realize what is saving me. It’s what Andi talked about—having a group of women who get me—who don’t judge, who understand my thoughts and know why I do and say the things I do. It’s not being on my own to face all of this. It’s having someone to talk to, to call. I think about how the people in AA talk about moments in their lives when their idea of a higher power gives them a flash of clarity and they’re given an opportunity to pass on what they have learned. If I have a higher power, maybe it’s giving me a chance to offer Trina what I didn’t have the courage to ask for myself.

I don’t give myself the option to think too much about what I should do; I’d only succeed in talking myself out of it. Steeling myself with a couple deep breaths, I sit forward again, poise my fingers above the keyboard, and begin to type an e-mail.

Dear Trina,

I hope you don’t mind, but when Vince mentioned you shared at a meeting today about being a mother who drinks, I felt compelled to write you.

You are not alone. I am a mother who drank in front of her son. I was drunk almost every night for a year, and toward the end I was drinking pretty much around the clock. I went through an ugly divorce, and I sat in front of my laptop with an enormous goblet set next to me, sipping away at a bottle of wine until I passed out. I was a terrible mother. I have shame that runs deeper than I know what to do with.

I have been where you are, not so long ago. Killing myself seemed a viable option compared to the misery I was living in. I sat in my kitchen staring down a bottle of pills, ready to end it. I have been in a treatment program for almost five months, and have finally managed to admit that I have a disease called alcoholism, medically diagnosed, and treatable on a day-to-day basis. I realized I am not alone, that I am not the only mother who has gotten drunk in front of her children—I just happened to get caught. I didn’t agree with my counselor when she told me this makes me lucky, but I’m starting to now. I have just begun this process myself, learning how to stay sober, to avoid the emotional traps that might lead me to drink again. I have a long way to go, and so much to learn.

My ex-husband is trying to take custody of my son away from me. I have more turmoil in my life than I know what to do with most days. I’m riddled with levels of shame and guilt that I’m not sure I’ll be able to endure.

The help I can offer you is the knowledge that you don’t have to do any of this on your own. There are treatment programs available, and the meetings, as you, of course, know. But I’m here, if you want to write or call. You can say anything you need to. I want you to talk to me like I know exactly how you feel, because I do. You are not alone. You’re just like me.

With love,

Cadence

Puffing up my cheeks, I push out a long, tired breath, reading what I’ve written twice over. It’s the most words I’ve put on a page in months. I throw out a quick, cosmic request to whatever powers that be for Trina to send me a return e-mail in the morning.

Powering down my laptop for the night, my insides are battling with an equal measure of exhaustion and elation. Thankfully, exhaustion wins out, so I make the rounds in the house, turning off the lights, going about the business of saying good night. I tumble into bed. Sleep slips in fast and easy. I want to believe it’s not exhaustion but instead the immediate side effect of deciding to do the right thing.

Since I don’t have to be at the cafe, the alarm jolts me from a deep slumber at 7:00 the next morning. I wake with my face smashed into my pillow, a tiny stream of drool leaking out of the corner of my mouth. Lovely, I think, wiping my cheek with the edge of the sheet. What man wouldn’t want to wake up to this? Would Vince? I smack the clock to get it to stop screeching at me and remind myself with a heavy sigh that I’m not allowed to date. I need to stop thinking about him that way, at least for another six and a half months, when I celebrate my first year of sobriety. Not that I am counting.

Check e-mail is the next thought in my head. In less than two minutes, I throw back the covers, pull on the nearest set of sweats, and am in the kitchen firing up my laptop. While my computer boots up, I get my coffee started.

It’s done about the same time as my computer is warmed up. I open the new mail option and it’s instantly as though I’ve stepped off the edge of a skyscraper. My insides plummet, terror lands with a thud somewhere down near my pelvis. I scroll down, panic twisting in frantic, zigzagging patterns throughout my veins. There’s an e-mail from Tara at O, and the subject is Drunk Mother. Oh shit.

Dear Cadence,

I was a little confused by the e-mail you sent, and believe you sent it my way accidentally, but I have to say, the editor in me thinks it’s a compelling subject. I hope you’ll consider what I have to propose.

I’m so moved by the compassion you showed “Trina”—sharing your story with her makes me think that you’d do an amazing job sharing it with O’s readers. I’d love to talk with you more about putting your story into an essay, and how we could make it fit into a themed issue around women and addiction.

I want you to know I’ll keep you in my thoughts. My aunt is in recovery from an addiction to prescription painkillers, and while she doesn’t have children, she has worked hard to maintain her sobriety. She is one of my biggest inspirations.

I look forward to speaking with you soon.

All best,

Tara

“Oh my God,” I say to the empty kitchen. “Holy shit.” I pop open the e-mail I sent the night before, and there it is, addressed to “Tara” instead of “Trina.” Outlook must have autofilled the address when I typed in the letter “T.” I was obviously too tired to notice.

“Oh no,” I groan. “Oh no, oh no! Please, God, tell me I didn’t do this!” But there it is, in pretty black script. Maybe if I blink hard enough, it will disappear. I blink. It doesn’t work. I blink again. Dammit. No luck.

I grab my cell phone off the table, call Jess, and tell her what I’ve done.

“That’s fantastic!” she says. “I’m so proud of you!”

“Wh-what?” I stutter. “Proud?” I can’t believe this is happening.

“She loves the idea, right?” Jess chatters on. “You’ve been struggling to come up with something and here it is!” I can hear Derek mumbling something in the background and she shushes him.

“I didn’t mean to do it!” I wail, throwing my free hand up into the air, then slapping the top of my thigh. I take a quick intake of breath. “Holy shit, Jess, I have to write her and tell her it was a fictional e-mail or something. Something I was writing for a story.” I move to click on the screen, prepared to take the appropriate measures to write that e-mail.

“What?” Jess exclaims. “Are you kidding me? Lying to her would totally screw with your professional credibility.”

“Oh, and my confirming that I’m an alcoholic in danger of losing her child in a custody dispute won’t?” I hesitate, though my hand is hovering over the mouse and my eyes are still glued to the screen.

She sighs. “People feel better if they know you’ve got some personal experience you can relate to theirs with. She obviously connected to you because of her aunt. This is a good thing, Cadence.”

“I don’t know,” I say, completely rattled. My heart is still pounding in my chest.

“You don’t know what?”

“Should I really leave it alone?”

“Absolutely. But make sure you send the e-mail to the woman you meant to send it to in the first place, too.”

“Good point. Thanks.” We hang up and I carefully copy and paste the e-mail Tara received, making sure Trina’s e-mail address is in the correct place before sending it.

Next, I decide to Google “mothers and alcoholism.” A spark of my old journalistic tendencies ignites as I read; I smell a good story.

Getting sober for women is different than it is for men, I find on a website dedicated to recovery.

Social stigma, labeling, and guilt are enormous barriers for females to receiving treatment. Women are often subject to the madonna/whore continuum theory, which states that all women fall on one end of the spectrum or the other—either you’re a whore or a saint. If you’re an alcoholic, society tends to label you as the whore, even if it’s only metaphorically speaking. If a woman is a mother, the expectation is for her to be a saint, so if you’re both, an alcoholic and a mother—even a sober alcoholic—that preset prejudice comes into play. Generally speaking, society assumes you’re not a good mother.

I am utterly engrossed in my reading until the phone rings and I see Kristin’s cell on the display screen. “I’m on my way,” she says too quickly for me even to say hello to her. “Do you want a mocha from Wholly Grounds or have you already hit your caffeine limit for the morning?”

“What?” I say, puzzled.

Kristin sighs in my ear. There is the subdued roar of her car engine, indicating that yes, indeed, she is on her way to my house. “We’re carpooling to group, remember? We talked about it on Saturday?”

“Oh, oh, that’s right.” I press a palm to my forehead, sitting back in my chair. “Sorry.” I glance at the clock: 9:00 a.m.

“So, do you want a coffee?” Kristin presses.

My eyes fall onto the untouched, forgotten, and cold remainder of the cup I’d poured when I first got up, something that suddenly seems a lifetime ago. “Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.” I take a deep breath. “Can you make it a double?”