Best Kept Secret: A Novel

About a month after the custody decision came down in Martin’s favor, Andi told me she was leaving Promises. It was my final appointment with her there. Everyone else had already graduated; Andi said I could keep coming to see her—every day, if I had to. Which I often did. I was fragile and tearful, my edges held together with gossamer threads. Threads placed there by other women. They held them tight for me, gave me as many as I needed, until I worked up enough strength to fabricate my own.

“I want to start my own practice,” Andi said that last morning in September. She wore chunky squares of turquoise jewelry paired with a fabulous Stevie Nicks–style white summer dress, complete with the raggedy, uneven hem. She made it look good. “Working in groups is great, but I find the most satisfaction in the one-on-one counseling.”

“Can I be your first client?” I asked. There was so much I had to work through, layers and layers of emotions to peel back. Andi was one of the few people I trusted to expose those tender places without the fear that she might drive something sharp and wide directly into them.

“Absolutely.” She smiled, and it lit up her eyes like someone had plugged her in.

A year later, I still work with Serena, waiting tables five nights a week at Le Chat Noir. It’s not a glamorous job, but it pays my bills and it is work I’m proud to do. I’ve even spent some time in the kitchen there, learning basic knife skills and how to build a perfect white sauce. Cooking still calms my mind, lulling me into a lovely, predictable world, so much so that I’ve recently enrolled in culinary school. At thirty-five, I’m older than most of the other students there, but Serena is convinced that as soon as I graduate, I’ll become Seattle’s next celebrated chef. I’ll be happy if someone is just willing to hire me.

It took me a while to get used to the idea of not being a writer anymore, but over time, I’ve come to peace with the knowledge that at least for now, that chapter of my life is through. I did buy a copy of O’s issue on women and addiction when it came out. Other writers did an amazing job describing the struggle other women—other mothers—have faced in trying to get sober. I read their stories and related to each and every one of them, but I only tell mine in meetings, even though speaking in groups still isn’t something that comes naturally to me.

What does come naturally is being Charlie’s mother. I soon discovered that not having him waking up in my house every morning did not make me any less a parent to him, any more than it made Martin less of his father when Charlie was living with me. Every Wednesday and three weekends a month he is at my house. Martin and I split the holidays. The mediator also recommended I keep Charlie with me full-time two months during summer, which, surprisingly, Martin agreed to. It’s a standard parenting plan, it’s just that I’m the Disneyland Mom, instead of the Disneyland Dad, as the saying goes. Martin had enough class to not ask that I pay him child support, though by law, he is entitled to it. He signed that right away as part of our agreement.

“I make over five times your salary,” he said during our mediation settlement. “To ask you for any of yours would be stupid.” His lawyer protested and tried to change his mind, but to no avail. I respected Martin in that moment—brief amnesty from the countless hours of fury I had already endured at the thought of him. My relationship with him is one of the thicker layers I need to work through.

I find solace in the little things, like the fact that my child is awake with me more hours on the weekend than he is with Martin during the week. I’m sure of this. I counted. Kristin recently pointed out that if a father spent as much time with his child as I do with Charlie, if that same father worked and went to school, and still somehow managed to see his child that often, the world would canonize him. They’d probably throw him a parade. “How does he do it?” they would ask in wonder. “What an amazing man!”

This is not the experience I have had as a mother who does not have primary custody of her child. Expressions aren’t that hard to read. I see the very core of my character being questioned. A few people have the gall to ask why I don’t have custody of my son. I’ve heard the whispers, questioning what I must have done to lose him. These are not people I invite to share my life; these are people I have to restrain myself from ripping a new orifice. There are those, too, like Julia and Tara, who understand and respect the work I do each day to stay sober, the commitment I’ve made to strive toward the best version of myself I can be. Still, the shame hovers just beneath the surface, though I’m doing what I can to let it go. It’s progress, not perfection, Nadine reminds me. She says I cannot regret the past, nor can I shut the door on it. I can’t regret it because it brought me where I am today; it taught me the lessons I needed to learn. I can’t shut the door on it and pretend it never happened, because that hinders my ability to apply all that I’ve learned. I believe her. Some days. Others, I want to play like a potato bug—curl up and make believe the rest of the world doesn’t exist.

I have friends now, though, who won’t let me do this. My phone rings incessantly; I always have someone to spend time with if I need it. Kristin is still sober, and so is Serena. I wonder sometimes, too, if Laura is still drinking, but since I never heard from her after that night in the restaurant, Andi reminds me time and again that the only person’s sobriety I can be concerned with is my own.

To this end, I hit three, sometimes five meetings a week, if I need it. They keep me focused on a solution to my problems rather than the problems themselves; they teach me I must accept my current circumstances as being exactly the way they are meant to be. For me, acceptance is an action, something I have to practice day by day, sometimes moment by moment. It’s not a one-time event—it’s a process I have to learn to apply to the events of my life. I used to view acceptance as capitulation, me throwing up my hands and admitting that I am weak. I see now that it is much the opposite. It’s realizing the strength it takes to gently embrace what is, going with the flow of my life instead of against it. It’s understanding what I can change and what I can’t. It’s believing I have the tools to become the person I am meant to be. I cannot change society’s concept of me as a mother without custody of her son, but I can change my reaction to it. I have to, or eventually I will drink again. And that, I know, is a path I’m unwilling to walk down again.

My mom has turned out to be an excellent landlady, and while I have argued with her over the minuscule rent she allows me to pay, I am grateful for this new and more open relationship with her. Over time, she has told me more about my grandmother, and has even started attending Al-Anon, a support group for the loved ones of alcoholics. She, like me, is learning a new way to handle what happens in her life instead of trying to barricade against it. Neither of us is perfect in our approach to how we interact, but we are trying, and that’s more than we’ve done before.

With Nadine’s blessing, Vince and I went out on our first official date the night I celebrated one year of sobriety. He brought me coral roses, because after nine months of talking almost daily, he already knew they were my favorite. He took me to dinner at the Space Needle in a private room for two, where the view displayed the lights of Seattle looking like diamonds scattered across a swath of black velvet.

At the end of the evening, he stood at my front door, took me in his arms, and kissed me like I’d always imagined he would. Soft, yet insistent; passionate, yet sweet. Six months and countless kisses later, we’re still going strong. Wherever we go, he opens the door for me, puts his hand at the small of my back, and tells me he loves my Wild Woman of Zanzibar curls. He knows more about me than any man has before—he has seen me overcome by emotion, dissolved into tears over missing my son. He does not run away, nor does he try to fix me. He holds me, supports me, and lets me find my own way.

When Charlie isn’t with me, Vince and I talk into the wee hours of the morning, after our bodies have tired and we lay snuggled together in one of our beds. We talk about our pasts and what we hope our future might be, though for now, we are moving slowly, content with how things already are.

I waited several months to introduce them, but once they met, Charlie and Vince became excellent friends, often locking themselves away in Charlie’s room to build elaborate Lego cities or act out scenes from Star Wars while I throw together our evening meal.

“I like Vince,” Charlie tells me. “He’s funny. You can marry him if you want.”

“Oh, sweetie,” I say. “I’m so happy you like him. But Mommy’s not quite ready to get married again. Not yet.” My son’s stamp of approval almost means more to me than my own.

Tonight I will not see Vince. Instead, I am on my way to Alice’s house. She still watches Charlie for Martin after my son gets done with school. So I pick him up there. It is a cool, late September evening; the sky is lit up with brilliant brushstrokes of scarlet, sunflower, and amber. I pull up in front of Alice’s house. Charlie stands on the porch, waiting for me. He jumps up and down when he sees me, races down the stairs. Alice watches as she steps out the front door. My son throws himself into my arms when I get out of the car and I wave to Alice. She nods and gives me the barest of smiles. It’s still not easy between us, but at least I don’t find myself searching out ways to purposely make it unbearable. That’s progress, I suppose. More than I ever expected to achieve.

It’s Friday, and Charlie and I are heading over to Kristin’s place for pizza and Dance Dance Revolution excitement. Jess and the twins will meet us there. The children will play, Kristin, Jess, and I will talk. Charlie and I are in charge of bringing the ice cream; we’ll stop at the store on the way and I’ll let him pick out the flavor. I will breathe deeply to retain my patience as he examines each and every carton in the case—he’ll review his options only twice, if I’m lucky. I will remember to be grateful for each moment I have with my son. If I fail and snap at him to hurry up, to just pick a flavor, I will tell him I am sorry. I’ll kiss him and hug him, and start the night all over again. My son has the kind of heart that will let me do this. He is resilient. He is beautiful. He is mine.