The Corner of Bitter and Sweet Page 7

  In our last therapy session, Dr. Warner told me that when this moment came—seeing Mom for the first time—it was totally okay if I didn’t want to let her hug me. I didn’t even have to talk to her if I didn’t want to. According to Dr. Warner, anger was a perfectly acceptable response to the situation and it was important to let that out rather than let it get stuck inside me and come out in all sorts of weird ways, like screaming at customer-service people in India with very American names.

  “Mom!” I yelped as I ran up to her and threw myself at her, almost tackling her to the ground. Sure, I was pissed. But that could wait. As she hugged me and I breathed in her scent, I realized that for the first time in I didn’t know how long it was free of that gross metallic twinge that the pills gave her.

  She clutched at me so hard I could barely breathe. “Oh, Bug, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, scrunching my eyes tight to try to hold back the tears.

  “No, it’s not okay,” she said tearfully. She pulled me to her closer. “I know I’m supposed to wait until we have our official session with Rain—she’s the counselor who’s going to be running group today . . . oh, honey, you’re not going to believe her story. . . . Her mother was a crackhead, and then when she was sixteen she started . . . actually, you know what? It’s her story to tell, not mine, so forget I said that,” she rambled. “Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I know I owe you a giant amends for everything I put you through, and I don’t expect you to forgive me right away—really, I don’t—but I just hope that—” As a very tall African American man with long dreadlocks walked by, Mom waved. “Tony! Tony! This is Annabelle, my daughter!”

  I wasn’t sure what was worse—a hungover mom who moved at the pace of a snail or a sober mom who had so much energy it was as if she had drunk a pot of coffee in one gulp.

  Tony came over. “Nice to meet you, Annabelle. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  At that, Mom pulled me into another giant hug. “Do you see how much I love you, Bug? I talk about you all the time.”

  “She does,” Tony agreed. “Like . . . all the time.”

  “There’s Alexis!” Mom said as a skinny scowling girl around my age, her platinum-blonde hair streaked with magenta and wearing a nose ring, walked down the stairs. “I really want you to meet her. She’s just lovely. Or will be when she finally lets me give her some makeup tips. Wonderful personality.”

  Alexis looked like she wanted to hurt someone.

  “She could really use a friend,” Mom went on. “Which is why I told her that once we get out of here, she should come out to the house for a weekend!” She pointed to an older woman wearing a silk caftan puffing away on a cigarette outside as she paced around a tree. “I also invited Marianne to come up for a few days . . . I know she looks fabulous—that’s Halston, by the way—but the truth is her drinking and drugging have basically left her destitute,” she went on. “Although I told her that there’s absolutely no smoking in the house. Bug, I know I’ve only been here for two weeks, but I swear to you, I am done polluting my body—Ben! Oh, honey, it’s so great to see you!” she cried as he walked up. She smothered him in a hug as well. “I know I fought you on it at first, but, honestly, I think coming to rehab is going to prove to be the single most important decision I’ve ever made in my life. Well, after having Annabelle, obviously.” She turned to Tony. “You know, I was thisclose to having an abortion. But the night before I was supposed to go to Planned Parenthood, Terms of Endearment came on—did you see that? Shirley MacLaine is just magnificent in it—and—”

  I cringed. Maybe rehab helped you stop drinking, but apparently it didn’t help with oversharing. As I looked at Ben, I saw that he looked as freaked out about the new and improved Mom as I felt. Luckily, before she could embarrass me or herself even more, a very tan, very short man who looked vaguely familiar blew a whistle. “Hello, family. May I have your attention, please?”

  Mom leaned over to us. “Look! It’s Dr. Arnie!”

  That’s why I recognized him—Dr. Arnie was the founder of Oasis. Between being the addiction specialist for a news show called This Morning and a reality show called Intervening . . . with Love, he was on TV more than Mom nowadays.

  “Before we start the weekend’s festivities, I just want us all to take a minute”—the minute thing was Dr. Arnie’s trademark—“to turn to the person on your left, and then your right, and to look them in the eyes—when I say this, I mean deep in the eyes, not the barely-scratching-the-surface way that we tend to go through life, making us feel alone and isolated and feeling like a drink is our only solution to that isolation—”

  “Oh, I love when we do this,” Mom sighed.

  “—and because you’re all probably standing next to your loved ones, what I’d like to do so that you can really go to your edge and get something out of this exercise is for everyone to move around and get in a circle”—Dr. Arnie was very big on circles—”and make sure that you don’t know the person on either side of you.”

  All of us family members glanced around uncomfortably.

  “Come on, family. Let’s get moving,” Dr. Arnie said.

  At that, all the happy shiny rehabbers began to scurry while the rest of us looked longingly at the door, as if we wished we could make a break for it.

  “Let’s start connecting!” Dr. Arnie urged.

  I had come here to connect with my mother. Not total strangers like the little old lady on my left who, later on, I would come to find had once robbed a bank to support her prescription drug habit.

  “Now turn to the person on your left and look him or her deep in the eyes . . . that’s it . . . deeper.”

  I tried. I really did. But when I’m uncomfortable or nervous, I laugh. A lot. Like a very-inappropriate-amount a lot. Which I started doing with the old lady who was boring into me with her eyes behind her smudged glasses.

  Mom looked over from where she was gazing into the eyes of an accountant-looking guy who looked so nervous to be standing so close to one of People’s Most Beautiful People that I could see the sweat beading on his forehead. “Annabelle,” she hissed.

  Instead of quieting down, I began to laugh more.

  “Annabelle. Stop it,” she ordered, louder.

  I couldn’t help it. The whole thing was just so bizarre.

  “It’s okay, Janie,” Dr. Arnie assured her. “This is just Annabelle’s way of self-protection over her uneasiness about being vulnerable. It’s completely understandable. By the end of the weekend, she’ll be in a very different place. You’ll see.”

  Yeah, like back home in my room making a list of the reasons I wished I had someone else’s life.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SUMMARY OF FAMILY/FRIENDS WEEKEND AT OASIS

  # of times Dr. Arnie said the phrase “Hello, family” = 52

  # of times Mom hugged me = 47

  # of times I was forced to wriggle out because she was suffocating me = 45 (the other two I forced myself to stay in it because I couldn’t stand one more you-killed-my-puppy look when I pushed her away)

  # of times I sneaked off to the bathroom to huff Play-Doh = 7

  # of times I sent Maya a text that said something along the lines of “There are no words to describe the amount of touchy-feeliness going on here” = 21

  # of times she texted me, saying, “I know you want to be a photographer but I really hope you’re taking notes bc this is so part of a memoir. = 5

  # of photos I took for what I had started to think might make an interesting photo series = 26

  As corny as the whole thing was (see Saturday night talent show put on by patients, which included spoken-word performances and interpretive dance about addiction), it was obvious that the place worked. Because the patients and their families got to work out their stuff in front of the entire group (“Family, alcoholism, and addiction are all about
secrets, which is why rule number two at Oasis—after no drinking or drugs—is no secrets,” Dr. Arnie said), it was like having a front-row seat at a reality-show taping.

  “Okay, Janie and Annabelle, you’re up,” he announced on Sunday afternoon.

  As Mom took out her lipstick and put on a fresh coat, I tried to look at the bright side: at least her depression had lifted to the point where she was back to being vain. She turned to me and held it out. “You want some?”

  I shook my head. “I’m good.”

  “Honey, I know this isn’t really the time,” she said, “but once I’m home I’d really like to talk about your passive-aggressive attempt to process your rage toward my addiction by avoiding makeup at all costs.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve been talking a lot about this with Elan”—she stopped to turn and wave at her assigned counselor, whom she had daily therapy sessions with, an Israeli guy who, with his tight pink T-shirt, looked like Adam Lambert—“and we think that your avoidance of makeup is an act of hostility. Against me. Because it’s such a part of my life.”

  I looked around to see that everyone was watching us.

  “Not that it’s not understandable,” Mom went on. “You know, the hostility.”

  “Very good, Janie.” Dr. Arnie nodded. “Especially the part when you get outside of yourself to acknowledge how Annabelle might be feeling. I know how hard you’ve been working on that.”

  How about how hard I was working not to yell at Mom for totally embarrassing me in front of all these people?

  She may have given up drinking and pills, but as we sat facing each other in the inner circle with a carved Native American talking stick that Dr. Arnie had gotten from some medicine man during a trip to New Mexico, it became clear that she sure hadn’t given up her other bad habit: taking every conversation and turning it around so it was about her.

  “Annabelle, it would be very healing for me . . . I mean, for us”—at her correction, Dr. Arnie nodded approvingly—“if you could tell me the different ways in which I hurt you back when I was under the influence of alcohol and pills.”

  “You want me to do that right now?” I asked doubtfully. “In front of all these strangers?”

  “We’re not strangers,” Dr. Arnie boomed. “We’re family.”

  I slid down in my chair. “Please, can we do this some other time,” I mumbled.

  “No, we can’t,” Mom said firmly. “According to Dr. Arnie, this is a very important part of my recovery.”

  I looked over at Ben, who gave me one of his please-just-do-what-she-wants-in-order-to-keep-the-peace looks. Usually accompanied by an even-though-you’re-younger-sometimes-you-just-need-to-be-the-bigger-person speech. Which, according to my calculations, would mean that when it came to Mom, I was as big as the continent of Africa.

  I cleared my throat. “Okay. Well, then I guess—”

  Mom shoved the stick to me. “Honey, you need to use the talking stick. It makes the whole thing more sacred.”

  At that moment I wished I kept a blog. Because you couldn’t make this stuff up. I took it from her. “I guess . . .”

  Mom leaned forward. “What, sweetheart? What is it you guess?” she asked anxiously.

  “Janie, remember the exercise we did in group last week about respecting people’s boundaries and personal space and not smothering them by finishing their sentences?” Dr. Arnie asked.

  “Yes. Right,” Mom replied. She grabbed the talking stick from me. “I’m sorry for interrupting you, Annabelle. That wasn’t very respectful of me. Please go on,” she said as she offered me the stick again.

  I took a deep breath. The faster I got to it, the sooner I could go lock myself in the bathroom with my Play-Doh. “When you were drinking . . . I don’t know . . . sometimes I’d get . . . really scared,” I said softly, feeling as though I was going to throw up. Talking about my feelings was not at the top of my “Favorite Things to Do” list.

  For once, Mom stayed quiet. In fact, it was so quiet, I could hear Larry, this guy who had wrecked his lungs because of all the crystal meth he had smoked, wheezing in the corner.

  “Excellent, Annabelle,” Dr. Arnie said. “Can you tell your mom why you got scared?”

  I pinched the top of my thigh so I wouldn’t cry. “Because sometimes . . . when I’d go into your room to check on you, you were barely breathing,” I said quietly. “And I’d have to go into your bathroom and get a mirror and hold it up to your mouth to make sure I could see your breath.”

  I heard Ben draw in his breath. As close as we were, I had never told him that. I had never told anyone that. It made me feel ashamed, as if it was my fault. Like if I were better or different or didn’t fight with Mom so often, she wouldn’t drink so much.

  I watched as Mom’s shoulders fell. All of the Janie Jackson of her was gone. She was just . . . a person. And as warped as it sounded, I really wished I could have taken a picture of her at that moment. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Do you know how many times I thought you were dead?” I snapped. The anger was definitely starting to come.

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Bug, I am so, so sorry—” To her credit, she didn’t try to take the talking stick from me.

  “And do you know how many times I’ve heard that?” I yelled as my own eyes started to leak.

  “I know,” she said. “Annabelle, I’m sorry. You know, everyone thinks an amend is an apology, but that’s not what it means,” she said quietly. “I looked it up on dictionary.com.” She glanced at Dr. Arnie. “What I meant was that I had someone else look it up because Internet access isn’t allowed here. Anyway, it means ‘to change.’ And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to do my best, one day at a time, to try to be the best mother I can possibly be.” She reached for my hand. “That’s all I can promise you, Annabelle. I can’t even promise I’ll be successful at it. But I can promise I’ll try.”

  How many promises had she made to me over the years? And how many times had she dropped the ball on them? I wanted so badly to believe it was going to be different this time, but I didn’t have the energy. I was too tired. Tired of being angry. Tired of being scared. Tired of not trusting her. Tired of being let down when I did trust her. I was so tired that when Mom went to hug me, I didn’t try to get out of the line of fire like I usually did.

  But I didn’t hug back.

  I just couldn’t.

  Later that afternoon, as Mom and Ben had tea and gluten-free scones, I grabbed my camera out of the car and took a walk. While I made sure not to take any shots where people’s faces could be seen because of the whole anonymity of it all, over the weekend I managed to get some good stuff. The liver-spotted hands of a seventy-five-year-old man named Herb, his fingers gnarled by arthritis, clutching the bronze medallion he had been given for the thirty days he had been clean and sober. (“Obviously I’m thrilled for Herb—he’s a lovely man, not to mention a huge fan of the show,” Mom had whispered as everyone clapped for him, “but to get sober when you’re that old? The pain of having to feel your feelings will kill you that much faster.”) A copy of what was known as “the Big Book”—written by the people who had started Alcoholics Anonymous—open to a page that had certain passages underlined, with handwritten notes in the margins. Mom and Ben sitting on a glider on the front porch, her head against his shoulder, the two of them staring into space as they swung back and forth.

  I was just about to take a shot of a cigarette butt next to a giant stone that had the word Breathe etched into it (talk about an oxymoron) when I heard Mom’s familiar click-clacking behind me. (She may have let go of alcohol and pills, but heels were another story.)

  “Do you want to take some shots of me?” she asked.

  “No thanks,” I said, snapping away.

  “Oh. Okay,” she said, disappointed. My mother still didn’t quite underst
and why I liked taking photos that didn’t have faces or people in them. Specifically, people who were not her.

  “Ben said he got you a new lens for your birthday.”

  I stood up and turned and aimed the camera at her. “Yup.”

  “Honey, don’t,” she said, putting her hand up to shield her face.

  “You just asked if I wanted to take a picture of you.”

  “Yes, but I meant, you know, later. When I have some makeup on.”

  I clicked away. “Why? You look good now.”

  “I do? Really?”

  I nodded and clicked some more.

  She put her hand down and relaxed a bit. As she did, Janie Jackson started to come alive again. A big smile. Her trademark head tilt.

  I put the camera down.

  “What’s the matter? You just said I looked good!”

  “You do. It’s just . . . I don’t feel like shooting anymore.” I didn’t want to take photos of things everyone took. I wanted the truth. And that Janie Jackson—the one with the high-wattage smile—she was never really real to begin with.

  She walked over and sat on a bench and began to pull at a sunflower. “When I get out of here, I’m going to get you your present.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Of course I have to. It’s your Sweet Sixteen!”

  I aimed the camera again, focusing on the quarter chin she had going because of the angle of her head. She’d kill me for that later, but she looked good.

  “Okay, but it better not be makeup or anything like that.”

  “Please. I know better than that,” she sighed. She stroked the sunflower. “Did I ever tell you what I got from my parents for my sixteenth birthday?”

  I shook my head.

  “A coupon for a free introductory class at Très Jolie Beauty School,” she said.

  They had never supported her dream to become an actress. They had wanted her to become a beautician.

  “Did you go check it out?” I asked.