Page 18 of Shake the Habit

“But it was bad when I was high.” It was bad enough that her husband didn’t trust me to take care of their children, not alone. He hadn’t come out and said that to my face, but he always asked someone else to show up when I was supposed to babysit, so that I had a partner to watch the kids and to keep an eye on me, too.

“You’re doing so great now. It’s more than three years, Kaleigh! I’m very proud.”

“Yeah,” I sighed. So great. I tried an affirmation. “My hair might turn out well today. It could.”

“You have beautiful hair,” she agreed. “I love how you’re wearing it straight.”

That was from a lack of attention and the last time I’d seen her mother, Aunt Amber, I’d been treated to a lecture about how I needed to find my way back to my curling iron. “Maybe I’ll get some highlights. Or lowlights. Or ombre. What if I did it really dark, like Sir’s fur?”

“Isn’t he grey?” she asked, and there as a lot of doubt in that question. “I like your color right now, natural.”

“Brown. It’s just naturally brown,” I reminded her. “My eyes are just brown, too. There’s nothing special.”

“They’re the color of dark chocolate,” she said. “And your hair is like maple syrup! Everyone loves pancakes.”

“Aria, that’s a stretch.”

“I love pancakes, I really do. And your irises also have those gold streaks running through them, like…like a beautiful cat!” she continued, defending me against myself. “You’re gorgeous.”

“You’re a good friend.” But I thought about the pageants suddenly, remembering all the big trophies that I hadn’t won. “I had personality, not looks,” I told her. “I don’t have that anymore. I sat at home last night listening to my neighbor’s girlfriend have those long orgasms and I started counting up mine. I mean, I was counting up how long it’s been since I hadone with someone else.” I sighed. “I haven’t been with anyone since the guy who left with the carnival.”

“Oh, my word. I forgot that you got together with him.”

“We did it in one of those swinging cars that flips over, and he got it really rocking. Not from the sex, just by throwing his weight around. I almost got sick and there was no fun happening at all.” Not long after that, I’d gone to rehab for the second time. I’d been…twenty-two? Yeah, it had been that long.

“What about Caleb?” she asked.

“No one wants a girl with issues.”

“Are you quoting my mother?” Aria demanded, and then she got nervous. I could almost feel it through the phone. “Kayleigh, are you all right?” she asked next, and she used the calm tone that I’d heard before when she’d spoken to one of her horses who had been spooked.

“I’m not going to do anything crazy,” I assured her. “I haven’t been drinking or taking anything, smoking it, snorting it…I can’t remember if I ever injected it, but I don’t think so. I’ve always been so afraid of needles.”

I had meant that as a joke to lighten up the conversation but Aria hadn’t found it funny. “Please don’t do any of that,” she said. She sounded a little desperate, which reminded me of what I’d put them all through. “If you want to talk...because, if anyone understands…”

“No, I don’t have anything to say. Ari, I’m fine,” I insisted. “Did I tell you that Sir and I are going to start running together? I’mgoing to work up to three miles. I have goals to look forward to.” Because I had changed. I was a different woman now, even if I wasn’t always happy with how my transformation had gone. “How far do they run in cross country races?”

“Are you really asking me that? I only run when the kids need me, or Cain does.” And I heard her husband call her name in the background now, saying something about a nasal aspirator, and she had to go.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” she asked one last time, and I swore that I was. I even told her that I had my hand on a Bible, which probably made the lie even worse.

The rest of the day, which Marc and I had taken off, was quiet. I heard from many more relatives wishing me a happy New Year, including my aunt Paula from Signal Mountain. “When are you coming up to visit me?” she wanted to know. “In preparation for dying, I’m giving away a lot of my old stuff. Want some?”

“You don’t need to bribe me. I could come this weekend to say hello,” I suggested. She said fine, and we set a vague time, somewhere before noon on Saturday when she was awake and after she had drunk her coffee. That night, I went to visit my parents, taking the dog with me so they could meet the newest member of the family.

It did not go well.

“I’m ashamed of you,” I told Sir when we were in the car on the way home. He cried, his usual sad whining about riding in the back, but I didn’t want to hear it. “I can’t believe you behaved that way! If you’re sick later, it’s entirely your own fault.”

And he was sick later, very sick all over my bed and it went deep into the mattress. “This is what happens when you gulp down a whole pot roast! That was supposed to feed six people, with leftovers for me!” I told him, because besides the three McCourts in my own family, my mama had invited over new neighbors and their son, who was about my age. She’d thought I might want to meet him, in case things with Caleb weren’t going to work out.

There was nothing working with Caleb, the person who hadn’t made any move to kiss me even though it was traditional on New Year’s Eve (even if it had been a little early when he’d left). Anyway, the new neighbor’s son had spent a significant amount of time discussing the girlfriend he loved so much, who was moving to Tennessee from Arkansas so they could be together.

“Well, I didn’t have that information when I invited them,” my mother had confessed when I’d cornered her in the hallway. It was then that we’d heard the crash in the kitchen as her heaviest stew pot was pulled off the stove and onto the floor. Before we’d managed to grab him, Sir had run off with the hunk of meat, dripping it all over my parents’ carpet as he raced through the house and then he had, apparently, swallowed a four-pound chuck roast in less than five seconds.

After we’d recovered from the initial shock and horror and I’d hysterically checked his mouth for burns, my dad had gone to get pizza. So I’d had that for the second night in a row, along with the traditional New Year’s Day black-eyed peas. Their neighbors had been less than impressed by my dog and my parents felt the same way. He wasn’t welcome in their home anymore.

And now that I was cleaning up his vomit, which had definitely gone into the foam that I was supposed to sleep on? “I’m ashamed!” I told him again and I was, as well as feeling more than a little sick myself.

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