Page 120 of The Way I Am Now
He holds his hands up. “Okay, okay,” he says softly. “I was just saying.”
I have a sudden flashback to when I’m twelve, hearing my mom give my dad this same excuse—except she’d say “we.”Wewere going to the store or out for ice cream. Orwewere going in search of something special I needed for a last-minute school assignment—me and her. Only we never went to the store or for ice cream or off to find that one missing item. She was taking me to a meeting. I remember she always had a bunch of go-to excuses at the ready, to pull out of her back pocket whenever she needed one. And as I look up at her now, I wonder if it’s still that way, because Dad’s right, after all, we have a ton of food in this house.
“Mom, can I come with you?” I ask, already getting off the couch.
She scrunches her eyebrows together and says, “To the store, really?”
“Yeah,” I tell her.
She shakes her head and says, “Don’t be silly. I’ll be home soon. Text me if you think of anything you want. Or anything you want to bring back to school with you.”
“No, Mom, I want to come,” I try to say more firmly as I make my way over to the door and tug my sneakers on.
She looks at me, almost getting annoyed, but then I nod, widen my eyes, try to secretly tell her I know we’re not actually going to the store.
“Oh,” she says, pushing her arms through her coat. “All right.”
She walks over to kiss my dad and says, “Be home soon.”
He looks up at her, then at me. “Well, now I wanna come too,” he jokes.
My mom swats his arm and shakes her head. “Goodbye,” she calls over her shoulder.
Outside, she pulls on her gloves and looks over at me but doesn’t say anything yet.
Once we’re in the car, I ask, “You’re going to a meeting, right?”
“Yes,” she answers. “You really want to come?”
“Yeah, I’ve sorta been thinking about it lately. Thinking maybe I should give it another try. As long as you don’t mind me tagging along with you?”
She shakes her head. “Not at all.”
We pull into the parking lot of a church and go inside, past all the stained glass and pews, down into the basement, to a room with a sign on the door that saysAL-ANON MEETING TONIGHT 8PM.
The room is small and looks like it could be the basement of any home nearby, not much here to signal we’re even in a church. There’s a table set up with refreshments, white powdered doughnuts, and coffee. Pamphlets about Al-Anon and Alateen and AA and NA laid out for the taking. More and more people arrive, young and old, and my mom talks with everyone, lets me hang out in the back by the doughnuts. As everyone begins to find a seat around the circle, my mom gestures for me to come. I take the empty spot next to her.
“Well,” I hear my mom say next to me, but when I turn to look at her, I realize she’s not talking to me, she’s talking to everyone. “It’s a few minutes after eight, so why don’t we go ahead and get started.”
I look around the circle, trying to figure out who the facilitator is, the old man with the cane and the gray beard, the middle-aged woman in the fancy shoes who looks like she just came from a business meeting. Or maybe it’s the—
“Welcome, everyone,” my mom begins. “I’m Rosie, and my husband is an addict.” Mymomis running this meeting. I just watch her, admire her, while she tells our story—her story—kind of in awe of how she can just put herself out here like this. “I know how hard the holidays can be for all of us, not just our loved ones. I certainly do a lot more worrying around this time of year,” she continues, and finally, she opens the floor. “Who would like to share?”
I just listen.
To the bearded man whose wife is an alcoholic. To the lady with the fancy shoes whose teenage daughter is relapsing right now. The girl who’s probably not much older than me, talking about her fiancé. The man whose brother is getting out of rehab this week. When there’s a lull in the conversation, my mom asks if anyone else would like to share and looks over at me.
“I’m Josh. My dad is . . . is an alcoholic, an addict,” I say, finding it so hard to get those words out. “This is my first time doing this since I was a kid. I’m just observing today—listening, I mean—if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine,” Mom says, and heads nod up and down in agreement around the circle. “Often, it helps to just know there are other people out there who can relate.”
Another person introduces themselves—a middle-aged man who could be anyone you pass on the street. “I’m struggling,” he says, clasping his hands together in front of him. “I try so hard to let go of that compulsion to want to control everything she does.” I’m not sure if hissheis a wife or a child or what, but it doesn’t matter because I watch him lean forward over his lap and start crying. “But it’s so hard to trust her—hell, who am I kidding? It’s hard to trust anyone,” he finishes. Around the circle, heads nod in understanding and I realize I’m nodding along with them. The younger girl with the fiancé gets up and grabs the box of tissues that’s sitting on the refreshment table and brings it over to the man.
The meeting ends with the Serenity Prayer, and the woman next to me grabs my hand, holds on tightly. My mom reaches for my other hand, and even though it’s small in mine, it feels so strong, solid.
“I’m proud of you,” she says, looking over at me while we’re driving home.
“I didn’t do anything. You were great, though, Mom,” I tell her. “How long have you been doing that—leading the meetings, I mean?”
