Page 33 of Happy Harbor
Diane Campbell was anything but a quitter. Her daughter was as stubborn as a mule. It ran in the family, and sometimes a person couldn’t help genetics. When her mother, Adeline, had come up with this insane idea to leave the house and restaurant to Josie and force them to work together, Diane had told her no. No way. Not doing it. She threatened to quit the restaurant and move back to Mobile, Alabama, where she’d lived for several years before coming back to Happy Harbor.
But her mother needed her.
Adeline was getting sicker and sicker, but she wanted to hide it from Josie. She didn’t want her to leave her life in Atlanta to “take care of an old lady,” as she put it. When Josie would video chat, Adeline would make Diane hide in the other room, and she’d put on her happiest face, so Josie had no idea she was so sick.
Diane missed her mother now more than ever. For so many years, they’d been at odds because of Diane’s alcoholism. Not only had she lost time with her daughter, but with her mother too. And even her granddaughter. So many times, she’d cried to Adeline about her regrets, and her mother would rub her knee and tell her one day she’d get a second chance.
That chance was right now.
As Diane walked down the quiet street, a canopy of centuries-old oaks hanging overhead, she thought about how different her life was now than just a few years ago. After trying to get clean for decades, one morning she found herself sitting in a park near Mobile, hungover from the night before. Her “friends,” a.k.a. drinking buddies, had left her there, growing tired of waiting for her to wake up to start drinking again. Diane was rubbing her eyes when she noticed a young woman with her toddler playing on the playground across the street. The woman was smiling and chasing the little girl, who was giggling so loud Diane could hear her laughter over passing buses. She smiled as she watched the pure joy on both their faces. When they finally fell to the ground, cackling with laughter, Diane felt warm tears streaming down her face. An ache overtook her chest, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
What had she done?
She had one lucid moment—finally—after years of being so toxic with alcohol, and in that moment she felt the weight of everything she’d lost. All the time. The relationships. The respect of her daughter.
She stood up and walked to a community center down the street and found the huge bulletin board. On it was a hotline that said it would help find a rehab center for people with no money. She reached into her pocket and found her prepaid cell phone, which had five percent battery left. Praying, she dialed the number and asked for help.
To her surprise, this time it actually worked. Something inside of her had changed, and she never had another drink from that day forward. Of course, every day she had to decide to stay sober. She had to have support and attend meetings. She had a sponsor she spoke with daily, and sometimes several times a day. Staying clean was work, and she considered it a job, just like the one she had at the restaurant.
After being clean for a few months, she gathered her courage and called her mom. Adeline had cried and cried when she heard Diane was clean, and she invited her to come home. By the time Diane arrived, Adeline had found every twelve-step meeting in a ten-mile radius.
The support of her mother had been critical to staying sober, and without her, Diane knew it was going to be a challenge. Alcohol was how she’d managed her emotions in the past, and losing her mother had brought up the strongest emotions she’d ever felt.
“Hey.” She heard a voice behind her, and she held her hand to her chest as she turned around.
Diane smiled. “Kendra. So good to see you, honey. I wish we’d reconnected under different circumstances.”
Kendra nodded. “Same here. Sorry my mom got upset like that. She tends to have a temper.”
“Well, she gets that honest, unfortunately. Wow! You’ve gotten so big since I saw you last.”
She laughed. “Well, I was maybe, what, six years old?”
They started walking. “About that, I think. You were very into soccer and climbing trees, if I remember correctly.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t a girly girl back then. Still not much of one.”
“I never was either.”
It was weird catching up with her only grandchild. She should’ve been an actual grandmother all those years, baking cookies and going on fun adventures. Instead, she was boozing it up with strangers and people who didn’t even matter.
“I guess we’re going back to Atlanta.”
“I’m so sorry, Kendra. I told Nana not to do this, but she insisted that Josie was the right one to run the restaurant. I tried to quit, but she wanted us to reconnect and try to forge some kind of relationship.”
“I don’t want to go. I was looking forward to staying here. Plus, being near the beach and cute, tanned boys sounded like a marvelous idea.”
Diane laughed. “Don’t be too boy crazy. They are the root of all female problems.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I just don’t want to go back to Atlanta.”
“It’s a nice city, so why wouldn’t you want to go back?”
Kendra shrugged. “I don’t feel accepted there. Everyone at my school hates me.”
“I’m sure they don’t hate you. We all feel that way in high school.”
They stopped and sat down on a bench that was on the edge of the local park. Kids were running around, laughing and playing. “No offense, but you being here is kind of ruining my plan of getting my mom to stay here,” Kendra said, laughing.
