Best Kept Secret (27 page)

“Well, good. You’ll put them in your special book for me?”

“ ’Kay, Mama.”

“Love you, Charlie bear.”

There is a rummaging noise, muffled voices. I wait, steeling myself against another confrontation with Martin. I want to know how his meeting with Mr. Hines went. What did he say about me? About our marriage? Was he convincing enough for Mr. Hines to choose him over me? Does being Charlie’s mother matter at all, or does my drinking erase any meaning behind the word?

Martin comes on the line. “He had a bad dream,” he says.

“Sounds like it.” I pause, waiting for him to continue. “Thanks for letting him call.”

“He wouldn’t take no for an answer.” My first thought is:
Excuse me, you told him
no? But then Martin goes on. “I told him it was too
early, and that he might wake you up, but he would not be deterred. He’s slightly stubborn.”

Again, I smile. “I wonder where he gets that.”

“Yeah . . .” Martin lets out a hard breath, a cross between a cough and a laugh. “The kid doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Nope.”

Again, I hear a muffled voice, Charlie’s this time, then Martin’s voice in my ear. “He told me to tell you he loves you.”

God. Has there ever been anything as difficult as this?
“Thanks,” I say, pushing my fingernails into my palm to keep from crying. My chest feels hollow. A giant claw just reached through the phone and scooped out what is left of my heart.

When Kristin calls later that afternoon and asks me to go to a seven o’clock meeting with her, I find myself agreeing, thinking that after my call with Charlie, it isn’t a good idea to be alone. She picks me up at 6:30.

We pull into the parking lot of a church and head inside. I scan the room, but don’t see Vince, and find myself strangely disappointed. We sit in a circle of about twenty-five men and women, in various states of being here by choice, others by court order. There are old people and young, professional and those with clothes stained greasy from an honest day’s labor. There’s coffee and talk about God, only one of which I am comfortable with. The meeting has opened up for people wanting to share their experiences, instead of being called on by the chairperson. I can finally relax, no longer in danger of being asked to speak to the group about my experiences.

“Hi, I’m Kristin, and I’m an alcoholic/addict,” Kristin says when the chairperson opens the meeting. Her voice is fairly quiet, but it still manages to surprise me. She hadn’t told me she was planning to speak.

The room is still. I am amazed at how intently people pay attention
to another person’s sharing in these rooms. In a bar, lots of people are talking, and nobody’s listening. In here, one person speaks, and every word is heard.

“Hi, Kristin,” the group responds, and I flinch. The response still feels clichéd to me, mimicked, perhaps, too many times in the media for it to appear substantive or genuine. No one else seems to mind it.

“Hi, everyone,” Kristin says. Her fingers are linked tightly together in her lap and she keeps her eyes on them. “It’s good to be back to this meeting.” She pauses, a nervous habit of hers, it seems, when she is unsure how to proceed. She looks up, smiles weakly at the faces around the room. “I came for about six months, and really liked it, you know? I stayed sober. But here I sit, five years later, with barely sixty days.”

The room erupts in applause at her pronouncement. The people here applaud at every announcement of sobriety—thirty days, one day, twenty-one years. Twenty-one
years
? I silently questioned the first time I heard such a long sobriety date. If they have to keep coming for so long, this program must not work as well as they say it does. I mean, really, isn’t there a point you finally get it, and don’t have to come back?

Kristin smiles again, then continues. “I know now that I’m in the right place. I’m going to do it the right way this time. I’m going to get a sponsor, I’m going to do everything she tells me. Even when she’s wrong. So, anyway, thank you. Thank you for still being here.”

“Thanks, Kristin,” the group responds. We listen to a couple other people share, and then the meeting closes with the group standing in a circle holding hands, reciting the Lord’s Prayer in unison. I keep my eyes open and mouth shut; the words wriggle like tiny metal shavings under my skin. I’m not religious, and while I’m told I don’t have to accept an organized religion version of a higher power—apparently, I can choose to use a doorknob if I want to—when the word “God” is thrown around these rooms like confetti, it’s difficult to imagine any other concept. I have a hard time feeling like I fit
in with all of this. It’s a little cultish, really, the way they talk about turning their will and their lives over to some invisible spirit. It goes against everything I grew up believing about the self-sufficient woman I should be.

Kristin accepts several hugs from the women in the room, and though I am standing off away from her, I get pulled into a few embraces myself. One woman with flame orange tresses and a sequined, denim button-down shirt hugs me hard, then holds me out at arm’s length. “Trying to be invisible doesn’t work so well here, does it?” she says, smiling. Her candy apple red lips are not a good match to her hair color. She wears rimless glasses and dangling intricate silver earrings.

“Uh, um . . .” I say. I am not used to being called out on my crap, so this is my brilliant response.

She laughs. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell. I did the same thing at meetings when I first got here. I was scared to death that someone might talk to me.”

I make a few halfhearted protestations, and she just smiles more. “Do you need a sponsor, honey?”

“I don’t think so,” I say, finally finding a way to get the words in my brain to travel out of my mouth. “I’m in treatment.”

“Really? Well, treatment can’t last forever.” Leaning over a nearby table, she scribbles something on a piece of paper and hands it to me. “Just in case. I’m Nadine.”

Minding my manners, I take the paper, slip it into my purse. “Okay, well, thanks. I’m Cadence.”

“Isn’t that an interesting name?” she exclaims. “Creative mother, I guess.”

“Father, actually,” I admit, finding it very odd to be sharing this bit of extremely personal trivia with a strangely exuberant, orange-haired alcoholic.

Kristin rescues me at this point. “Are you ready to go?” she inquires, smiling at Nadine. “Hi, I’m Kristin.”

“Nadine.” She reaches over to hug Kristin. “Thank you for sharing, honey. I really appreciate hearing from the newcomers. I hope you find something here that keeps you coming back.”

Kristin returns her embrace. “Oh, thank you.” After she pulls away, she smiles again. “How many years do you have, Nadine?”

“Thirty-seven.”

“Wow,” Kristin says.

“If I can do it, anyone can,” Nadine says, winking. “You two take care, okay? We’ll see you next week.”

We wave on the way out the door, and I exhale as we climb into Kristin’s car. She looks at me as she turns the ignition. “What?”

I give her a look. “Nadine.”

She tilts her head, curious. “What about her?”

I push another breath out of pursed lips, snap my seat belt in place. “Nothing, really. She’s just a character.”

“Yeah, but she’s got a huge heart.” Kristin backs up the vehicle, looking over her shoulder, careful not to run over any of her fellow alcoholics. “I remember her from the last time I was here. I almost asked her to be my sponsor.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She throws the car into drive, starts to pull into traffic. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t do a lot of things. I guess I wasn’t ready.” It’s quiet for a moment, and then she continues. “Nadine said something once that really stuck with me. It’s the reason I knew I could come back. I mean, I was so full of shame, you know?”

I nod. Yes, I did know. Of course I knew. “What did she say?”

“She said, ‘We don’t shoot our own wounded.’” She glances at me. “I can’t think of anywhere else in the world you get that kind of reception after fucking up. It made it a hell of a lot easier to get help.”

I consider this. “What choice did you have, really? I mean, with CPS being involved and the DUI. Didn’t you have to get help?”

She is quiet, contemplating, then shakes her head. “No. I didn’t.
I could have killed myself. Those were my options.” Her voice trembles. “I went with the one where my kids don’t have to grow up without a mother.”

“That’s a hell of a choice to make.”

“I know.”

We are silent for another moment. And then the words come. They are out of my mouth before I realize, in barely a whisper. “I had to make that choice, too.”

She reaches over, grabs my hand for the second time that night, squeezes hard, then turns the corner so she’s driving us the right way home.

I
leave my house the
next morning dressed simply in a lavender cardigan and dark jeans. I’m jittery with renewed determination to present my case to Mr. Hines. I weave my way south down Interstate 5, drive beneath the ill-advised, traffic-inducing monstrosity of the Convention Center down the freeway about a mile. Qwest and Safeco Fields are off to my right. I take the exit next to the Tully’s Coffee roasting plant, a building that twenty years ago used to produce Rainier Beer. As children, when my mother drove past it, Jess and I debated the more accurate characterization of the scent in the air—urine or cornflakes? I much prefer the current, easily distinguished nutty bouquet of roasting coffee.

Driving up and over the West Seattle Bridge, I listen to the calm, computerized tones of my GPS directing me to follow Fauntleroy Way, cross over California Avenue, and down the hill toward Lincoln Park. I find Mr. Hines’s office a few blocks away from the Fauntleroy Ferry terminal. It’s disguised as a two-story, sky blue Victorian-style house, complete with sharp gables and white gingerbread trim. I had imagined I’d arrive at a nondescript office building, but the address is right. It’s not until I find a tiny black sign tacked to the left side of the front door, emblazoned with scrolled brass letters—
RONALD HINES, MSW, GAL
—that I’m certain I’m in the right place.

My cell phone rings just as I’m lifting my index finger to press the doorbell. I reach inside my purse and flip the phone open.

“Hello?” The word comes out as a whisper, though I’m not sure why.

“Hey, I just wanted to wish you good luck,” Jess says. “I love you. I know you’ll do great.”

The tension woven through the muscles of my chest relaxes a bit. “Thanks, Jess. I appreciate it.” I take a deep breath. “I need to talk with you about selling my house, too, okay?”

“Yeah, sure, of course,” she says. “I’ll run a CMA to see what we can list it for.”

“What’s a CMA?”

“Comparative market analysis. It tells us what houses are going for in your neighborhood.”

“Oh, okay. That sounds great. Thank you.” I pause to take another deep breath. “I’m standing on the front porch of his office right now. I should probably go.”

“Okay. Call me later.”

“I will. ’Bye.” I press the bell and hear the thud of a man’s footsteps moving toward the door. It swings open and Mr. Hines stands in front of me. I’m not sure what I was expecting him to look like, but it wasn’t this. His blond hair is unkempt. He’s stocky, not particularly handsome; at least, not in the traditional sense of the word. The pale pink, striped dress shirt and khakis he’s wearing are rumpled and creased.

“Ms. Sutter?” he inquires. His voice resonates in a low, deep timbre.

I nod, my lips pressed together, too afraid to speak. I’m afraid I might let loose a wild string of babbling hysteria, begging this man to give me my son back. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t go over well. My breath is shallow; my lungs feel like overinflated balloons behind my rib cage.

“Come in.” He gestures for me to step inside a long, narrow hallway.
He closes the door, slips past me with his back against the wall. I follow him into a small, square room with three long, rectangular windows. It’s sparsely decorated with a couple of chairs, a round end table, and a bookshelf. He sits in one of the padded, forest green armchairs and looks at me expectantly. “Please, sit down.”

I lower myself into the other seat. Our knees are barely a foot apart. This arrangement feels oddly intimate to me, so I angle my knees off to one side to create a slightly larger space between us. “I’m really nervous,” I blurt. “I don’t know what to expect.”

He shifts his mouth in a small motion. It’s not quite what I would call a smile. “I wouldn’t expect you to,” he says. “And I’m sorry you’re nervous. We’ll take this slowly.” He reaches for a yellow legal pad and a pen, crossing his left leg over his right knee. “Why don’t you start by telling me about your marriage to Martin?” He drops his eyes to the notepad and waits, pen poised just above the page.

“Okay.” I take a deep breath, unlacing my fingers and setting my hands flat on the tops of my thighs. I give him the short version, how Martin and I met, dated, and then decided to get married when I found out I was pregnant with Charlie.

He looks up when I say this. “Charlie wasn’t planned, then, I take it?”

“No,” I say. “But it only took me about two seconds to know I would keep him, once I knew I was pregnant.”

“How did you feel about becoming a mother?” His eyes are intent on mine and I have to force myself to not look away.

“A little scared,” I say, wanting to be honest with him, knowing this is what Martin most likely said about how I felt, too. “But aren’t all mothers scared, the first time? I know my sister was. It kind of goes with the territory.”

“So, how was being a mother once Charlie arrived? Were you still scared?”

I consider this, drumming my fingers across my thighs. “Well, in a different way, I suppose. I loved him immensely. I had never felt
anything like it, to tell you the truth. I was scared I wouldn’t be a good enough mother to him.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I want to reel them back in, to somehow make it so they hadn’t been spoken.