Diary of an Alcoholic Housewife (36 page)

[Thursday, December 11]

The preschool let me drop Van off early, and I drove downtown to the urologist’s office. My parents and I were taken into an examining room and Dr. McCreevy, an attractive guy in his early forties, walked in.

“What brings you to see me?” he asked my dad with a friendly smile.

My dad told McCreevy his medical story and told him he was seeing Svengali.

“Dr. Barren told me he could cure me and no one else could,” my dad said.

McCreevy raised his eyebrows, gave my dad a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look, took a deep breath, and put a hand over his mouth to pull down his smile.

“Dr. Barren told me not to see any other doctors, to stick with him and I’d be fine,” my dad continued.

McCreevy tipped back in his chair and groaned. I held out my arms, met my father’s gaze, and said, “See? Do you see how he’s reacting?” I turned to McCreevy. “My dad went to Dr. Barren after he found out he was terminal. Dr. Barren told him, ‘You just did the two worst things: You had surgery, I never would have done surgery, then you had radiation, and radiation feeds cancer. But the good news is you’re back with me and now I can take care of you.’”

McCreevy shook his head, rubbed his face, and groaned again.

“Do you see?” I said to my dad. “Look at the doctor.”

“That’s just wrong,” McCreevy said, still shaking his head. “You did the right things.”

My dad told McCreevy about the invasive biopsy Dr. Barren still wants to do and the needle biopsy he already had done. “Dr. Barren screamed at me for seeing that other doctor and getting a needle biopsy,” my father said. “Yesterday, I saw the surgeon he wants me to see. I’m scheduled for a biopsy on the sixteenth and I’ll be in the hospital for two days.”

McCreevy looked at my dad’s needle biopsy report, which said “suspicious for prostate cancer.”

“I want you to take the biopsy slides to our top cytologist,” McCreevy said. “If she says it’s prostate cancer, it’s prostate cancer. If she doesn’t know, no one would know and you’ll have to have the other biopsy. But why have it done if you don’t have to?

“Up until now, you’ve done all the right things,” McCreevy assured my father. “But now you need a quarterback to manage things for you, you need a good oncologist.”

“I’ve got an appointment to see Dr. Newhart on Monday,” my dad said.

“Great,” McCreevy said. “He’s a really good doctor. Get the CT scans of your lungs for Dr. Newhart.”

We walked out of McCreevy’s office and my mother hugged me.

“Thank you for being persistent,” my mom said. “I feel really good about this. I like him.”

“Me, too,” I said. I closed my eyes and sent up a silent, “Thank you, God!”

[Friday, December 12]

Max must be eavesdropping on my phone conversations. Out of the blue, while I was cooking dinner, Max said, “I never knew you had a drinking problem, Mom. It never seemed like it to me.”

“Well,” I told him, “it runs in our family. Papa is an alcoholic. His father was an alcoholic. Grandma Martha was an alcoholic. Dad’s dad was an alcoholic. You’re going to have to be very careful when it comes to alcohol. I quit because I didn’t like the way I was drinking and I didn’t want things to get bad.”

“Oh,” Max said and thought for a moment. “But Dad’s not an alcoholic.”

“No. Sometimes it skips people.”

“Oh,” Max said and left the kitchen.

This time I didn’t think,
Maybe I don’t have a problem,
and I smiled at this small sign of growth.

After dinner, I went to a meeting and Eliza was there. She looks good and seems happy.

“My sponsor found me a room to rent and I have to walk to catch the bus for work,” Eliza said. “I’ve lost weight and feel healthier.”

I gave Eliza a big hug and told her to call me if she ever needs help. Life’s going to get a lot tougher once that baby is born.

[Saturday, December 13]

Charlie made dinner while I was at a meeting. He cooked the frozen lobster tails I bought a couple of months ago and was pulling them out of the broiler when I got home.

“We didn’t have any breadcrumbs, so I made my own,” Charlie said proudly.

I was impressed. We sat down and Charlie served up the lobster.

“How are we supposed to eat this?” Max asked.

I looked at my plate. Partially translucent meat protruded from where the tail had been connected to the body. The breadcrumb mixture was sitting on top of the shell, and the shell had not been split open.

“You didn’t split the shell?” I asked.

Charlie began to fidget irritably.

“How many times have you had lobster when the tail wasn’t split open?” I asked. “The breadcrumbs. What purpose do they serve sitting on top of the shell? They’re supposed to be on the meat, you know, so you can eat the breadcrumbs and meat together. Didn’t you read the recipe?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said angrily, fidgeting even more. “But the recipe didn’t say anything about opening up the tail.”

I got a serrated knife and began sawing through Max’s tail. I pulled out a chunk of meat that was half cooked. “Didn’t you thaw these before broiling them?”

Charlie angrily got up, snatched our plates, and put the lobster tails back in the broiler. When he returned the tails to our plates, the meat was still not cooked. I shut up and picked at what I could.

“The parts I can eat taste good,” I said condescendingly.

Charlie scowled.

“I can’t believe the cookbook didn’t say anything about opening up the tail,” I said. I got up and retrieved the cookbook he’d used. “Here, it’s right here.” I pointed to a long paragraph in the middle of the recipe. There was also a diagram showing how to prepare a lobster.

“That’s for a full, live lobster,” Charlie said.

“Yeah, but it shows you what to do with the tail,” I said.

Charlie blanched. “I can’t believe you pulled out that cookbook,” he said. “I never would have done that to you.”

“I never would have cooked the lobster like that and lied,” I said.

The look on Charlie’s face screamed, “Bitch!” He began slamming things as he cleared the kitchen. I started feeling bad. After all, he had tried to cook a nice dinner.

“I’m going to start calling you Little Emeril,” I said in a joking way, hoping he’d laugh.

Charlie shot me a look that said, “Drop dead.”

“Bam!” I shouted.

Charlie laughed.

“Thanks for cooking dinner,” I said. “It did taste good,” I lied. Charlie scowled and started to say something.

“Bam!” I shouted again.

He laughed, thank God.

[Monday, December 15]

Max stayed home sick with a wicked strain of the flu. Poor guy had to take care of himself for an hour because I had to leave for my dad’s oncology appointment at eleven thirty, and Charlie, whom I talked into taking half a vacation day, couldn’t get home before twelve thirty.

When I got to Dr. Newhart’s office, my parents had already been led to an examining room and a nurse escorted me to them. Minutes later, Dr. Newhart walked in and my dad repeated what he’d told McCreevy.

“I had my prostate removed, then radiation, and Dr. Barren told me those were the two worst things I could have done,” my dad told Newhart.

“That’s bullshit,” Newhart yelled.

My dad laughed and looked relieved. I knew at that moment Newhart was going to be my dad’s doctor.

“The cytologist is pretty sure the lesions on your lungs are prostate cancer,” Newhart told my dad. “The lesions are very small and there are many on both lungs. A surgical biopsy of one lesion out of many would not tell us much more, so cancel your biopsy. I’ll do another CAT scan in a couple of weeks to see if the hormones are shrinking the lesions. We’ll go from there.”

By the time we walked out of Newhart’s office, it was time for an early dinner. My parents took me to an Italian restaurant around the corner.

“I like this Newhart,” my father said apprehensively. “I just hope I’m doing the right thing. Dr. Barren says he can cure me.”

“Dr. Barren is a lying sack of shit who shouldn’t be practicing medicine,” I said.

“We weren’t going to tell you this,” my mother said, “but when we went to see Dr. Barren the last time, he called you an idiot and told us not to listen to you.”

“He made me promise not to see any other doctors,” my dad said. “He took my hands, looked me in the eye, and made me promise.”

“Your father looked like he wasn’t going to promise anything,” my mother said. “But Dr. Barren kept holding his hands and staring your father in the eye until he said yes.”

“We should report this guy,” I said, anger twisting my gut. I put my face in my hands for a moment and just breathed. “You don’t know how hard I’ve been praying for you to leave Svengali.”

[Tuesday, December 16]

Max was still very sick: fever, congestion, body aches. I called his school. Lots of kids were out sick. I babied Max, waiting on him hand and foot, and in the evening passed him over to Charlie and went out to dinner with Emily and a few of the Door County chicks.

“Donna has blood plasma cancer,” Emily told me when we made dinner plans. “Her prince of a husband told her he was having an affair and wanted a divorce the day she was diagnosed. She started cancer treatment and the treatment caused her to have a stroke. Now she’s legally blind. But through it all, I have never heard her cry or complain. She’s amazing. Instead of being resentful, she’s glad she’s alive. Instead of being upset that she’s blind, she’s happy she can see a little and still see her kids.”

Out of us all, Donna was the most upbeat person at dinner. If Emily hadn’t told me she was blind, I’d never have known. Not once did Donna bring up her crappy circumstances. If I were Donna, I’m pretty sure I’d be crying in my beer.

[Saturday, December 20]

Max was sick all week, leaving snotty tissues everywhere. But now that he’s better, Van came down with the flu.

I bought tickets a month ago for Charlie, Max, and myself to see the Joffrey Ballet perform
The Nutcracker
tonight, and Van is supposed to sleep over at my parents house. I called my mom and asked if she’d mind coming to our house to watch Van.

“I don’t want you to get sick, but I really don’t want Dad to get sick,” I said. “You should be fine if you don’t kiss Van and you put him to bed early. I feel bad asking you to watch him. If you don’t want to, I’ll understand.”

My mother, of course, said yes. She came to our house, and Charlie, Max, and I drove downtown. We went to Prairie for dinner, and while we were having soup, I called my mom to see how things were going. I wasn’t worried about Van, I was worried about my father giving my mom a hard time for being at my house when she should be home with him. My mother had already put Van to bed and was lounging on the couch reading a book, but as I suspected, my dad was being a dick. My father had spent the day hunting with his friends in southern Wisconsin. When he got home, he realized he’d forgotten his house keys and was angry that my mother wasn’t home to let him in.

“Your father called in a foul mood, swearing like a sailor,” my mother said. “He was especially mad because he’d practically driven past your house on his way home. He drove here to get my keys, scoured your pantry for booze, and got even madder when he couldn’t find any. He found your cooking sherry and polished it off. He just left.”

“What an ass. I’m so sorry, Mom.”

“Eh, it’s okay,” she said. “Hopefully he’ll be sleeping when I get home. He’s always sorry in the morning.”

When I hung up, Charlie asked, “Your dad?” I rolled my eyes and nodded.

Our food arrived and the waiter placed the pork chops Max ordered in front of him. The chops came with a red currant sauce and were topped with crunchy bits of sweet potato. A square of cheesy grits sat off to the side. Charlie got the mixed grill and I got beef tenderloin topped with grilled onions and mushrooms. Max eyed my plate.

“I thought I was ordering what you have, Mom,” he said.

“Don’t you like yours?”

Max shook his head. “I don’t like the sauce.”

“You want to switch?”

Max nodded. “That’s what I ordered.”

“No, you ordered the pork chops, but I’ll switch with you.”

We exchanged plates. Max scraped away the onions and mushrooms and dug into the tenderloin. For dessert, he had a hot fudge sundae, and Charlie and I split a piece of sweet potato cheesecake with caramel sauce and fresh berries.

The Nutcracker
was beautiful. The dancers were spectacular. The scenery and costumes were gorgeous. And Max hated it. He began sighing loudly and checking his watch toward the end of the first half. The only upside for him was that he was wearing his suit. Max loved wearing his suit. He even asked to go to church just so he could put it on.

“Come on, let’s get a Coke,” Charlie told Max when the intermission lights went on.

“Will you hand me my jacket, Mom?” Max asked. “I don’t want to look like the manager of Osco Drug.” I looked at Charlie and we burst out laughing.

During the second half of the ballet, Max’s sighing and watch-checking was constant. The family in front of us was having the same problem. Their son, who appeared to be about thirteen, got up three or four times during the second half and disappeared for long periods of time.

While we were driving home, Max said, “I don’t know why you thought I would like that. I hated it.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help thinking that if I had been drinking, I would have ripped into Max for being a little ingrate. Instead, I was laughing.

“Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said.

[Sunday, December 21]

Charlie and I decided not to get each other much for Christmas. We were going to save money, just get each other token gifts. But when the December issue of
Harper’s Bazaar
came out in November, I saw an ad for a watch I wanted. The steel wristband on my Kenneth Cole watch comes apart all the time and falls off my arm. The watch I want has an over-sized face with diamonds instead of numbers, has a leather wrist strap, and comes in hot pink or robin’s egg blue. I showed Charlie the ad.

“I know we decided to get each other inexpensive gifts for Christmas,” I began, “but I’d really like this watch.”