Chasing Sunsets Part 24

"Of course."

"You and Charlie . . . Do you know how often Heather held our marriage up to the mirror of yours?"

"What? No."

"Yes. If Charlie so much as winked at you during a family dinner, I caught it when we got home. 'Why don't you ever wink at me like that?' she'd ask. 'Why don't you love me like Charlie loves Kim?' It got to the point where, if I saw Charlie do anything for you, to you, whatever . . . I knew I had to one-up him." He coughed sarcasm. "I told Charlie one time, I said, 'Charlie, I'll pay you half my annual income if you'll just not be so loving toward your wife in front of Heather.'"

I pressed my hand against my forehead. I was sweating profusely in the afternoon heat but couldn't bring myself to go inside and disturb Patsy. "What did he say to that?"

"He just laughed. He actually said-and I don't say this to hurt you or bring back negative emotions-that if I loved Heather a quarter as much as he loved you, I'd be just fine."

I scoffed at the news. "Do tell."

"He was joking, of course."

"No kidding, Andre." I dropped my feet from the railing and leaned over, fighting a wave of nausea that threatened to turn violent.

"I'm sorry. But if we are going to be honest here-"

"And you're not having an affair?"

"Kim. I told you. No."

I pictured Andre-if he was where he said he was-sitting in his black Navigator, the one with all the bells and whistles-outside the public library. Handsome hardly described him. The closer he got to forty, the more appealing he became. While my sister worried over every little laugh line and gray hair, Andre's only served to change him from boyishly cute to dashing. If he were my husband, I'd worry too.

"Then Heather is just imagining all this?"

"It's more than that, Kim. It's . . ."

I stood and starting pacing the length of the balcony, hoping the action would bring enough of a breeze to cool me. "Andre, just say it, okay? If I'm going to help Heather, I need to know."

"You already know, Boo. You just don't want to say the words."

I stopped pacing. The sun beat against my back in perfect rhythm with my heart. I forced myself to focus on something-anything-in front of me. The water had turned to gray. The scattering of islands in the Gulf were blurred by haze. Overhead, against the perfect blue of the sky, white wings fluttered as another flock of gulls headed toward the sunset. I blinked several times as I tried to force myself to find one thing . . . just one thing . . .

A ping-ping drew my attention to the oversized wind chimes hanging on the east side of Patsy's balcony. They echoed back the sun's light like a diamond under the display of Tiffany's lamps. I stared at the glint, widening my eyes, and told myself to not be weary. I knew this . . . I knew . . .

"I know."

"Then say it."

"I . . ." I couldn't.

"You want me to say it? Okay, I'll say it, Kim. Heather is an alcoholic. She's also addicted to prescription drugs. She's an alcoholic and an addict."

I sucked in my breath. "Andre . . ."

"And I'll tell you where I've been lately. I've been going to Al-Anon meetings after work. Not to a cheap motel with some floozy, like she's accused me of."

"Al-Anon?"

"Yeah. Al-Anon. Because I need help too, Kim. I've enabled her and I need help as much as she does."

"Enabled her? What do you mean? You've forced her to drink?"

"Don't be silly. You're too smart for that. Drinking is a coping skill she learned a long time ago. Long before we even met."

"I don't-"

"I'm the one, Kim, who has made sure she had whatever she needed from the pharmacy, which very well could cost me my job. But I'm not willing to sacrifice my wife. I won't lie and I won't enable her. Not anymore." His voice was strong, as if he'd rehea.r.s.ed the words a thousand times so as not to get them wrong and in the repeating had come to believe what he said. Before I could reply, he added, "I won't treat this the way your dad did, Kim. I won't lose my wife to this disease."

The wind chimes moved, twirling round and round as though hurricane-force winds were upon the island. The screeching overhead reverberated in my inner ear. While the world turned upside down around me, I managed to find my chair. To sit. To remind myself to breathe. "What are you talking about?" I spoke through a clenched jaw.

"You know what I'm talking about. You've always known."

"No."

"Yes, Kimberly. Yes. Heather told me the way you used to play your mother. The way you used to get what you wanted by waiting until you knew she'd had enough to drink and you could mold the clay any way you wanted."

My breath came in ragged jerks. "No, no, no."

"Kim!"

I jumped, jolted back to the here and now and what my brother-in-law was saying to me. "Don't you talk to me like that, Charlie Tucker."

Andre groaned. "Oh, man. I'm not Charlie, Kim. I'm Andre. And I'm telling you the truth here."

I ended the call. One second later, I called him back. As soon as he said h.e.l.lo, I declared, "My mother died of liver cancer."

"Your mother died of cirrhosis of the liver. She was a functioning alcoholic, Kim. A highly functioning alcoholic, but an alcoholic nonetheless."

I raked my hand through my hair. My fingertips came back drenched in sweat. "No." I ended the call again.

And called him right back. "Andre, don't-"

"Don't what? Say it out loud? Determine that the cycle is going to stop here? I've got my own children to think about too."

I pressed my hand against my chest; my heart hammered beneath it. In spite of the news I'd just received, all I could think was that Steven was coming back with pizza and Patsy lay in bed with a fever. "I can't talk about this right now," I said.

"If you want to help your sister-"

"Of course I want to help my sister!" I clamped my hand over my mouth and looked in the direction of Patsy's bedroom. "Andre," I continued, my voice softer, "I'm caring for an elderly woman right now. I'm at her home. I just can't . . ."

"The timing is off then." I heard him exhale. "But the subject has got to be faced. You can keep hanging up on me and calling me back and you can put it off indefinitely, but it's not going to change the facts. Your sister is an alcoholic and a drug addict. She knows it. And she knows you know it but won't address it."

"Just this morning . . . I tried . . ." My words tumbled out like soiled clothes from a laundry hamper. "She only ended up yelling at me."

"I know. Believe me, I know the sting of her alcohol-induced fury."

Anger rose from inside me. I blew air from my lungs like a bull ready to stampede. "So what are you going to do about it, Andre?"

"I'm meeting someone here at the library. There are some archived articles he wants me to read. He's going to help me get Heather into a crisis center."

"And she's okay with that?"

"No, she's not okay with that," he said as though I were an idiot. "She insists every night that she can beat this on her own. But every morning she's pouring vodka into orange juice just to get by to lunch. At lunch she has a little something to tide her over, and at 5:00 it's c.o.c.ktail hour."

I hiccupped to force my tears back.

"The kids and I have talked," he continued. "They know they'll be without their mother for the summer, and they're okay with that."

"But how will you manage? Heather takes care of them."

"No, she doesn't, Kimberly. She pretends to take care of them. They've been taking care of themselves for some time now. And it stops. Monday she either goes in on her own, or I'll force the issue."

"Andre . . ." I swallowed. "I'll be back on Tuesday, I think. If you can wait till then, the boys can stay with me."

I heard him chuckle before he said, "You don't have to fix this too, Kim."

If he had thrown cold water on me, it wouldn't have had any less effect. "What?"

"I'm sorry. It's just . . . you know how you are. You want to fix everything."

"No, I-"

"Yes, you do. And I love you for offering, but we'll be fine. It's not like they're babies."

"I see."

"And I'm sorry if I sounded cruel about your mother. I've tried to talk to your father, but he's still in denial. Not just about his wife but about his daughter too."

I wiped my face with my fingertips, grateful I wore no makeup. "Have you spoken to anyone else?"

"Just Jayme-Leigh."

"And?"

"She agrees with me."

"Even about Mom?"

"Yes."

I heard Steven's car tires crunching down the drive. I stood, turning in the sound's direction. "Oh. Oh, Andre, I have to go now."

"Kim-"

"No. I . . . my friend has come back with dinner. I have to go now."

"Just think about what I've said."

I stepped toward the sliding gla.s.s doors. "I will."

"I'd appreciate your support, Boo. And your prayers."

"Of course. Okay." I slid the door open, felt the cool of the air-conditioning pa.s.s over me.

"Call me back, will you?"

"I will." Steven's footsteps came bounding up the outside stairs. "Good-bye, Andre." I ended the call before pushing the door shut and locking it. Just then the front door opened, and I whirled around, wondering how in the world I was going to explain my condition to Steven.

24.

Steven took one look at me and suggested I go home for a shower. "I'll take care of things here," he said. "The pizza and wings will be waiting for you when you get back."

He didn't have to suggest it twice. I ran out of Patsy's, crossed the yard as if I were running from a monster, and-with Max on my heels-entered the house and stripped off my clothes, leaving them piled on the floor. For the next half hour I stood in the shower, ice-cold water pelting my body. I pounded my fists against the slick tiles. I turned my face upward; the needle-like drops of water mingled with my tears, washing them down my body toward the drain. When I had expended all my energy, I slid down the wall and thought I was going to freeze to death. I wondered if, given enough time, someone would come looking for me. Maybe Steven. And he would find me drawn up like a baby, knees up to my chest, heels frozen like the ice sculptures on the party tables at Glenmuir Country Club. And he would never know what I now knew. What I'd known all along. What I'd been afraid to voice.

My mother had been an alcoholic.

I threw my head back, ran my fingers along my scalp. My hair was plastered there; it wrapped around my throat like a noose. I stared at the shower curtain-the one Anise had bought . . . had purchased and brought to my mother's home and hung in my mother's bathroom . . . the one that matched the comforter set in the bedroom. I focused on the lines in the designs; they looked like trails on a map. Hallways in a maze. A maze I may as well have been trapped in.

So Dad had known. And he had tried to make it all right. I thought of how Mom spent her mornings in bed here in Cedar Key. Dad took her a mug of coffee, then came back to drink his with me while I sipped on hot cocoa. "Be extra quiet this morning, Boo. Mom's not feeling well."

I tried to determine when I had figured it out. Had I been a teenager already? Surely by the time I was seventeen. I'd played Mom that year, knowing just when to ask her the questions that got me my way.

I shook my head. But no, no, no. I was too young to understand . . . I hadn't fully understood the disease. That it was a disease. I'd just seen it as Mom liking to drink too much. So when, then, had I really understood?

I twisted the faucets until the water shut off. I stood, pulled back the shower curtain, and stared at my reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. I was nearly blue; with my thin frame, I looked emaciated. Poor and forgotten.

I hummed a song I remembered from long ago, then sang the one line I easily remembered: "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child . . ."

And right then, I did.

I returned to Patsy's with my hair still wet but combed straight back.

"Are you all right?" Steven asked as I sat in the kitchen chair across the table from him.

"Yes. No."

"Let me get you something to eat." He stood, walked over to the counter to the pizza box. It had already been opened; he'd eaten without me, not that I blamed him. "You said cheese only, right?"

I nodded.