as it had been the night I’d taken Jess to a movie and then dinner—it was the first time I’d seen her in a month, I was giddy with excitement—and ordered the first drink, just a single glass of wine, followed by a second and, almost unconsciously, the third….
I’d started drinking while I was in the various foster homes to which I was assigned after the catastrophe with my parents. Alcohol unfocused things, I found. Blurred them marvelously. Took away the harsh and dirty edges and made everything smooth and clean. I drank through high school, through college, through the early years of my marriage, keeping the weight off by fiercely devoting myself to my morning workouts at the gym. Running, cardiovascular machines, weight training, swimming. Sports whenever I could. I was known as a fitness nut. And Donald drank a good deal too—we drank together—until one day he decided that he would stop.
I never stopped.
My life kept looping back, encircling itself, eating itself. Somewhere it had all gone wrong and nothing I’d ever done had put it right. At this point I didn’t know how; I didn’t know what “right” was. There had been a second accident with Jess nearly a year later; minor in itself, with no injuries, it had nonetheless led to my failing a Breathalyzer test; and that was the end, of course. Donald and his wife took full custody, reducing me to brief supervised visits during which Jess read magazines and blew bubble-gum bubbles. When I thought of her now, I felt utterly, comprehensively defeated, as if I could just cry for the rest of my life and still not be done with tears.
Donald, ask her to come to the phone, please ask her.
She won’t, Frances.
Just for one minute. Exactly a minute. Sixty seconds.
She won’t, Frances.
I swallowed the last of the whiskey sour and got up to leave. Had my life been hopelessly off-course even when I’d lived here in Quiet? I didn’t think so. No, at that point there had still been the possibility of salvation. Frank and Louise hadn’t been loving, but they had provided me something like a home. I did well in school, as I always had. And there was Lucy, whom thirty years of eating my own tail had nearly obliterated from my memory. For three decades the very thought of her had been too much to contemplate. She’d vanished from me, from my mind, though of course she hadn’t. Not really.
Without any conscious thought of where I was going, I wandered through the hotel lobby and out the sliding-glass front door to the parking lot. I was restless, shaking slightly, unwilling to go back to my room where, I knew, I would simply continue drinking. I’d had two whiskey sours but I knew I was all right to drive. Would I pass a Breathalyzer test if I were pulled over? Possibly not. But I wouldn’t be pulled over. I would be careful.
And I was. I got into my car, switched on the headlights, eased out of the lot and onto Main Street. It was late, past eleven. Thirty years ago the town would have been dark, lifeless; now, there were places still open. A car sat in the drive-through at the Burger King, the young woman in the window handing the driver a white bag. I saw customers wandering the aisles of the video store across the street. A restaurant or two hadn’t yet closed; there were diners visible in the windows. The streets were well-lit here, nearly as bright as day; how different from back then, when by this time the town would be virtually enveloped in darkness. The rest stop near the freeway was still there too, though massively built-up now; what had been an expanse of green grass was now a glittering Tourist Information building. The tall oak that had once stood there was entirely gone. I turned off before I reached the onramp, not stopping.
Instead I drove onto the street which, I thought I recalled, led to where the gas stations had been, and sure enough, where I remembered the Enco the bright lights of an Exxon soon appeared before me. Though
I’d started drinking while I was in the various foster homes to which I was assigned after the catastrophe with my parents. Alcohol unfocused things, I found. Blurred them marvelously. Took away the harsh and dirty edges and made everything smooth and clean. I drank through high school, through college, through the early years of my marriage, keeping the weight off by fiercely devoting myself to my morning workouts at the gym. Running, cardiovascular machines, weight training, swimming. Sports whenever I could. I was known as a fitness nut. And Donald drank a good deal too—we drank together—until one day he decided that he would stop.
I never stopped.
My life kept looping back, encircling itself, eating itself. Somewhere it had all gone wrong and nothing I’d ever done had put it right. At this point I didn’t know how; I didn’t know what “right” was. There had been a second accident with Jess nearly a year later; minor in itself, with no injuries, it had nonetheless led to my failing a Breathalyzer test; and that was the end, of course. Donald and his wife took full custody, reducing me to brief supervised visits during which Jess read magazines and blew bubble-gum bubbles. When I thought of her now, I felt utterly, comprehensively defeated, as if I could just cry for the rest of my life and still not be done with tears.
Donald, ask her to come to the phone, please ask her.
She won’t, Frances.
Just for one minute. Exactly a minute. Sixty seconds.
She won’t, Frances.
I swallowed the last of the whiskey sour and got up to leave. Had my life been hopelessly off-course even when I’d lived here in Quiet? I didn’t think so. No, at that point there had still been the possibility of salvation. Frank and Louise hadn’t been loving, but they had provided me something like a home. I did well in school, as I always had. And there was Lucy, whom thirty years of eating my own tail had nearly obliterated from my memory. For three decades the very thought of her had been too much to contemplate. She’d vanished from me, from my mind, though of course she hadn’t. Not really.
Without any conscious thought of where I was going, I wandered through the hotel lobby and out the sliding-glass front door to the parking lot. I was restless, shaking slightly, unwilling to go back to my room where, I knew, I would simply continue drinking. I’d had two whiskey sours but I knew I was all right to drive. Would I pass a Breathalyzer test if I were pulled over? Possibly not. But I wouldn’t be pulled over. I would be careful.
And I was. I got into my car, switched on the headlights, eased out of the lot and onto Main Street. It was late, past eleven. Thirty years ago the town would have been dark, lifeless; now, there were places still open. A car sat in the drive-through at the Burger King, the young woman in the window handing the driver a white bag. I saw customers wandering the aisles of the video store across the street. A restaurant or two hadn’t yet closed; there were diners visible in the windows. The streets were well-lit here, nearly as bright as day; how different from back then, when by this time the town would be virtually enveloped in darkness. The rest stop near the freeway was still there too, though massively built-up now; what had been an expanse of green grass was now a glittering Tourist Information building. The tall oak that had once stood there was entirely gone. I turned off before I reached the onramp, not stopping.
Instead I drove onto the street which, I thought I recalled, led to where the gas stations had been, and sure enough, where I remembered the Enco the bright lights of an Exxon soon appeared before me. Though
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