only myself as a cheering section, deep down in my heart I was sure I’d nuked that bridge when I’d crossed it.
I pulled out my wallet and slid out the picture of Vi holding Maisie when she was a newborn. Violet looked so serene that it took my breath away, but the fact was, Maisie’s birth was the beginning of our end. My drinking severely escalated after she arrived. Not because I regretted having her: I wanted that child more than anything, and I adore her. Hell, I’m the one who took Vi’s birth control pills and threw them out the window on our honeymoon. The memory of her hysterical laughter when I’d done it caused a crushing pain in my chest, and for a moment I thought I was going to have to leave the meeting before it even began.
Simply put, becoming a father really punctuated the absence of my own. And his death was a subject I dealt with poorly. It triggered depression on a level I’d never experienced before, and rather than see it for what it was, I buried my head in the sand and self-medicated with liquor. One might even say I overdosed more often than not.
But these days I was getting professional help. My A.A. sponsor, Vanessa, had suggested (some might say she demanded ) I start seeing a shrink a couple of months back. A seasoned nurse, Vanessa had a way of delivering orders that made me agree to them before I knew what I was doing. Vanessa was the perfect sponsor for me. Too young to be a mother figure, she was like the bossy older sister I never had.
Now that I was going to therapy, the good doctor and I were making some real progress in our sessions. My diagnosis of clinical depression came as no surprise, but the secondary diagnosis of PTSD shocked the hell out of me. I looked it up on the internet, ready to prove him wrong. I scrolled through the signs and symptoms, astonished at how much of a textbook case I was.
He put me on some medication and had me coming to talk therapy twice a week. So when Sam wandered back into town, I had the tools to be able to take it on the chin when he lashed out at me with well-deserved hostility. Instead of turning it into a huge fight or reaching for a nearby bottle, I just shut my mouth and listened. But when I’d seen Sebastian Wakefield’s sorry ass at the club I ran outside and hid like a coward. Then I puked in the bushes, smoked three cigarettes down to the butt, and called my sponsor. Vanessa’s advice was to take a deep breath and to get to a damn meeting.
I’m such a fucking loser. I’m not going to beat this thing. Violet deserves someone a hell of a lot better than me.
But her new fiancé, Dashul Stein, wasn’t any better than me. He and I had crossed paths on more than one occasion. Though he lived in Charleston now, he was originally from Savannah and I knew him from sports back in high school. He’d been a pompous, skirt-chaser back then, and he came from a family that would eventually drive Violet nuts with their avid civil war re-enactments and their antiquated beliefs that the fairer sex should stay at home and keep the hearth burning. The thought of Maisie being brought up around that sorry lot of throwbacks made me grit my teeth.
As everyone in the room stood to say the serenity prayer, I tucked the picture of my absent family back into my wallet.
When Violet told me she’d started dating Stein, I’d hired a private detective to follow him. It was shitty, I know. But I don’t regret it in the slightest. All I regret is that he hadn’t found a damn thing that was useful.
“He likes to drink. “ The P.I. revealed, handing me pictures of Stein in various bars.
Wow. Really?
He proceeded to run down the highlights of Dash’s life in a nutshell. He worked forty hours a week and attended the Methodist church on Sundays. He liked to blow a lot of money getting manscaped and having massages at the spa. When he wasn’t getting metero-sexualized, he spent the rest of his free time sailing, playing racket ball, and going to the
I pulled out my wallet and slid out the picture of Vi holding Maisie when she was a newborn. Violet looked so serene that it took my breath away, but the fact was, Maisie’s birth was the beginning of our end. My drinking severely escalated after she arrived. Not because I regretted having her: I wanted that child more than anything, and I adore her. Hell, I’m the one who took Vi’s birth control pills and threw them out the window on our honeymoon. The memory of her hysterical laughter when I’d done it caused a crushing pain in my chest, and for a moment I thought I was going to have to leave the meeting before it even began.
Simply put, becoming a father really punctuated the absence of my own. And his death was a subject I dealt with poorly. It triggered depression on a level I’d never experienced before, and rather than see it for what it was, I buried my head in the sand and self-medicated with liquor. One might even say I overdosed more often than not.
But these days I was getting professional help. My A.A. sponsor, Vanessa, had suggested (some might say she demanded ) I start seeing a shrink a couple of months back. A seasoned nurse, Vanessa had a way of delivering orders that made me agree to them before I knew what I was doing. Vanessa was the perfect sponsor for me. Too young to be a mother figure, she was like the bossy older sister I never had.
Now that I was going to therapy, the good doctor and I were making some real progress in our sessions. My diagnosis of clinical depression came as no surprise, but the secondary diagnosis of PTSD shocked the hell out of me. I looked it up on the internet, ready to prove him wrong. I scrolled through the signs and symptoms, astonished at how much of a textbook case I was.
He put me on some medication and had me coming to talk therapy twice a week. So when Sam wandered back into town, I had the tools to be able to take it on the chin when he lashed out at me with well-deserved hostility. Instead of turning it into a huge fight or reaching for a nearby bottle, I just shut my mouth and listened. But when I’d seen Sebastian Wakefield’s sorry ass at the club I ran outside and hid like a coward. Then I puked in the bushes, smoked three cigarettes down to the butt, and called my sponsor. Vanessa’s advice was to take a deep breath and to get to a damn meeting.
I’m such a fucking loser. I’m not going to beat this thing. Violet deserves someone a hell of a lot better than me.
But her new fiancé, Dashul Stein, wasn’t any better than me. He and I had crossed paths on more than one occasion. Though he lived in Charleston now, he was originally from Savannah and I knew him from sports back in high school. He’d been a pompous, skirt-chaser back then, and he came from a family that would eventually drive Violet nuts with their avid civil war re-enactments and their antiquated beliefs that the fairer sex should stay at home and keep the hearth burning. The thought of Maisie being brought up around that sorry lot of throwbacks made me grit my teeth.
As everyone in the room stood to say the serenity prayer, I tucked the picture of my absent family back into my wallet.
When Violet told me she’d started dating Stein, I’d hired a private detective to follow him. It was shitty, I know. But I don’t regret it in the slightest. All I regret is that he hadn’t found a damn thing that was useful.
“He likes to drink. “ The P.I. revealed, handing me pictures of Stein in various bars.
Wow. Really?
He proceeded to run down the highlights of Dash’s life in a nutshell. He worked forty hours a week and attended the Methodist church on Sundays. He liked to blow a lot of money getting manscaped and having massages at the spa. When he wasn’t getting metero-sexualized, he spent the rest of his free time sailing, playing racket ball, and going to the
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