I hugged my pocketbook and vagabond bag close to me. I wasn’t about to let that $8,500 slip out of my grasp—$8,555 to be exact. I had big plans for that money, and I wanted to get started on them.
I guided the Purple Beast from the PATH station’s commuter parking lot directly home. I had a text from Courtney saying she was dropping out of school next semester. That bummed me out because I knew Ryan hadn’t finished his year of middle school. None of us were staying in school, which would definitely pain Mom if she knew.
I hadn’t heard much from Courtney about Mom’s condition for a while, so I was surprised when I walked in the screen door and saw Mom sitting at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, and sorting through the bills just as before. I was relieved that things were back to normal until I realized it wasn’t Mom. It was Courtney.
Shoulders slumped, Courtney looked so much like Mom it was unnerving. I felt terrible for her. Her biggest nightmare was true—she was becoming mom.
As I put down my bags, she gazed up at me, her face pained and worried, as if she knew what I was thinking. She still wore the sweatpants and oversize T tied at the waist. I don’t think she had changed in days. She tapped her cigarette in the ashtray the same way Mom used to and arranged the bills in rows as Mom used to do; Jersey Power and Light, Comcast Cable, Montclair Propane and Gas, and all the others.
Like a fly caught on flypaper whose fate was sealed, she seemed caught up in something bigger, unable to stop it all from happening.
“Do you know how many fucking bills we can’t afford to pay?” she asked.
Ryan was playing Warcrack in the living room, and I could hear the computer-generated cries of creatures being vaporized and destroyed. The place was a wreck. Some things never changed. I sat down beside her.
“I’m going to go back to work for Harris, at the bar,” she said, rearranging the bills on the table. “Luckily Mom’s got coverage at the hospital as long as they keep her there. But I don’t know how she’s going to make any money when she gets out.” She tilted back in the chair on just two chair legs just like Mom used to and gave me a helpless look.
“Mom just can’t take care of us anymore, Lizzy,” she said, tearing up as the chair legs came down again. “We’re on our own.” She was going to cry. Me too. We hugged.
“I’ve checked the bank accounts,” Courtney said through the tears. “There’s hardly any money for these bills. And if I start working at the bar again, what’s going to happen to Ryan?”
We looked across to the living room, both of us thinking about Ryan, even though he didn’t seem to notice or care.
“He’s already a head case,” she said. “There’s this letter from the school district. He’s supposed to go to summer school if he wants to move up to the next grade. He could get sent to juvie if he doesn’t.”
After we exhausted our tears, we sat for a little while in silence.
“Well, I’ve got a plan,” I said. She looked at me like I was crazy.
“Yeah sure,” she said and reverted to her standard “you don’t know shit” expression she has given me since the day I was born.
“You’ll see,” I said. “This is going to work out. It’s bad now, but a lot of times good comes out…”
“… When bad things happen,” she said before I could. “I know that BS from Nan, and it’s for suckers…” She stopped herself because that was what Mom would have said. “I’m sorry, Lizzy, you’re the only one who thinks things can change. You’re the only one in the family who still believes in hope. I just don’t think it’s going to happen.” Courtney took another drag on her cigarette and let out the smoke in one long weary breath.
“What did they say about Mom?” I asked.
“They don’t know. She was going through really bad withdrawal symptoms. I don’t think they’re DTs, but they have her sedated. She was shaking and all that shit. I think there are some hopeful signs on the liver tests, but the cold-turkey is killing her.”
“The drinking is killing her,” I said.
“When do you start college?” she asked, her eyes narrowing in on me.
“I’m not going,” I said and waited for the look of alarm on her face. When it registered, I though she might throw something at me.
“Don’t even say that,” she said, astonished. “Mom will freak.”
“I have another plan,” I said.
“The Hole?” she asked with astonishment. “Word is you’re toast there. Have you even been to work for the last week? I have no idea how you pay for all the stuff you do.”
“I’m getting a job in fashion.”
“How are you qualified for that? Something with your dyke friend?”
“That’s not your problem. I’m going to figure it out.” I’d wilt if she lit into me, so I slipped ten crisp one hundred dollar bills from my purse and placed them on the table. I thought she was going to fall out of her chair.
“Did you rob an ATM?”
“Hopefully this is enough to cover the bills for now. Let’s figure out how we’re going to get Ryan to summer school, but first things first,” I said and headed for the kitchen cupboards.
In the cupboard above the stove, I found four half-gallon bottles of Gordon’s. Checking the cabinet below the silverware, I found three more. Then I went to the freezer and found three bottles of some other generic vodka I’d never heard of and put those on the table.
“What are you doing?” Courtney asked.
“Help me,” I said. Courtney thought a second, put out her cigarette, and got up and went right for Mom’s stash in the laundry room—four bottles of Captain Morgan’s rum and a bottle of Southern Comfort.
“What are you guys doing?” Ryan asked. He must have heard the bottles clanking, and it was the one thing that made him stop playing his game.
“Come on, Ryan, help us,” I said.
In a few moments, we were all combing the house for Mom’s booze like some perverse treasure hunt. The bottles were everywhere—in the garage behind the paint cans, forgotten bottles under Mom’s bed, an unopened case in her closet, half empties under the La-Z-Boy, and another shoved way back behind the towels in the bathroom cabinet. I think it was kind of blowing Ryan’s mind, because he knew Mom drank a lot, but this was totally off the charts.
We gathered them from the kitchen table, all thirty-one of them, and started taking them outside, lining them up in the driveway.
“Now what?” Ryan asked as he placed the last three bottles in a row.
I walked over to the first half gallon of Gordon’s, picked it up, and threw it down as hard as I could against the cement by the garage door, smashing the bottle to pieces, the vodka pouring out, running down the driveway. I picked up another bottle and smashed that one, too.
Ryan and Courtney looked at me as if I had lost my mind. Then Courtney picked up a couple of bottles and slammed them against the sidewalk so hard we all had to jump out of the way to avoid the glass.
The three of us took turns screaming as we decimated the bottles that had wrecked our mom and our lives. The running rum, vodka, and Southern Comfort mixed together made a sickly alcohol smell like sugar and wood stain as it rose up from the pavement. As grim as it was, we all started to laugh.
I’ve never loved my sister and brother as much as I did that very moment—the three of us standing in a pile of glass, the stench of alcohol running down the driveway and into the gutter. If the neighbors were watching, they would have thought we were insane.
Courtney got a couple of brooms, and we swept the glass into a garbage can while Ry sprayed down the driveway with the garden hose. Hundreds of dollars of alcohol down the gutter.
We all sat on the curb and watched as the sun began to set.
“That was fun and everything,” Courtney said, calming down, “but what the fuck are we going to do about all the other shit?”
“Like I said, I have a plan.” I got up and walked back inside. “Let’s take a look at those bills for a starter.”