Page 19 of The Surprise
Where did she even get the pills?
I jog across the room and snatch the bottle out of her hand, checking with one hand to make sure she’s still breathing as a reflex. Her color’s good, but it never hurts to check. Her breath is warm and steady on my fingers.
Which makes me itch to slap her awake.
I’m not a violent person, but I get angry about this. Why is such a smart, sophisticated woman enslaved? Why can’t she kick this habit? I check the bottle and see words I should have expected, I suppose.
Vernon Ellingson.
She must have paid a visit to check on Grandpa and swiped them.
I could kick Aunt Donna for not keeping a better eye out, but I guess it’s not really her fault. She’s not Mom’s keeper. Actually, I don’t think she even knows about Mom’s issues. Dad tries to keep it quiet, and so does Mom when she’s not jonesing for more pills.
I already know what Dad will say.
“Well, I guess this means she hasn’t hit bottom yet.”
I think that’s, like, a phrase they teach you in rehab or something. As if there is definitely a point in time when Mom will finally change. Something inside of her will snap, when she hits this magical bottom, and then she’ll change who she is and how she functions.
I decided years ago that this is just how my mom is. Some people’s moms sing. Some of them sew. Some of them bake cookies. My mom is funny and smart and loving. . .when she’s sober. And I just can’t count on her being sober.
I’m rummaging through her drawers when Dad storms into the room.
“What are you doing?”
I turn around and chuck the bottle at him. “You knew, didn’t you?”
He turns away, looking at his own nightstand.
“How could you be in there, all happy, knowing Mom’s using again?”
“Listen,” he says. “It’s been a rough week for her with her parents, and—”
“You knew, and you left the bottle in here?”
“It was empty already when I came inside,” he says. “She got agitated when I tried to take it.”
Dad loves Mom.
In fact, she may be the one thing in this world he truly loves.
I’ve always known that.
But sometimes I think that he’s not very good for her. He never gets angry with her. He never does anything to stop her, other than taking her to rehab and following their instructions. If he ever got angry, or yelled at her like he yells at me and Aunt Donna, or if he monitored her activity or behavior, some of that might help her change.
Which is why, after Dad kicks me out of the room and gives me a tongue lashing, I do what I know he hasn’t.
I search the house.
It takes me almost an hour. I don’t find any more pills, but I do find a six-pack of beer. I might have thought it was my dad’s, because if your wife’s an addict, you might hide your beer, but I found it inside a baby bassinet, covered with a blanket, in Mom’s photography prop cabinet. There’s no way Dad would put it there.
The fact that Mom bought beer and hid it under a baby blanket makes me even angrier than usual. I have a crush on a handsome, kind boy, a kid who buys tampons for his sisters and mom, and who has the brightest, shiniest family ever, and I can’t go on a date with him, because I know that once he gets to know my family, he’ll hate me just for my last name.
And my parents don’t even know because they just don’t care about my life at all.
My mom only cares about being high, and my dad only cares about my mom. And making money. I think about how he threw that mug a foot away from my head, and how he stood in front of me with his fists clenched, shaking, and I pick up the six pack, and I walk down the hall and out the front door.
I’m not thinking.
