ASTRID

I have a son who . . . she thought.

Correction. Start over.

But first, a sip of Smirnoff.

Ah, much better. Nothing like the tinkle of ice and the burn of booze to clear one’s thoughts.

I had a son who starved himself nearly to death, she thought. She had found him unconscious, right here in this living room, right in front of the couch where she sat drinking her vodka. She had found him passed out and splayed out like he’d been shot. A mother’s nightmare. A child looking like he’s dead, and maybe even really dead for all she knew at the time.

That day, all she wanted was to get home from volunteering at the children’s museum, which she only did because her husband told her she needed to, and have a drink before the evening tension began.  Before George came home full of ill temper, and before she had to watch Nathan not eat, or do odd things with his food if he did eat. Before George would criticize Nathan’s eating habits and before criticizing her for allowing it. Before George would hole himself in his study for the night. Before Nathan slunk into the bathroom, turning the radio on loud. Before the toilet flushed at least twice.

She knew what he was doing, just like he knew what she was doing when she went to the basement to the wet bar, drop ice into a tumbler, splash Smirnoff over the ice, and gulp it down. He puked and she drank. The two of them didn’t really have secrets hidden where no one could see them. They hid their secrets in plain sight. Ice and glass gave her away, and music and flushing gave him away.  He thought she was too drunk to notice, but she noticed more when she was drunk than when she was sober. She saw things as they really were, crystal clear like a sharply focused lens, not foggy and muddy like her son thought.

She had her way of dealing with her life, and he had his, and who was she to tell him he couldn’t cope the way he wanted to cope? It upset her. It hurt her. She gave birth to him. She wasn’t heartless. But it was his business, just like drinking was her business.

It was George’s fault she didn’t have a son anymore. Her husband was the reason. He just couldn’t accept responsibility. His wife and son were suffering and he couldn’t be bothered to notice, or care, or do anything to stop it. He blamed them instead. She was a bad wife. She was a bad mother. She was a drunk. Nothing was good enough. The house wasn’t spotless enough, the laundry wasn’t clean enough, the car wasn’t waxed buff enough, the meals weren’t cooked well enough. Why else would Nathan not eat, or play with his food? It had to be her fault. She was certainly the reason George was starting to have problems at work.

She lifted the tumbler to her lips, looking up from the spot where she had found Nathan. She looked at the walls, an elegant gray. No pictures graced the walls. Well, no family pictures at least. Instead, tasteful paintings hung, showcasing beaches, cliffs, and other isolated and lonely places. Never anyone in them. Just emptiness and space.

That’s what she wanted: to be alone, away from where she sat and what she saw, away from the prison she felt housed in.

All she was left with now was a husband she hated, in a house she hated, in a subdivision she hated, on a cul-de-sac she hated, in a city she hated, in a life she hated.

She even hated Nathan in that moment. She hated how he couldn’t get George to see. He shouldn’t have tried to change anything. He should’ve just dealt with it, like she learned to deal with it. He shouldn’t have been so flashy. He shouldn’t have held a mirror up to his father. She tried that before, and all George did was take it from her hand and smash it against a wall, shattering the glass into jagged fragments that reflected what their life together was, right there on the hardwood floors, right there for her to sweep up and empty into the trash, because that’s where garbage belongs. Nathan tried to change that, and damn him for trying. Damn him for thinking he could do what she couldn’t.

Now, she no longer had a son. He was emancipated. He was his own man. He was an adult now. Because of George. Because of the hospital. Because of Nathan’s doctors and nurses and therapists.

She ached for him. She looked at the spot where she had found him unconscious. She envisioned him splayed out like a crime victim, like a dead body. That image was never far from her mind. She always had him in her mind. He might not be her son legally anymore, but she was still his mother. She missed him. She wondered if she would ever see him again.

Her father had left her. Her son left her. Two men she didn’t want to say good-bye to, didn’t want to have to let go. Her husband stayed. One man she would not be sad to say good-bye to, would not be sad to let go.

She was alone.

Time to stock up, she thought, gulping the last of her vodka and looking at the clock above the fireplace before leaving for the liquor store downtown. George will be home soon.