Coming back to Sunset House is a mixture of good and bad memories for me. I felt safe when I was here the first time. I had been feelin’ pretty safe at the rehab center, and this was pretty much the same, so the same feeling came with it. But it also reminds me that I’m not handlin’ everything the best way, that I still need help, even that, maybe I’ll always need some kinda help for the rest of my life. So I’m standing here holdin’ hands with a strange guy, my head bowed, wondering if this is gonna end up bein’ a part of my life the way that meetings, meds, and struggling is.
I don’t think I pray right, either.
I don’t see, you know, ‘God’. I don’t see myself talkin’ to ‘God’, ya know? I don’t see anything at all. My mind gets all blanked out and I don’t even hear the words everyone is mumbling under their breath, hell, I can’t even hear my own voice. I’m just all blank. Don’t know if I’m waitin’ for it all to be over, or for it to never end.
Sometimes I get embarrassed, too. Sometimes I see, and that something is me. I see me standin’ here, I see me holding some stranger’s hand, and I think, shit, this ain’t me.
And sometimes, sometimes it’s okay.
Tonight is one of those okay times. Tonight, I don’t mind being here, I don’t mind holding a stranger’s hand. The murmur of voices, it’s nice, it’s soothing me, and I need a little soothing. All the raw edges of the past few weeks are gettin’ smoothed out. Inside my head is murky, but in a good way. I don’t feel stress, or tension, or that friggin’ god awful anxiety that always seems to be there. I feel nothing, and I wish that this moment wouldn’t end, that prayers would last for a real long time.
But people are hungry; they want to chill out after whatever they’ve done all day. So we all say ‘amen’ and move on to the kitchen.
Sunset House isn’t real big, and I’m in the outpatient part of it, which is even smaller. There’s only about eight of us here, and not all of us are here, ‘cause it’s way more relaxed in this unit. You’re allowed to come and go, you’re allowed to have a lot more freedom at night, so some of the guys go to meetings then. You don’t have to be at every group session here, either, as long as you make it to a group off site.
So I sit down to dinner in the kitchen and we eat like we’re all a part of this big ass family. The other guys have all been here for a while, and none of them know that I’m only here for a coupla days. Usually you’re here for at least two weeks, but I can’t do two weeks, shit I don’t WANT to do two weeks, I just want to be back here for, like, a time out or somethin’. And they let me, ‘cause they know about me, they know about my problems, they know that I’ve had lapses in sobriety, and they’re willing to make an exception because I was willing to check myself in on my own. Anyway, these other guys have been here for at least a week, and I’m ‘new’, so they ask me a lotta questions.
I don’t have a lotta answers. I talk, but I don’t say much. Besides, our stories are all the same, once you get past the bullshit. We’re all addicts. It’s either drugs, or booze, gambling, even sex. All of us are users of some kind or another. Some of us, like me, are what they call multiple offenders, and have two or more addiction problems.
And no one’s ever gonna know how much I hate that, how much I hate being an addict and how much I hate being labeled as one. It took a long time for that to sink in. It’s weird. In the beginning, you almost think it’s great. I mean, after the detox part, because detox is just shit. You’re sick, you’re pukin’, everyone pretty much tells you you’re shit, or at least that’s what it feels like, and everything generally sucks. But after that, after you start feelin’ human again, you start to ‘wear’ your sobriety. You get proud about it. ‘Hey, look at me, I’m SOBER!’ Shit like that. And I’m a ‘hey, look at me!’ kinda person anyway, so that part of it lasted longer.
Then I got to that point when I thought, Jesus, this is stupid.
I can’t say that I wasn’t ashamed. I was. You’re not supposed to be, it’s not ‘helpful’, but I was ashamed that I was an addict and that everyone in the fuckin’ world knew it. I couldn’t be like these other guys sittin’ here eating this, this food. These guys only have to deal with their problems, their families, and their, their partners, ya know? I have to deal with the world.
Now I’m kinda somewhere in between.
I know that I’ve hurt a lotta people. I knew it before, and I went through all those steps for tryin’ to apologize, but you can’t apologize to people you don’t remember. Like, there were a lotta girls on the road that I was with, and I’ll be damned if I can remember them all. And I used them. I know I used them, and maybe they know that, too. But I can’t go back and try to find every one of ‘em I ever slept with. I musta hurt a bunch of those girls, doin’ that, ‘cause I talked a lotta shit gettin’ them into bed sometimes. Lied like a madman. Lying, lying, lying, and fucking, fucking, fucking, most of the time ‘cause I didn’t want to be alone on any particular night. Sometimes ‘cause I was just bored. Sometimes ‘cause I was sure it was what they wanted and I just didn’t care. That’s the shitty part. I didn’t care. I really, really didn’t care. Not about me, about them, about the steady girlfriend I had at the time: Marissa, Amanda, Sarah. I just didn’t give a shit.
Then there’s my family. I hurt them, too. So much and in so many ways that it makes me sweat to think about it.
There’s another side to this, too.
The part where I know that I can’t go back and fix too much of what I’ve done. I’ve tried, I have. Mostly with family, where I’ve done the most damage. And with the people I worked with, ‘cause my ‘little problem’ cost everyone on the tour money, from the crew to the management. Cost some people jobs, too. I tried to go back and tell each and every one of those people how bad I felt for lettin’ myself get outta hand. If I could help anyone, you know, with a reference or a job, or anything, I did.
So there’s that part, the part that I can’t fix.
Now there’s the parts I’ve broken since then. Sarah. My mother. My family. The guys. There’ll be plenty of time after dinner here to rehash all of that; I have a special session off site with someone who worked with me the last time I was here. He could fit me in.
I push the food around on my plate. It’s pretty bad. Not what I’m used to.
The trigger goes off in my head. I’m nodding to some guy who’s talking to the whole table, but my head travels all the way back to California.
I wish that I was in Shi’s arms. Not the way she hugged me goodbye, even though I’d settle for that, but, kinda like leanin’ back into them.
I let my eyes wander around the table, look at all these guys. It’s a men only facility. I’d say the age range is anywhere from about nineteen to fifty tonight. We’re a kinda average lookin’ bunch, some of us dressed in work clothes, you know, suit kinda gear, and some of us in sweats. Nothing feminine here. I know that havin’ no women here is supposed to leave us undistracted.
Well, right now, the thought of leaning back into Shi’s arms, of bein’ someplace private and quiet where I could tell her some of the shit that’s on my mind seems like better therapy than sittin’ around this table. Then I remember that it’s thoughts like those that brought me back here.
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“If you’re that worried, Siobhan, by all means, call the woman back and get her to tell you what’s going on,” David says to me.
It’s been an odd evening. I hung up from talking to David earlier and suddenly felt lonely. I didn’t want to call Mickie, although I owe her a phone call, and I didn’t want to call Nyle, either. Neither of them was the person I wanted to continue my discussion about Alex with. Mickie, she’s too ‘close’ to Alex. Professionally. I’m afraid she might say something somewhere about all of this. Not on purpose, but you never know what might slip out. Alex has made it clear to me that it’s been a problem in his life, having his business leaked out. I don’t want to risk it, not even in the most innocent of ways. And Nyle, well, I’m not sure Nyle would be the most sympathetic ear, and she’d probably ask me what I was so worried about, that Alex has obviously faced some problem head on and it’s all a good thing. She’d be right and I’d resent it and even having that thought made me smile to myself, but it also made me not call her.
That left David again, and I was back on the phone within fifteen minutes inviting him to supper. Here.
I wasn’t going to do that. I had thought about it before and rejected the idea. One, I never invite people over during the week because it would interfere with my job. I would no sooner invite someone to share Alex’s weekday table than serve supper on the floor; that’s just inappropriate. And the weekends haven’t been ‘right’. And then it was the fact that it was David, and I didn’t care for Alex’s initial reaction to me going out with him the first time.
Oh, I sloughed it off then, but I remember it well because it only served to make the guilt I had felt at leaving a recovering Alex to have supper with someone else stronger.
But Alex isn’t here, no, Alex is in some place that I know nothing about, for reasons I know nothing about. It’s bothering me and I want to talk to someone. David will talk to me.
So it made sense to have him over.
Besides, I wanted to see him again. I liked our ‘date’, I liked his kiss, I like him, period, and I wanted to see him. And I wanted Tish to meet him, too, because I think that David is going to be around, and if he’s going to be around I don’t want them to be strangers. So he came and we dined on the patio outside the poolhouse. I made a simple meal in my own kitchen, Tish was charming, even though she giggled more than usual, and all was well.
Now it’s well past Tish’s bed time. She’s tucked in snug and David and I have moved our coffee and cigarettes over to the lounge chairs by the pool. And David is dispensing advice.
“Call her,” he repeats.
“I can’t. Denise is nice enough, but she’s really not easy to talk to. She’s holding back, and I can understand it. He’s her son, I’m only his housekeeper.”
“You have to stop denigrating yourself, Siobhan. You’re not ‘only’ the housekeeper. Have you talked to that person, WHAT is her name? Juliette?”
“Not yet,” I tell him. “I’ve been too busy in the house.”
“Well, do it and perhaps you’ll feel you have permission to exert a slight bit more of your latitude when it comes to Alex.” He stubs out his cigarette and I figure it’s time to call it an evening. He stretches, then reaches out for my hand that’s been resting on the arm of my chair.
I think he’s just going to hold it. He’s not. He pulls until I have to get up, until he has me sitting on his lounge.
“Bother it all, Siobhan. If you want to know what’s going on, call and ask. At the very worst the woman rescinds the invitation and you have to spend the holiday here, which is what you would be doing in the first place. At best, you assuage your curiosity.” His hands stroke my hair back from my face as I lean my chin on his upraised knee.
“She makes me feel as if I’m intruding in his life.”
“Nonsense. If anything you’re a compliment to it.” He cups my face. “Perhaps she jealous that you have his confidence and trust.”
“She’s his mother, David,” I say, and roll my eyes.
“Exactly.” He smiles, lowers his knee, and leans forward. “It’s getting late,” he says.
His hands still cup my face as he comes closer and kisses me, as he draws me in, pulls me near. His lips are polite, so very polite that I don’t even notice when the kisses grow deeper, when there’s a hint of tongue. Just a hint. A testing. A tasting.
It’s sweet. I get lost in it, in the crush of lips, in the embrace of his arms as he pulls me close. Then he stops, and it’s just his hands on my face, caressing my cheeks.
“Try not to worry. It sounds as if Alex knows what he’s doing; that he’s put himself in capable hands. I’m sure he’ll tell you about it when he’s free to.” More kisses; then even more, on my cheeks, my eyelids, all over my face, until he’s holding me close, my cheek to his chest. “It doesn’t pay to fret so over something you can’t change or control.”
His fingers are on my neck, rubbing firmly just at the base of my skull. I feel myself relax.
He’s right. I can’t control or change the situation. All I can do is wait.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions
