Family Inheritance (23 page)

After a few moments of waiting for a reaction from her and not getting one, Bill
sat back down on the bed. “I can't take this. This family is driving me nuts.” Then
he got up and headed for the shower.

“Mrs. Helene? Mr. Bill? Are you all right?” Lily called.

Helene stayed calm. “I'm fine. Bill just threw a shoe and broke the mirror. Nothing
serious. Nothing that can't be fixed.”

Bill stomped back in the bedroom. “Nothing serious? Three months ago, you would have
had a fit.”

“That was three months ago,” she calmly replied.

Bill obviously didn't know how to react to this, so he resorted to old tactics. “I can't take this. Don't wait up for me tonight, Helene. I'll be late.”

She didn't respond.

“Don't you have anything to say?” he urged.

Anger and fear were tumbling through Helene.
Stay calm and set your boundaries. That's
what Raymond Welsh says. Set your boundaries, Helene. Set them.
“Yes, Bill, I do
have something to say.”

He glared at her. “What?”

“If you go to be with another woman, don't come home. Ever.” Her voice was calm and
strong. Her face was serious.

“I've never . . .” Bill stopped in mid-sentence. It was obvious that he had never
seen her so serious. At her words, the anger seemed to drain out of him. “I'm sorry,
honey. I'm trying to deal with Thomas, with us, with myself, and sometimes it's more
than I can handle.”

“I know,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms around him.

They all sat in Raymond Welsh's office. It was Bill's idea. Helene was surprised
when he had called and made the appointment. Now, he appeared to be very nervous.

“We've got to do something about Thomas.” Bill began the conversation as soon as
they were all seated and before anyone else could comment. “I can't stand it,” he
said. “The kid's not going to amount to a hill of beans. He's got potential. His
IQ is high, his SAT scores were good, but his grades are lousy.” Bill was inflamed.
“If he keeps this up, he won't get into any good college. He'll end up starting at
some two-year school.”

“I'm not going to college,” Thomas said, interrupting his father's tirade.

“You're what?” Bill glared at his son.

“I'm not going to college,” Thomas said defiantly.

Helene glanced from Bill to Thomas to Raymond Welsh. She could sense that Bill and
Thomas were going to have it out, and she was scared.

“Yes, you are.” Bill slammed his fist against his leg.

“I'm not. It's my life, not yours. I'm not going to live it according to your dreams
anymore.” Thomas's voice was strong, but his eyes reflected fear.

“Well, then, you're not going to live off my bank account either.”

“Fine. I'll move out,” Thomas rebelliously replied.

Panic and fear filled Helene's chest, but she willed herself to stay silent. She
surveyed Raymond's calm face and took a deep breath.

“What do you want to do, Thomas?” Raymond leaned forward.

“I'm not sure, but I don't want to be a lawyer.”

“Fine, you'll be a good-for-nothing that can't support your wife when you get one,”
Bill sneered.

“At least I won't cheat on her.” Thomas's eyes were dark, angry pools, glaring at
Bill. “Maybe money isn't everything. Maybe a wife would rather have a husband who
comes home instead of sleeping with anything in a skirt.” Thomas whipped around to
Helene. “Why did you put up with it? Don't you care about yourself? About him? About
me?”

“I . . .” Helene was speechless.

“And you,” Thomas turned back to Bill, “I'm tired of you trying to tell me what to
do with my life when you've made such a mess of yours. You want me to follow in your
footsteps. Why? What have you done that I should want to follow in your path? I don't
even respect you, let alone want to be like you.” His body shook. “You disgust me.”

Bill's shoulders sagged as the energy seemed to drain from him. Helene stayed quiet
for the rest of the session as Raymond worked with Thomas and Bill. She had no idea
how angry Thomas had been with his father.
And who was I kidding when I thought Thomas
didn't know about the dysfunction in our marriage?

Helene felt as though a heavy curtain of denial was slowly being lifted off her life.
They were finally all talking about their feelings, sometimes letting them explode
into the air. At first she had been uncomfortable with the conflict, but now she
knew that she would rather deal with confrontations than live with stiff politeness
and silence.

Chapter 28

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Books were spread all over the kitchen table. Sarah was helping Alice with algebra.
Sam was sitting by the coffee table in the living room, practicing his writing. Small
red and blue plastic blocks were scattered all around him.

The three of them had settled nicely into an apartment in Minneapolis. The kids seemed
to like their new schools, and Alice was attending classes at a junior college. Between
educational grants, help from Helene, and part-time work at a local coffee shop,
Alice was able to rent this small but nice apartment and financially take care of
the three of them. It was much easier being a single parent than living with Jake
and all the issues he caused. She hadn't filed divorce papers yet, because she could
just handle so much at a time. That would be a priority next year. She was enjoying
her new life, but everything was so different from the life she had before that she
became overwhelmed at times. And tonight was one of those times.

“I can't get it.” Alice dropped her pencil and put her head on her hands.

“Yes, you can, Mom,” Sarah replied patiently. “Let's go over it again.”

Alice bit at her fingernails. “School is hard. I didn't know it would be so hard.
I'm surrounded by slim, beautiful, smart people and I feel dumb and fat. There's
older people in my classes, so that's not so bad, but I feel stupid.” She laid her
head on the table.

Sarah threw her hands into the air. “Quit copping out! So you feel fat and stupid,
then do something about it. That's what the counselors keep telling us. You ain't—I
mean—you're not going to learn algebra if you just give up.”

“Yeah, Mom,” Sam chimed in. “I gotta keep practicing my handwriting. Things are hard
for kids, too, you know.”

Sam had been a calm oasis in a chaotic storm. Of the three of them, Sam seemed to
have most easily adjusted to the changes. His teacher said he was doing well in school
and he had friends he played with. “Have things been hard, Sam?”

“Yeah,” he answered as he put down his pencil and started playing with the blocks.

“What's been the hardest?” Alice asked.

“Trying to be so different.”

Alice glanced quizzically at her son. “Different, how?”

“Lotsa ways.” Sam sat back on his knees. “We live clean now, and our apartment's
nice. You're not so sloppy no more, and you don't go in your bedroom so much like
you used to. And I don't gotta be afraid of Dad. He ain't here to yell and scream
at you or make you and Sarah cry in the night.”

Sam picked up a building block, seeming to study it. “Did you know some dads are
nice? In our old neighborhood, my friends didn't have dads or else their dads were
pretty much like mine. But here, it's different.” He added the block to his growing
structure. “My friend Tommy's dad throws a baseball with us. And he don't yell. When
I had supper over there yesterday, I knocked over my glass, and my milk spilled.
Nobody yelled, not even his dad. I got so scared, Mom. I figured he was gonna hit
me, but he didn't. He even helped me clean up the mess. Then Tommy's mom poured me
another glass, and we just went back to supper. That was so weird, but it was nice
too—really nice.”

“You got yelled at a lot, didn't you?”

“Yeah.” Sam grimaced then went back to placing blocks, one by one.

“Mom,” Sarah insisted, “let's work on your algebra. I don't want to be here all night.”

“You're not going out, are you?” Alice panicked. Sarah hadn't been wild since their
move to Minneapolis, but Alice was scared for her. She was scared
whenever Sarah
asked to go to a movie or out with a friend. Alice was afraid she was out having
sex. How could somebody go through what Sarah went through and then go back to being
fifteen? Alice knew that fifteen was no longer an age of innocence, but Sarah had
gone through a lot more than most.

“No, Mom. You still don't trust me, do you?” The hurt was evident in Sarah's eyes.

“I didn't . . .” Alice stammered. “I mean . . .”

“I'm trying so hard, Mom. I'm even trying to talk different, so I don't sound so
dumb. I'm buying nicer clothes with the money Auntie Suzanne gave me.” Desperation
radiated from her face. “I'm trying to be like other girls my age—girls who come
from normal families—but I don't know how. So, I watch them, and then I imitate them.
You're trying to do better for us. I see you struggling with school, and I know you
get lonely down here where we don't know nobody except Grandma and she can't talk
with you. And I know you're scared Dad might find us and hurt us. I know all that,
so I'm trying to be better too. But it's hard.”

Sarah's voice rose. “I have all these feelings I don't know what to do with. The
counselor helps, but she's not there when some girl whispers about me when I walk
into class. Or when we have to team up for a class activity and nobody wants me.
It's hard when I see kids drugging or when kids are going out drinking. I'm tempted
to do all those things, Mom, just so I can have some friends. But I can't.” She drew
a deep breath. “I can't because I feel so guilty already about all the problems I
caused. If I hadn't told you about Dad, all of this wouldn't have happened. I could
have just handled it and not messed you and Sam up, too, or I could have just run
away—”

“Sarah, stop it!” Alice said sharply. “This isn't because of you. We needed to get
away from your dad. Can't you see that? He's sick, Sarah, and we were sick right
with him. If there's a fault, it's mine. I'm the one who's supposed to take care
of you guys, and I wasn't. I don't know how either, Sarah, but I'm not as smart as
you. I'm not strong like you, Sarah; I'm a quitter. I always take the easy way out—like
staying married to Jake or stuffing my face with chocolate. I'm just a quitter.”

“No, you're not,” Sarah said gently.

“Sarah, I'm beginning to know about me, and I know I'm a quitter.” She lifted her
chin in the air and her voice grew firm. “But I don't have to stay no quitter.” She
pulled the textbook closer to her. “Now, about this algebra.”

Chapter 29

Anoka, Minnesota

The large auditorium was packed. Suzanne curiously scanned the crowd. She wasn't
sure what she expected to see, but she didn't expect them to appear so normal. Annette's
words whispered in her mind, “What do alcoholics look like?” Suzanne's dad was typically
dirty, unshaven, angry, and distant. Her mind connected the vision of him with alcoholism.
Her misconception of alcoholics was one of the reasons it had taken her so long to
acknowledge that she was one.

Three times a day the patients at the clinic gathered together. Suzanne was sitting
between Annette and a tall red-haired woman whose name was Patrice. “I was named
and christened Patricia, but I'm making my own choices now and I've decided I like
Patrice. It fits me and the way I want to feel about myself. Patricia is for the
way I was; Patrice is for the way I want to be.”

Can people really do that? Make changes because they want to? What would that feel
like?

“These gatherings and group sessions are the best for me,” Annette whispered to Suzanne
as the first speaker stepped up to the microphone. “I find out I'm not really weird
after all. Other people feel like I do.”

The first speaker was a man. Suzanne figured he was one of the doctors or hospital
administrators. He was tall, dark haired, and attractive. He was
dressed in a suit
and looked like he had just stepped from the pages of a men's fashion magazine.

“Hi, my name is Evan, and I'm a recovering alcoholic and drug addict.”

“Hi, Evan,”
the audience responded.

“I'm also a doctor.” He shifted his position, and Suzanne got the impression that
he was nervous. “I used to think that being a doctor kept me immune from the problems
of the lower class. You know, problems like alcoholism. Only skid-row bums or guys
who did manual labor are alcoholics. Guys in suits are too smart and above all that.
And, of course, it's a given that doctors are above it all.” Laughter trickled through
the crowd.