All Fall Down: A Novel (39 page)

B
y Saturday morning, you would have thought the ladies of Meadowcrest were getting ready for a wedding . . . or an actual Broadway debut. Lena was on her bedroom floor, attempting to press a pair of pants with a curling iron. Aubrey was humming scales in the bathroom, Mary was practicing “Sentimental Gurney” in the hall, and the girls I’d dubbed the Greek Chorus were singing “Dope that’s so slammin’ it makes your heart flutter . . . Dealers on corners and needles in gutters . . . Wax-paper Baggies all tied up with strings . . . These were a few of my favorite things.” Knowing I’d be heading home, I got Aubrey to help with my hair and makeup. She plucked my eyebrows, smoothed on concealer, and used mascara to cover my gray hairs. “Thanks for doing this,” she said, unwinding the Velco curlers she’d used. “Of all the times I’ve been in rehab, this was the most fun.” I was so touched that for one wild instant I thought about staying—directing the talent show, seeing how it all turned out. Then I thought of Ellie, gave Aubrey a hug, and said, “I’m glad I met you.”

At ten o’clock, while some poor woman who’d driven in from the Pine Barrens attempted to share her experience, strength, and hope, we passed and re-passed scripts from hand
to hand, making corrections, adding new jokes. By the time the announcement blared, “Ladies, please proceed to the cafeteria for afternoon Meditation,” I was trembling with nerves. Sure enough, instead of the typical single, bored RC, there was Michelle . . . and Kirsten . . . and Jean and Phil, two counselors I didn’t know. A half-dozen RCs were lined up by the door . . . and at the head of the line stood none other than my pal Ed McGreavey, noted heli-skier and locator of lost bottoms.

“Good morning!” he said pleasantly as we filed into the room. “Ladies,” he said, as the women stared at him, then at me. “I understand you’ve got a performance in the works. I want to tell you, personally, how happy it makes me to see this kind of motivation!” So that was his strategy, I thought. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em . . . and act like it was your good idea all along. “We’re looking forward to hearing what you’ve got.”

I smiled as, behind me, Amanda and Samantha got into position. “Ladies and gentlemen!” I said, nodding at Ed and at the pimply RC who’d hollered at me about walking on the wrong path. “Welcome to the inaugural, one-time-only, debut performance of
The Sound of Rehab.
”

Behind Amanda and Samantha, the rest of the women lined up in a half circle. Aubrey stepped to the front of the circle, twirling and twirling, before she opened her mouth and, in a very credible Julie Andrews–ish manner, began to sing, “The hills are alive . . . with the sounds of rehab . . . with songs drunks have sung . . . for a hundred years!”

I slipped to the door. “Be right back,” I whispered to Mary. I was sorry to miss it, I thought as I hurried to my room, grabbed my purse, strolled past the empty desk, pushed through the double doors, and found Dave in the parking lot, behind the wheel of the Prius, right where he said he would be.

He looked at me with suspicion as I practically skipped
into the passenger’s seat. “Go, go, go!” I hollered, pounding the dashboard.

“You okay?”

“I’m great! It just feels so good to be getting out of here!” I could barely breathe, or hear anything, because of the thunder of my heartbeat in my ears as we pulled past the security guard’s hut, but no one said a word. The gate lifted, and we were on the road, driving toward Philadelphia. Free.

“Tell me everything,” I said, adjusting the seat, and then the music, looking around for coffee or candy or anything at all from the outside world.

Dave’s voice was terse, his words careful. “Ellie’s been doing fine. She seems to like camp, and her swimming’s gotten much better. And your mother’s really stepped up to the plate. She’s been driving Ellie to camp in the mornings—”

“Wait. Driving? My mom?” I felt my throat start to close again, remembering her promise, that she’d never be impaired around my daughter.

“She went out and renewed her license. Passed the test on her first try.”

“Wow,” I said, wondering why she hadn’t told me. Dave drove us along an unfamiliar two-lane road, past a farm stand selling sweet corn and tomatoes, and a small white church. “How long’s the ride home?”

“Maybe half an hour.”

“That’s all?”

“You don’t remember?” His tone betrayed little curiosity. Dave looked good, lean and broad-shouldered as ever in his worn jeans and dark-blue collared shirt. He smelled good, too, freshly showered, the bracing scent of Dial soap filling the car.

“I wasn’t in great shape at the time.” I stared at him, willing
him to take his eyes off the road, even for just a second, and spare me a look. When he didn’t, I began talking. “Dave. I know we haven’t really discussed things, and we probably won’t have much of a chance today, but I want you to know how sorry I am about everything.”

For a long moment, he didn’t answer. “Let’s just focus on Ellie,” he finally said, in that maddening, almost robotic tone.

“Can’t you tell me anything? Give me a hint? Because, you know, if I’m going to be single, there’s a trainer who comes to Meadowcrest once a week. I gotta start working on my fitness if I’m going to be back on the market.”

I saw the corners of his eyes crinkle in what wasn’t quite a smile, but was at least a sign that I could still amuse him. “I made mistakes, too,” he said. “I knew there was something going on for a while, and I didn’t try to find out what. It was just easier to let things go.”

“No, no, it wasn’t your fault. It was me. I thought I could handle everything . . . that the pills were helping me handle everything . . .” I reached over the gearshift for his free hand, and he let me take it, and hold it, until we left the highway. We sat in silence until Dave parked in front of our garage.

“Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY!” Ellie shrieked once we were inside, racing into my arms, almost knocking the wind out of me. She wore a party dress with a purple sash and crinolines, her hair in a neat French braid, her feet in lace-cuffed socks and Mary Janes.

“Hi, baby girl.” Oh, God, she’d gotten so much bigger. I lifted her up, burying my face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of her skin. “I missed you, oh, so much.”

“Why did you have to LEAVE?” She wriggled out of my arms, planted her hands on her hips, and scowled at me.

“Because I needed to get some help. Sometimes mommies need a time-out.”

“Hmph.” Ellie looked as if she’d heard these lines before. “Well, you’re all better now, right?”

“She’s getting better,” said Dave. “Mommy can spend the day with you, and then I need to take her back.”

Ellie’s eyes filled with tears. “Why do you have to go BACK? You aren’t even SICK. You look FINE.”

“Remember what we talked about, Ellie?” And here was my mother. I blinked at Casual Ronnie; my mother without her lipgloss, without foundation and mascara, with her hair—I could barely believe it—pulled back in a ponytail, dressed in jeans (jeans!), with an apron (another item I’d never seen or imagined her to possess) wrapped around her waist. A pair of sneakers on her feet, where I’d only ever seen high heels or jeweled sandals, her fingernails clipped short, filed, no polish. “The doctors are taking good care of your mom, and she’ll be home as soon as she’s ready.”

“But there is nothing WRONG with her!”

“Ellie,” said Dave, “why don’t you go count the apples and make sure there’s enough for everyone to get one?”

Ellie gave us a darkly suspicious look before stomping off toward the dining room. “We’re bobbing for apples,” she called over her shoulder.

“Isn’t that more of a Halloween thing?” I looked around, with a feeling of dread gathering in the pit of my stomach. There was an old-school portrait of a donkey taped to the dining-room wall, along with a metal bin full of water with a bowl full of apples beside it.

“I thought we’d play party games,” my mother said.

“Party games,” I repeated. It didn’t sound like an awful idea, and maybe it wasn’t, unless you knew that these days, in our
neighborhood, a typical six-year-old’s birthday party might include an outing to the local bowling alley, where the lanes were equipped with bumpers and at least some of the snacks would be gluten-free, or a scavenger hunt at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, followed by a make-your-own-sundae bar.

I followed Ellie into the dining room and found her sitting in the corner with an apple in her hand. “Hey, El,” I said, and began to sing. “ ‘I did not live until today . . . how can I live when we are parted?’ ”

“ ‘Tomorrow you’ll be worlds away,’ ” she sang, eyes wide, one hand over her heart, teenage Cosette falling in love. “ ‘And yet with you my world has started.’ ”

“ ‘One more day out on my own,’ ” I sang. “ ‘One more day with him not caring.’ ” I tried not to look at Dave, who was standing in the kitchen with his back to me as Ellie sang, “ ‘I was born to be with you!’ ” She stretched out her arms and I lifted her up, holding her against me, singing, “ ‘What a life I might have known.’ ” I tickled her ribs and she wrapped her arms around my neck, cheeks pink, a picture of delight. “ ‘But he never saw me there.’ ” I peeked over her head. Dave was watching us—maybe, I hoped, preparing to launch into the Valjean/Javert section—but before he could start a car pulled up the driveway and Hank emerged from the backseat.

“MY PARTY FRIENDS ARE HERE!” Ellie shrieked, vaulting out of my arms and hitting the ground at a sprint. I got one last whiff of her scent, a final instance of the sweetness of her skin against mine. Then she was gone.

“Happy birthday, Ellie,” Hank said shyly, wiping his nose and handing my daughter an enormous, elaborately wrapped box with pink-and-white-striped wrapping paper and pink-and-silver ribbons.

“Wow,” I said as Mrs. Hank smiled indulgently at her son.
She wore dark glasses, skinny jeans, and a silky sleeveless top. “Looks like someone blew his allowance.”

“He’s in love,” Mrs. Hank affirmed, leaning over to offer her smooth cheek for the pro forma air kiss. “Meanwhile, you! You look amazing!” She eyed me up and down. I tried not to flinch under her scrutiny and wondered exactly what she was seeing. I had Aubrey’s work in my favor, but my clothing options weren’t great. I was wearing the best of the limited choices Dave had given me, which meant jeans that were too loose and a T-shirt that was too casual to look right underneath Shannon’s cardigan. The good news was that I’d been taking every yoga class Meadowcrest offered, plus walking around the track with Shannon and Aubrey. That, and the sunshine, and the water I’d been drinking, and the absence of drugs meant that my skin was tanned and clear, and my eyes were bright.

“Amazing,” Mrs. Hank repeated. I wished I could remember her first name. It was Carol, or Kara, something in that family. We’d had coffee together, and chatted at PTA meetings, with most of our conversations revolving around Hank’s allergies and Ellie’s sensitivities. “Are you doing a cleanse?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“Allison?”

My mom called me into the kitchen, where she stood with a tray of cupcakes in her hands. Homemade. Oh, dear. Ellie had probably told her cupcakes but had failed to tell her to get them at Sweet Sue’s. Their cupcakes were incredible, dense and rich, topped with swirls of icing in flavors you could never hope to duplicate at home, dulce de leche and salted caramel and panna cotta. My mother had baked treats that I bet came from a box, with frosting I was certain came from a can. I wondered how that conversation had gone, with Ellie telling my mom about
the bakery and my mother somehow convincing her that baking from scratch would be better and more fun.

“Can you help me with the punch?” my mom asked.

Punch.
I didn’t say a word as I poured ginger ale over a block of melting sherbet in the cut-crystal punch bowl Dave and I had gotten for our wedding and, if I remembered right, had never used. My mother’s transformation was astonishing. She was exuding the kind of quiet confidence I couldn’t remember from my own childhood, when she’d been either brisk and brittle, rushing me out of rooms, or as giggly and giddy as a young girl, waiting for my father to come home.

“This is some affair,” I said, as she arranged the cupcakes next to the punch bowl.

“Ellie and I planned it together. She helped me bake the cupcakes, and we went online and found all the party games. We downloaded the donkey!” My mother seemed very pleased with her achievement.

“That’s great!” For a minute, I wanted to tell her about the talent show, and I felt a pang of unhappiness as I realized it was probably over by now.

“How are you feeling?” My mother’s eyes were on the cupcakes as she waited for my answer.

“Physically, I’m okay. Mentally . . .” I sighed. I couldn’t think of how to explain what I was feeling. Most days, I barely knew myself.

Mrs. Hank came breezing into the kitchen, along with a few other mothers whose names, thankfully, I knew. Holly Harper was Amelia’s mom, and Susan van der Meer belonged with Sadie. “How can we help?”

My mom picked up Mason jars filled with marshmallows and penny candy and carried them into the dining room.
Mrs. Hank turned to me with a conspiratorial look on her face. “Listen,” she said, “we promise we won’t tell a soul.” I felt the muscles in my torso clench. Somebody knew. Somebody knew, someone had found out, someone had told, and now all the moms knew exactly what was wrong with me . . . and they wanted details.

“But here’s the thing,” Mrs. Hank continued. “My high-school reunion’s coming up, and Holly’s got an—”

“Anniversary,” said Holly. “And it was Jeff’s big idea to go back to Hawaii. He’s got this picture of me from twenty years ago in a bikini, and then he went online and actually found the goddamn thing on eBay—I should have known he was up to something when he asked what size I wore, and of course I lied, because, seriously, like I’m going to tell him the truth?”

Laughter all around. I laughed, too, and wondered how fast they’d grab their little darlings and dash out of my house if I told them what I’d been lying to my husband about.

“Just tell us,” Carol/Kara whispered. “If it’s a trainer . . . or one of the food-delivery things . . .”