Wake Me When It's Over

The morning after the Great Liquor Cabinet Heist, my mother woke with a blinding, hangover headache. Looking ruined and sick and enraged, she half staggered downstairs and into the dining room, clutching her dirty house coat with one hand and trailing cigarette smoke. She smelled of urine and vomit and her first words were vicious and spat at my daddy with disgust, Get those thieving little brats out of my sight. He sighed and nodded and we left the table and the half eaten breakfast without protest. He followed soon after, told us to get dressed, and drove us to my grandmother's then went to work. There was to be no defense of us that day but neither was there to be a battle - he was too tired to take her on. My grandmother took us in with no questions, only a bitter expression of understanding that there was no real refuge for any of us.

We stayed a week during which he came and went, looking more and more hopeless, more and more lost each day. He and Nana sat at her kitchen table night after night, drinking coffee and talking, trying to work things out. She tried reasoning, scolding, appealing to logic, explaining all the reasons it wasn't his fault and why he hadn't failed. At one point she even suggested a rehab hospital, Guy, you have nothing more to lose, I overheard her tell him, but he was past the point of listening and too deep in denial to accept help. In the end, he took us home and life resumed as if nothing at all had happened. Your mother is sick, he told us, not able to meet our eyes, Just try and stay out of her way. They were cold words, summoning a sense of abandonment and they extended the distance between us to a point that would never be overcome. It was one of the first times that we all realized that past a certain point, he would not be able to help or protect us. Worse, he knew it and was telling us so. It was time to grow up and time was running out.

My grandmother, however, was not about to succumb. She began to drop by without warning or pick us up after school and take us shopping. She invented chores that she needed help with and insisted that we spend the night. My mother made no move to interfere even when Nana took to having us stay for supper on a nightly basis and then claim she was too old to drive at after dark so she had us sleep over. My daddy picked us up each morning and drove us to school and we made safe, useless small talk to cover the silence. No one asked about my mother.

This odd living arrangement lasted until summer when we packed and made the long drive to Nova Scotia, three kids, two women barely on speaking terms, and two dogs. Nana took charge and made it clear that there would be peace and calm or hell to pay. No one challenged her or asked questions but it was still like living on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the earth to tremble and knock you off your feet and into a free fall. It could happen at any time and a small, whitehaired, chubby little woman in support hose and sensible shoes didn't seem like much protection yet it was her presence and her will that extended our childhoods for that summer and many to follow.