Of all the men at that table, he'd been around the longest. He'd watched my father handle this company with such care and precision, and I had been floundering for months.
Since Emma's death, I hadn't taken anything as seriously as I should have, and my drinking had gotten out of control. Robert, of all people, knew what that was like.
He'd had his own battle years ago and he was successful today despite it all.
Without thinking, I pressed his contact in my phone and it started ringing as I brought it to my ear. Clayton was dead set on my failure and I was fighting to make sure I could succeed. I was a prideful man, though, and I found it difficult to depend on other people. It was the main reason things had gotten as bad as they had. After Emma died, I fell into a hole of self-loathing and never came out.
But Veda had opened my eyes and I couldn’t close them again. I knew I needed to get help, no matter what it cost me, and my gut told me Robert was the man who could help.
"Asher?" I heard, and I snapped out of my thoughts and back to the phone call I was starting.
"Yeah, Bob?"
"What's going on? Is everything okay?" he asked with a calm tone.
"You know what? No." Being blunt was my strength. Being vulnerable was not. So it felt horribly awkward, but I forced myself to continue. "I'm trying hard not to drink, and I'm really wanting a drink right now." I swallowed more of my pride as I said, "And I'm really sorry for blowing up at that meeting. I didn't mean to?—"
"Say nothing of it," he interrupted. "Listen, I'm on my way to a meeting. It's sort of the type of thing that might help you."
An uneasiness twisted in my chest uncomfortably as I asked, "What sort of meeting?" Asking him for help was one thing. Getting sucked into something bigger didn't feel right.
"It's AA, Asher. I've been a member for thirty years now, and I think it might help you too." He paused as I mulled it over. The idea was terrifying, though I'd never admit it aloud. Exposing my weakness to the eyes of others so they could judge me felt like the scariest thing in the world that I could do.
"I don't know, Bob."
"Just meet me. I'll text you the address. If you don’t like it, you can leave. But I think it may help you."
His request seemed friendly enough, and with the offer of being able to step out if I was too uncomfortable, it was hard to pass up. I agreed, and he sent me the address.
Twenty minutes later, right at the top of the hour, I was parked outside, climbing out of my car at a small episcopal church where Robert stood waiting to greet me.
I sat in the very back row with my coat still on and my shoulders pulled up so high, my neck ached the whole time. I’d chosen the seat right by the door because my stomach kept flipping with the idea that I could still leave, that no one would blame me if I just stood up and walked out before anything got real.
Robert sat one seat away and didn’t crowd me, didn’t even look over after we got seated.
I kept my hands buried in my pockets because they were shaking again and I hated how obvious it felt.
And I stared at my shoes mostly and listened to every word like it might be the one thing that finally made sense of the mess in my head.
Story after story, the men and women in this meeting spoke about how their lives were affected by alcohol, some of themlosing children or spouses. All of them had a story to tell, and all of them had been crushed by their own addiction. It was powerful to me, sobering almost, until a man named Mike stood.
Mike was a big guy, but his voice was so small as he spoke. "Hi, I'm Mike and I'm an alcoholic." The group echoed their hellos and he continued. "Twelve years ago, I had eight, maybe nine beers one night while out to dinner. Told my wife I was fine to drive the ten miles home, but I clearly wasn’t. I wrapped the truck around a tree on Route Nine that night. She died on impact. I walked away with a busted collarbone and enough guilt to eat me alive… And I'm here today, twelve years sober, still wishing I could trade places with her."
Emma's face flashed before my eyes and my heart felt like someone drove a knife through it.
He kept telling his story, but I lost track of everything at that point.
Emma wasn't killed because of my negligence or drinking, but losing her was the trigger that had instigated all of this.
And my drinking would be the thing that killed my career, one way or another, unless I stopped it.
Hearing these stories really opened my eyes, especially when Robert moved over to the chair right beside me and squeezed my shoulder, just before it was my turn to speak. I passed.
I couldn't even conjure a single sentence, let alone a story, but Bob knew.
He'd been there and watched me walk through it. He knew what it would take for me to be able to open up.
When the meeting was over, Robert pulled me to the side and asked me to join him for a cup of coffee.
