I wiped my mouth and turned to see Grandma standing in the bathroom doorway, her hands to her throat. ‘Tell me that’s not true.’
I could have, but now that I had in some way vomited up the truth, I could not swallow it down. All those days of talking, pretending not to hear people’s horror stories, letting Amber treat me like a ‘survivor’, Jack repeatedly calling me a liar. Something had changed while I was there, but I did not feel relief at telling the truth. I felt horror and guilt. I curled up on the bathroom floor and started to cry. ‘I’m sorry.’ But Grandma had already moved down the hall and I heard her pick up the phone. Who was she calling? I ran out and pulled the phone from her hand. Her face was red.
‘You destroyed his life, your sister’s life, your parents’ lives. Now I know why you drink. You can’t live with yourself. Well, I can’t live with you either.’ She reached for the phone again, but I held it tightly. She clutched at her head then and said, ‘You have to tell …’ but her words became indistinct, and she slid down the wall and sat heavily on the floor as she passed out.
‘Oh God, Grandma, please, are you okay? Grandma!’
Her eyes were unfocused, one side of her face slackened.
‘Grandma!’
She lost consciousness. I knew enough to know this was astroke. I had the phone in my hand and I didn’t hesitate. I called the emergency services and begged for an ambulance. I had learned that aspirin could help stroke victims – or was that heart attacks? I couldn’t remember. I ran to the medicine cabinet and then tried to get some tablets into her mouth, but it was slack and she couldn’t swallow. Was she dead?
My mother met me at the hospital ER. ‘What happened? What did you do to her? Were you there in her house? Why did you leave rehab?’ I was sobbing hard. They had taken Grandma into triage but made me wait outside. She was given a shot of something in the ambulance, but she hadn’t woken up. Mom left me and went to the nurses’ station and was allowed through to the treatment cubicles. I prayed silently for Grandma to the God I had abandoned. She was the only person I trusted. Maybe it’s why she was the second person to whom I finally told the truth.
‘You can’t live with yourself,’ she’d said, and she was right. Oblivion was preferable to reality, but reality had caught up with me.
That’s when I stopped drinking.
18
The Incident
By the time I was home, my plan was complete. I was going to give Milo what he wanted. The very thing that Erin wouldn’t give him. Full sexual intercourse. I knew what to do, Kenny had shown me step by step. Milo and I would do it. Then he would break up with Erin and I would be his girlfriend. That would show Erin she couldn’t have everything she wanted. Milo and I would keep it secret for a while, maybe a month. And then we would tell everyone. And then, I would break up with him. Erin would be so mad.
I would have to change quickly. I knew the way Milo rang the doorbell. He always did two quick buzzes. He used to say, ‘a long buzz is aggressive’. He was gentle like that.
I wore my denim shorts, the ones I was only allowed to wear at the beach. And on top I wore a sleeveless shirt, tied up at the navel, and no bra. I’d used Erin’s make-up and did it the way she did, like Britney, lots of mascara and glossy lips.
That morning, I’d watched them through the hole in the wall over the mirror in my room. I felt a kind of pulsing between my legs, a yearning, and now I had an opportunity. My friends would have been shocked, but I wasn’t going to tell anybody, yet. Milo liked me, I could tell. When I opened the door, he stepped back for a moment before entering.
‘Hi, Milo, Altman is shut because of some boiler problem. Erin’s out with Mom. She may be an hour or so. But she said for you tocome in and wait. And here’s your book.’ I handed him the textbook he had left behind.
‘Well, hello to you, Daisy Duke. The whole school is shut down?’
Daisy Duke was a sexy character on an old TV show,The Dukes of Hazzard.I knew immediately what he was thinking. I didn’t answer his question. I was pleased. I made us both coffee and then sat beside him on the couch. I sat very close to him. I could feel the heat from his thigh on my bare leg. We continued to chat about my plans to be a Broadway star and I looked deep into his eyes. He looked uncomfortable. ‘Ruby, I don’t …’ he said and attempted to move away. I moved quickly to straddle him. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed his mouth, but his teeth were clamped shut. He grabbed my shirt and pushed me away. I screamed and heard my shirt rip. He stopped, shocked, but I smiled. One breast was exposed, and his eyes lingered there for a second before he turned his head away. I put my arms around his neck again, but he pulled them up and away roughly, holding up my wrists in his fist. ‘What the hell are you doing, Ruby? Stop.’ I hadn’t expected any objection.
19
Ruby
Grandma had had a serious stroke. We did not know if she would walk or talk again, the damage was so great.
Mom was furious that I was out of rehab. I tried to convince her that I had stayed sober for ten days, but she called Longhurst and they told her that I’d been asked to leave. I was angry that they had broken my confidentiality like that, but Mom, via Dad, had paid the hefty fee. Their contract was with her, not me. I told her I’d go back in; I’d apologize to everyone. This time I meant it. Everyone was right, alcohol was controlling me. I could no longer deny it. I had lied, and it was eating me up inside. I knew that one of the steps in the Twelve Step programme was about apologizing. How could I ever do that?
But right now it was all about Grandma. I told Mom that it had just happened while I’d been there. This was true, I suppose. Maybe she would have had a stroke anyway, or maybe my admission of the truth had caused it. Part of me hoped that Grandma wouldn’t recover so that she could never tell anyone what I’d said about Milo Kelly, but the bigger part of me wanted her back. I loved and trusted her even though she had no reason to trust me. If God let Grandma live, I would not drink again. After a hellish forty-eight hours in the Emergency Room, she was finally assigned a room of her own. Mom called her brother home from Australia.
Grandma regained consciousness the next day. She seemed to be alert but could only communicate with her eyes. My uncle Dennis arrived at the end of the week. He was tall and good-looking, and seemed much younger than Mom. He had a wife and children back in Perth. He was happy to see Mom and to meet me for the first time. He was sorry that Grandma was in such a bad way and regretted not coming home sooner.
But later, a family secret was revealed. The reason Dennis had left Ireland in his early twenties was to escape the drinking culture. He was a recovering alcoholic who had got himself into a lot of unspecified trouble when he was young. I asked what he’d done, but it was bad enough that, if it had been disclosed, he’d never have got that visa to live in Australia, and nobody would say what it was. Reading between the lines, I guessed he had harmed somebody drink-driving. Maybe even killed them. He managed to find sobriety eventually in Australia, but shame had prevented him from coming home.
When Grandma saw him, her eyes lit up and tears fell down her cheeks. When she looked at me, I could see only disgust.
Living independently was out of the question for her. Mom found a nursing home not far from where Grandma lived. I was terrified that, somehow, she would reveal my filthy secret. But she couldn’t speak, and even using a chalkboard was useless because I think she could no longer read or write. I held newspapers up in front of her, but her eyes slid from side to side, up and down. Her entire right-hand side had collapsed, and her left leg was useless without her right. One of her arms still worked and with that she grasped her rosary beads. I could see her mouth moving in silent prayer. Was she giving thanks for having survived, or praying for release? I couldn’t tell.
I went through cold turkey by myself. I called Longhurst, apologized, begged to be readmitted. They reluctantly agreed, thoughthey couldn’t take me until after Christmas. One wrong move and I would be sent home. For the next month, I was between the hospital and Grandma’s flat, doing any shopping or laundry that she needed. I stayed sober. I stayed away from pubs and clubs. I was by Grandma’s side when she moved into the nursing home. Her eyes showed fear, but I held on to her good hand. Her room was large and sunny, and the Filipino women who staffed the home were kind. After a few days, Grandma was more relaxed. Her eyes, when they settled on me, glared, until I told her I was going back to rehab. She made a moaning sound, which I took to mean she approved.
My uncle returned to Australia after tearful goodbyes to his mother and well wishes to me. Dennis said, ‘Everything is better, you know, when you’re sober. When your head is right, come out and visit us, eh? I can find a job for you.’ He ran a mining company. I was grateful but couldn’t see myself doing anything like moving to Australia. I wondered if I could go back to college. I was notorious there and for all the wrong reasons. I still had that acting itch, but my future was uncertain.
