His father nodded.
“What happened, Dad?” Chase asked. “Was she always an alcoholic? Did you know that when you married her?”
His father took his time answering. “She barely touched anything more than a glass of wine when we were first married. That was why I found it hard to understand when she turned to alcohol.”
“Something must have led her to that point. What was it?”
Again, Simon hesitated. His mouth tightened, and for a moment Chase was afraid his father wasn’t going to answer him.
“Michelle was raised as an only child and was basically alone after her parents died. When we married, she told me she wanted us to have a large family. She loved the idea of mothering a houseful of children. She had no problem getting pregnant with you. She adored you and was eager to give you a little brother or sister.”
“What happened?”
“She miscarried the next pregnancy. Naturally, she was upset. The physician assured her all was well and said he could see no problem with her getting pregnant again. As soon as her body healed, we were excited by how quickly she was able to conceive once more.”
“She lost that baby, too?”
His father nodded. “And the next three. The doctors couldn’t find any medical reason this should be happening. You can’t imagine the lengths Michelle went to with each pregnancy.” Simon briefly closed his eyes, as if reliving the agony of those days.
“She tried extreme diets, one after another. All protein. No protein. Even some crazy concoction that came from cows. It was nuts. I lost count of the number of different physicians she saw. She took so many supplements that the entire bathroom countertop wasn’t big enough to hold all the bottles. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to prevent another miscarriage. No matter what she did, no matter who advised her, she was never able to carry a pregnancy beyond four months.”
All this happened, Chase realized, at about the time his fatherwas heavily involved in assuming the responsibilities of Furst Bank, expanding on what was already a huge financial enterprise.
“As you can imagine, after each failed pregnancy your mother went into a deep, dark depression. She would weep for days on end. To say she was inconsolable is an understatement. Nothing I said or did would comfort her.”
Chase knew how difficult those times must have been for his father. How useless he must have felt, wanting to ease his wife’s disappointment and finding his efforts insufficient.
“Finally, I took matters into my own hands,” he continued, his gaze focused on the carpet. “I didn’t care that we couldn’t have any more children, especially seeing what this obsession for more children had done to Michelle. Without telling her, I got a vasectomy.”
Chase sucked in his breath, thinking about how his father could betray his mother in this way. “How long did it take her to discover the reason she couldn’t get pregnant again?”
“Sooner than I would have liked. She’d found a new doctor who convinced her all she needed was a simple surgery to fix the problem. She’d been filled with such hope. She danced around the house, twirled you up in the air, and promised you a little sister one day.”
“And that’s when you told her?”
Simon swallowed hard and nodded. “I hated that I killed her dream, but we couldn’t continue with the emotional highs and lows the way we had done for nearly six years.”
“Is that when she started drinking?”
With a deep, painful sigh, his father nodded. “Understandably, she was angry with me. I tried again and again to reassureher of my love and that you were a gift God gave us, and we should be grateful.”
“Did that help?”
“I thought it did, until I learned she was drinking her lunch.”
Nearly all the memories Chase had of his mother were of her being in bed with the blinds closed or so drunk she wobbled on unsteady feet from room to room. He didn’t know what was happening and assumed every mother was like her. It wasn’t until he started school that he realized his mother wasn’t like other mothers.
One of his most embarrassing moments was when Michelle attended a winter program at the school just before Christmas. He’d been in first grade, and she’d arrived at the auditorium drunk. When Chase came onstage with the other children, she stood, waving her arms over her head and shouting that he was her son. She’d caused such a ruckus that the school principal had to escort her out of the room.
“Her drinking only got worse,” Simon said. “I tried to get her into rehab, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Finally, I told her that unless she quit drinking, I was going to see an attorney.” His face tightened. “I thought…hoped, that would be enough to wake her up to the fact that she had a disease and needed help.”
“Clearly, it didn’t.”
“Instead, I arrived home to discover Michelle had packed up and moved out. I had no idea where she’d gone or who she was with. Frantically, I called everyone who might have a clue where she could possibly have gone. No one knew.
“A week later I got a letter from her attorney. She didn’t contest the divorce and asked for nothing in the settlement. She had money and intended to live on that. She made it clear she needednothing from me. She knew that, because of her drinking, any access to you would be limited.”
“She never tried, then, until after I was eighteen,” Chase said, thinking out loud.
