All Fall Down(64)
Author: Jennifer Weiner

“Mommy?”

I looked inside the car, where Ellie was buckled into her booster seat, with her thumb hooked into her mouth. Ellie hadn’t sucked her thumb since she was three. “Why is everybody YELLING?”

“Okay,” I said, and opened my hand. The key fob slid out from my sweaty fingers and fell onto the sidewalk with a clink. “Okay.”

TWELVE

Mrs. Dale got the kids out of the car and drove it to the teachers’ lot. She left me in her classroom, then disappeared with Ellie and the boys. I hoped she was taking them back to the Enrichment room, giving them treats, letting them play with the newest toys. I took a seat at one of the munchkin-sized desks and pulled out my phone. Janet answered on the third ring.

“Allison?”

“Hey!” I said, trying to sound upbeat and untroubled, even though fingers of cold sweat were tracing the curve of my spine and I’d noticed my hands shaking as I’d punched in her number. “Just letting you know that I’m running a little late. The traffic was a mess,” I lied, knowing that Janet would believe me. “Sit tight. I’ll have them home as soon as I can.”

“Take your time,” she said.

We hung up, and I rummaged through my purse for a bottle of water. I sipped it, looking longingly at my tin, knowing how stupid it would be to take a pill now, now of all times. My heart was still beating so hard I could feel my temples pounding, and I could feel more sweat collecting there, beading above my upper lip. Then I thought, In for a penny, in for a pound. The pills were my normal. They’d help me calm down. They would get me through this. And if they did, I promised God and Ellie and whatever forces or spirits might have been listening, I would stop. I would.

I slid two blue pills under my tongue just as Mrs. Dale came into the room, carrying a steaming WORLD’S BEST TEACHER mug and packets of sugar and Cremora and Sweet ’N Low.

“Thanks,” I said. I dumped fake cream and sugar into the cup and sipped. Mrs. Dale sat at her desk and loaded folders into a tan leather satchel. I waited for the lecture to begin. When it didn’t, I started talking.

“Listen. I appreciate what you did out there. I understand that it’s your job. But, like I told you, I had one glass of wine, this afternoon with Janet Mallory. You can call her if you don’t believe me.”

She looked at me steadily. “Were you taking anything else?”

That’s when I glimpsed my loophole. My way out. The light at the end of the tunnel, shining glorious and gold. “Oh my God,” I whispered, widening my eyes, letting my jaw go slack, doing everything but slapping my forehead. “My back went out over the weekend, and I’m taking . . . God, what’s it called? A muscle relaxer, and a painkiller. I totally forgot I’m not supposed to drink with them.” I hung my head, my expression of shame entirely unfeigned. “Oh my God, what is wrong with me?”

Maybe I imagined it, but I thought Mrs. Dale’s expression softened. So I kept going. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t believe I didn’t double-check.” I swallowed hard. The enormity of the situation—the trouble I could be in, the fact that I could have hurt children, mine and someone else’s, or hit someone else, some stranger on the road—was covering me like a skin of ice, freezing my feet, my knees, my belly. If she reported this, I could lose my daughter. If Dave found out that I was driving under the influence . . . I shook my head, unwilling to even think about it. I couldn’t let myself go there. Containment. Containment was the name of the game. “You were absolutely right to not let me drive. I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again.”

Mrs. Dale’s expression was unreadable. Was she buying any of this? I couldn’t tell.

“You were taking painkillers?” she finally asked. I started nodding almost before the last syllable was out of her mouth.

“That’s right. And a muscle relaxant. My back . . .”

She looked at me for another long moment. “When my niece had a C-section,” she finally said, “they gave her Percocet. Her doctor kept prescribing them for almost six months after she’d given birth, and when he cut her off, she found another doctor, a pain specialist, to write her prescriptions for Vicodin and OxyContin.”

I tried not to flinch. Vicodin and Oxy. My favorites, my nearest and dearest . . . and, at that very moment, I wanted about a dozen of each. I wanted not to be there, not to have been seen by the ladies in the carpool lane, who were probably already spreading the word, not to be in that classroom that smelled like little-kid sweat and banana bread, being lectured by some old battle-ax who probably had no idea what it was like, trying to raise kids and hold a job and run a household these days.