All Fall Down(87)
Author: Jennifer Weiner

“I’m not sure I actually believe that addiction is a disease,” said, but Michelle was on a roll.

“Your disease is telling you that you don’t belong here. Your disease is saying that you didn’t even have a problem, or that if you did, it wasn’t that bad. Your disease is saying, ‘I can handle this. I’ll do it on my own. I can cut back. I don’t need the Twelve Steps, and I definitely don’t need rehab.’ ” I was quiet. This, of course, was exactly what I’d been thinking.

“But your best thinking is what got you here. Think about that for a minute.” This, of course, was exactly what Darnton had told me. Another trite slogan, one they probably recited to every patient who was giving them trouble.

“I’d like to speak to my husband and my mom. I need to know how my daughter is doing.”

“Your counselor can help you to arrange that.”

“But I don’t have a counselor!” I closed my mouth. I was shouting again. “Look, you don’t understand,” I said, and knotted my fingers together so my hands would stop shaking. “I didn’t have time to make any arrangements for my daughter or my mom. My father just moved into an assisted-living facility, and my mom moved in with us.”

“Well, then,” said Michelle, with a simper, “it sounds like your husband will have plenty of help at home.”

Under other circumstances, I would have laughed. “If my mother was a normal person, that would be true,” I told her. “But my mother’s basically another child. She doesn’t drive, and even if she did, she doesn’t know Ellie’s schedule, and Ellie won’t be her priority. She’ll be worried about my dad.” I was getting overwhelmed just thinking about the mess I’d left behind, the assignments I hadn’t completed, the comments I hadn’t approved, the dentist’s appointment I hadn’t made for Ellie, the checkup that I’d postponed for myself, the visit from the roofers that I’d never gotten around to scheduling. “I can’t stay here,” I told Michelle. “It’s impossible. There are too many things I need to take care of.”

She nodded. “So many of us women feel like we’re the ones holding up the world. Like it’s all going to fall down without us.”

“I can’t speak for anyone else, but in my case, that’s actually true,” I offered. Michelle appeared not to hear.

“Acceptance is hard,” she said.

I frowned. “Acceptance of what?”

“Why don’t you tell me, Allison? What are you having a hard time accepting?”

I tried not to roll my eyes. “For starters, that you won’t let me talk to my daughter and explain why I’m not home. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable request. Please,” I said. Maybe it was withdrawal, the exhaustion of what my body had been through over the past few days, but I was too tired and too sad to keep arguing. “I just want to talk to someone at my home.”

Michelle swiped her mouse back and forth, peered at her computer screen, and then spent a minute typing. “The head of our counseling department has an opening at noon. His name is Nicholas.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your help.” There. I could be reasonable, I could be polite . . . and I was feeling encouraged.

“For now, though, I need you to go join your group.”

“Thank you,” I said again, thinking that I was on my way. It had taken me three hours to orchestrate even the promise of a phone call home. By day’s end, I was confident I’d be able to talk my way out of here and get myself home.

NINETEEN

I walked out the door and onto the sidewalk. The fresh air felt good on my face after the recirculated staleness I’d been breathing inside. I was halfway across the lawn before I heard someone yelling. “Hey,” he called. “You can’t walk there! Hey!”

I turned and saw a young man in khakis. “That’s the men’s path.”

I looked around to make sure he was talking to me, then down at what seemed to be gender-neutral pavement. “Excuse me?”

“Men and women have to walk on separate paths. Yours is here.” He pointed. I shrugged and started across the grass. “No!” he hollered. “You have to go back and start at the beginning! No walking across the grass!”

I stopped and stared at him. “Is this like Simon Says?”

“ ‘Half-measures availed us nothing!’ ”

“Excuse me?”

“From The Big Book. You can’t take shortcuts.”

Whatever. I went back to the door, got on the proper path, and found Aubrey and Mary standing in the middle of a fenced-in oval, staring uneasily at a big horse with a brown coat and a sandy mane, which was ignoring them as it nibbled on a clump of grass. I waved at them, then ducked through the fence and was crossing the muddy ground when a woman in a cowboy hat held up her hand.