All Fall Down(90)
Author: Jennifer Weiner

“Sometimes, in our addiction, we do things we’d never, ever do if we were sober.” His voice was low and soothing, like the world’s best yoga teacher. “David also said there was an incident with your business? The misappropriation of some funds?”

I sat up straight. How did Dave even know about that? “Th-that was a clerical error,” I stammered. “I was just being careless. It was the end of a week from hell; I was trying to get my parents’ financial stuff over to our accountant so they could admit him at the assisted-living place . . .” I shut my mouth. The thing with Ellie had been a mistake. The thing with the money—another mistake. The word “unmanageable” was floating around in my head with dismaying persistence. I pushed it away. I was managing. I was managing fine.

“Have any authorities been involved?” asked Nicholas. “The police? The Department of Youth and Family Services?” I shook my head. “Teachers are mandated reporters, and normally, in a case like that, they’d be obligated to tell someone at DYFS what was going on.” He gave me a serious look. “You’re very lucky that no one got hurt . . . and that you still have custody of your daughter.”

I felt sick as I nodded numbly, accepting the reality of how badly I’d f**ked up. They could have taken Ellie away. I could have gone to jail.

“You’re an intelligent woman,” said Nicholas. “I think that if you’re here, if you agreed to come here, even if there were extenuating circumstances, probably a part of you thinks you need to be here.”

I opened my mouth to say No way. Then I made myself think. An intelligent woman, Nicholas had said. What would an intelligent woman do under these circumstances? Would she resist; would she fight; would she argue and continue to insist that she didn’t have a problem and that she didn’t belong? Or would she fake compliance? Would she nod and agree, march to meetings and activities with the rest of the zombies, eat the crappy cafeteria food and drink the Kool-Aid? If I did all that, if I toed the line and recited the slogans and—I glanced at the poster on Nicholas’s wall—made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself, I could probably get out of here in a week. Two weeks, tops.

“You know what?” I said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe there was a part of me that knew it was time to stop. I was concerned about how many I was taking. I was concerned that I needed to keep taking more and more to feel the same way. Then I was worried about having to take them just to feel normal, and always worrying about whether I had enough, and if I was going to run out, and which doctor I could call to get more. And I didn’t . . .” I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat, letting Nicholas hear the catch in my voice. “I didn’t want to be all spaced out around my daughter. She deserves a mom who’s there for her.”

“Had you made attempts to stop before?” Nicholas’s voice was so calm, so quiet. Did learning to talk that way require special training?

I shook my head, thinking about that afternoon at Stonefield, Mrs. Dale wrestling the car keys away from me, telling me that I wasn’t safe to drive my own daughter, and how I’d sworn to myself that I would quit, or at least stop taking so much. I thought about that terrible AA meeting the next morning, and how by noon that day I’d been right back in the bathroom, staring at my face in the mirror as I shook pills into my hand. In spite of my best intentions, and the very real threat of being exposed or shamed or worse, I hadn’t even been able to make it halfway through one day without a pill.

Nicholas pushed a box of tissues across the desk. “What are you feeling?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and swiped at my face. “I’m not feeling well.”

“That’s completely understandable. You’re still going through withdrawal.”

“I feel so stupid,” I blurted. “I’ve never been in trouble my whole life, you know? I’ve been successful. I’m good at my job. I have a beautiful little girl. I had everything I wanted. And now . . .” Now I’m a drug addict. The words rose in my head. I shoved them away. I wasn’t. I wasn’t. I was just having a little problem. I was experiencing technical difficulties, like they said on TV.

“I’m worried about being here,” I said. I figured this was exactly what someone who’d come to a place like this would say. It also happened to be the truth. “My mom is staying with us, but, really, she’s not going to be much help. My husband works full-time, and I’m the only one who can write my blog posts. There’s not, like, a substitute I can call in.”