Chapter 57 Patricia Callahan

CHAPTER 57 PATRICIA CALLAHAN

2012

Bolton Landing

The longest stretch I was sober during Anne Marie’s childhood was almost seven months. I’d go a few days here and there, sometimes a week, but I couldn’t make it stick. Then I started cleaning rooms at the Chateau with a woman named Christie. She was in town for the summer season. She drank too much, like me, and she had a young daughter, also like me. Plus, she wanted to change. So did I.

We worked together and held each other accountable until she got a phone call that her mom had fallen down the stairs and she needed to come home. Home was Watertown, three hours away.

From June 2, Annie’s birthday, to Christmas Eve 1988 not a drop of alcohol passed my lips. Anne Marie was six at the time. The memories from those months sit on the front shelf of my mind. One is clearer than the rest:

It’s from late summer. I’m finally getting around to spring cleaning. A day late and a dollar short, like everything I did back then. But I’m doing it, that’s what counts. I’m cleaning out the closet. It’s not big—a short rod to hang clothes on, shelf above. A cardboard box is up there, tucked into the corner. I’m on my tiptoes, tips of my fingers brushing the cardboard, but finally I scoot the box over and bring it down.

Inside are my old clothes. Most of them from high school. Some even earlier. I unfold each item, hold it before me, reminisce. The last piece in the box is a soft white T-shirt. I’m lifting it up—oh, my Tom and Jerry shirt! How I had loved that thing. To think I’d forgotten all about it. My heart warms with the joy of finding a cherished item.

I hear Anne Marie giggle at the TV from the living room. The sound makes me smile. There’s so much I’ve failed to notice about my daughter before these months. I look again at my old shirt, poke my head into the living room, trying to gauge whether the shirt might fit her. A little too big. But that’s all right.

“Anne Marie,” I call out. She turns off the TV immediately. I’ve noticed that whenever I want her attention, I have it.

“Hi, Mommy.”

“I have something special for you,” I say, walking toward her. She’s facing away from me, and I admire her little head that barely clears the back of the couch. Now she cranes her neck and watches me walk over. I sit on the coffee table facing her. She’s swinging her feet, excited.

“Okay, honey, what I’m about to give you is very, very special.” I’m holding the shirt behind my back. Anne Marie pretends to peek around, but only half-heartedly. It’s obvious that for her I’m the star of the show.

“When I was your age I loved—I mean loved, loved, loved —this cartoon about a cat and mouse called Tom and Jerry . I loved it so much that I even had this cool shirt with the characters on it—it was my favorite thing to wear.”

I bring the shirt around and present it to Anne Marie, holding it out like a bullfighter. We both look at the shirt. Her eyebrows are raised, and her eyes are big like this is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. I want to squeeze her for this. Some small part of me had been worried she’d think the shirt was lame.

I jump back in: “Obviously I can’t give this shirt to just anyone. I need to give it to someone who can carry on its legacy. Someone who is kind and funny and smart. And guess what?”

“What?” Anne Marie asks, her voice rising with hope. She is already allowing herself to believe that maybe she is that someone.

“It’s you,” I say, confirming her suspicions. She throws both arms in the air, and I lean forward and wrap her in the tightest, longest hug I can manage, letting go only when I sense she’s about to pull away.

I’ve never let myself fully relive this memory before. It’s always been front and center but cordoned off behind yellow caution tape. No doubt my brain’s way of protecting me from feeling as I do right now, which is like a bomb of regret has exploded all over me and no amount of scrubbing could ever remove the stain.