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Despite their marriage of more than twenty years, Ted had never been able to tolerate the amount of time Karen took to get ready. He would sigh, glance at his watch, tug her out of the bathroom, and eventually, he stopped taking her on dates altogether. If she couldn’t be ready in under thirty minutes, too much time had been squandered, and he wouldn’t make it back to his chair in time for Miami Vice or Cheers.
If Karen needed to pile on her makeup before leaving the house, he assumed she was doing it for unfaithful reasons. He already knew her skin had aged, so what reason did she have to convince anyone else that she was pretty? Not to mention, he couldn’t fathom why she needed to go back and forth between five different outfits, only to ultimately choose one that hadn’t even been part of the original lineup.
Whatever the grievance, Ted was intolerable.
Joyce was not.
Joyce would wait hours for Karen’s hair to dry, for her to redo her makeup, for her to sift through twenty different outfits until she found the one that was just right. Sometimes she’d get antsy when they had reservations, but Karen made sure they were never late.
They’d grown close over the eighteen months they’d spent living together, and once everything was out in the open, with no more secrets left to keep between them, they became even harder to separate. Of course, there were enormous fights and days when Nancy counted down the minutes until she could leave for college, but she was grateful there was at least some semblance of communication between them.
Shortly after her miraculous recovery, Karen confessed that she and Ted had already been in the early stages of a divorce, and she wanted it finalized by that February. She no longer cared about keeping the peace, and coming so close to death had made her realize that she didn’t want to end up in a grave beside Ted.
Nancy gave her full support, as did Mike. Holly had been on the fence, but she was ultimately alright with shared custody.
But now her mom had Joyce wrapped around her finger, and Joyce took her on as many dates as she possibly could. They couldn’t call them dates in public, but romantic dinners and long walks on the beach were nothing if not dates. Keeping their families safe remained their top priority, but Nancy could tell they desperately wanted to call their relationship what it was: two women in love with each other.
“I don’t know, Nance. This one’s so…” Karen ran her hands over her hips, too focused on the imperfections of the maroon dress she’d already been contemplating wearing for the past five minutes. “Can you zip it all the way up? Something’s wrong with the…” She vaguely gestured towards her waist. “Whatever. I’m not wearing it.”
Nancy sat contentedly on the queen-sized bed, fiddling with the thick knitted blanket spread over the light-pink comforter. Another thing her father never would have tolerated.
One of the unexpected benefits of her mom going on dates again was that Nancy was allowed to feel like a little kid dressing up a Barbie. Her opinion was of the utmost importance to Karen, who seemed to genuinely care about what she thought. At least, when it came to clothes.
“Hey, why don’t you wear that dark green one? You still have the matching heels, don’t you?” Nancy stood and opened the cream-coloured doors to her mom’s closet, bending down to rummage through the assortment of heels scattered across the floor. “Where’d you put them?”
“Right there, sweetie,” Karen mumbled, reaching past her into the back of the closet and tugging one of the heels free. “Do you know where my emerald earrings are?”
“Um…” Nancy thoughtfully ran her hands over her jeans. “I haven’t seen them in a while. Let me look.”
While Karen searched for the other heel, Nancy went over to her dresser. Her mom had a habit of leaving anything she didn’t know what else to do with on top of it—loose change, empty packets of mints, and various trinkets she’d picked up around town. Buried among the receipts and old newspaper clippings was her recently earned five-month sobriety chip.
She hadn’t managed to stay sober for more than a month since she’d been pregnant with Holly, and everyone was holding their breath, hoping this time would be different. Hoping this would finally be the battle she won.
Nancy peeked into the wooden drawers of her mom’s standing jewellery box. The cluttered assortment of rings and earrings in the first drawer made her eyes strain as she sifted through them. She used the tip of her rose-coloured nail to push the pieces aside, searching for anything green.
Karen draped the dress over the end of the bed, then turned to help Nancy find the jewellery. In the mirror above the dresser, Karen began patting down her blonde curls. “Has my hair gone frizzy? It’s gone frizzy, hasn’t it?”
The natural wave had returned now that she’d cut it and let it grow back out. Shoulder-length hair wasn’t the easiest thing to manage, but Karen had made it work.
Since becoming a hairstylist to keep herself and Holly afloat, she’d learned far more about hairstyling and aesthetics than she ever expected to. The brassy colour had gradually become a pretty honey-blonde as she figured out different toners, and she enjoyed experimenting with different styles—ones that were considerably kinder to her scalp than perms. Even Holly had gotten highlights, and their mom had promised she could dye the ends pink when she turned eighteen.
“It’s not frizzy. You’re fine.” Nancy quickly shooed Karen’s hands away from her hair before she could actually make it worse.
After another minute of searching, unable to find the earrings herself, she gave up. “Try on the dress. I’m going to check on Joyce.”
As she turned to the ensuite bathroom, she found Joyce struggling with a tube of lipstick.
“Oh, that one doesn’t twist up,” Nancy said, taking it from her. She pressed her thumb against the bottom, and the lipstick popped up. “Try that.”
Joyce smiled softly. “Thanks. How’s your mom doing?”
Nancy hoisted herself onto the counter, nudging a bottle of hairspray aside. That was one thing her mom hadn’t given up yet. “Still looking for an outfit. She only has to touch up her makeup after that.”
Joyce rubbed her lips together, evening out the light-red colour. “Is this alright?”
Nancy used her thumb to wipe the corner of Joyce’s mouth, fixing a small smudge. “Perfect.”
Karen stepped in behind them a few moments later, pausing in front of the mirror above the second sink. She had changed into a dark-blue dress instead, and was now fiddling a pair of dangling sapphire earrings.
“Oh, that’s cute,” Nancy commented. “When did you get that?”
“Holly and I went shopping last week.” She put in the earrings before fluffing out her hair, lifting and teasing the curls at the roots to give them more volume. “Do you think it’s okay for tonight?”
Nancy nodded sincerely. “I love it.”
Karen gave her a shy smile. “I’m not sure if I like the neckline.” She tugged self-consciously at the fabric. “It’s just…I don’t know. It draws attention to everything here.” Her hand hovered near the base of her throat. “The scars, I mean. They’re so uneven, and this neckline makes them look even worse.”
“That’s not true,” Joyce sighed, reaching out to take Karen’s hand. “You look beautiful.”
Karen stepped back before Joyce could touch her, turning towards the bedroom again. “Well, they’re the first thing people are going to notice.” She glanced down again, her expression becoming increasingly critical. “They ruin it. I put on a nice dress, and then all I can see are these.” She sighed. “Gosh, they’re ugly.”
“Karen—”
“I’m changing. Give me a minute.”
As the door shut behind her, Nancy slowly hopped down from the counter, a puzzled expression on her face.
“She’s fine,” Joyce reassured her, though the concern in her voice was impossible to conceal. “She’s been doing that a lot lately. I think someone said something to her. I don’t know.”
“About her scars? Who was it? What did they say?”
“I don’t know,” Joyce repeated with a weary exhale, bracing her hands against the sink. “Someone. It doesn’t matter. Nothing I say seems to change her mind. She’s stubborn, you know.”
“Yeah, I know that, but…” Nancy trailed off.
That day—that horrible day when Nancy found Karen on the kitchen floor—had become an inescapable fixture of her life. The image of her mother’s helpless, battered body kept her awake at night, the gaping cuts flashing in her mind. She lay in bed, tormented by the same questions: what could she have done differently? What could she have said? How could she have intervened before it ever happened?
Throughout the entire healing process, Nancy felt as though she was never doing enough, never as helpful as she needed to be. If there was something that could be done, she felt like she had to be doing it.
The cuts were extensive, and any fabric brushing against them stung, pulling the wounds that hadn’t fully closed. Karen was uncomfortable sitting, uncomfortable standing, uncomfortable sleeping—there seemed to be no position in which her body would allow her to forget what had happened.
Having to be bathed by someone else had been humiliating, and the only person she trusted enough to help was Joyce, who had a life and burdens of her own to tend to. Having doctors insert tubes and fuss over her had been frightening. Her throat remained sore for weeks, making even the most mundane tasks arduous and painful.
And then there was everything beyond the physical pain. The paperwork. The appointments. The bills. Her children needed therapy, along with their own assortment of medical expenses and emotional support. There were forms to fill out, phone calls to make, and problems that multiplied faster than she could resolve them.
Nancy tried to make herself useful wherever she could. She took over little things before anyone could ask, handled errands, stayed awake to help when everyone else was exhausted. She offered to make phone calls she had no business making and tried to keep track of appointments and bills that were far beyond what she should have been worrying about.
But it had been three years.
Everything was supposed to be okay now.
The scars her mom had were beyond her control. They were nothing to be ashamed of, and to think that Karen looked at them and saw nothing but ugliness made Nancy’s heart ache. They were proof that she had healed, that she had survived. She had endured what those monsters had done to her and come out on the other side. She had been stronger than them.
She’d worn countless beautiful dresses in public that showed off her collarbones. She’d gone out to restaurants, attended parties, walked along the beach. She had never seemed particularly bothered by the scars before. Nancy couldn’t understand what had changed.
Surely, if anyone had actually said something, Karen would have at least told Joyce all about it. Besides, who was paying that much attention to someone’s body? People might notice them, but noticing wasn’t the same as judging. Nancy couldn’t imagine anyone being cruel enough to blame Karen for something that had been done to her, and she was beginning to suspect that Karen was giving other people far more credit for noticing than they ever would.
Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Karen had spent so long staring at the scars that she’d started imagining everyone else was doing the same.
“Nancy, just let her be.”
She pushed Joyce’s voice out of her head.
Why wasn’t Karen happy that she’d lived? If the lacerations had pulled any further, gone any deeper, she would have died. The doctor had said so. The nurse had said so. Anyone with eyes would have said so. She’d been unresponsive for so long that her only moments of consciousness were because of the tremendous amount of pain she was in. She had survived. She had suffered, but she had lived.
Why wasn’t she able to see that? Why couldn’t she be grateful that she hadn’t ended up like Barb? Like everyone else?
Why was she acting like her body was the most important part in all of this?
“Nancy.” She forced herself to meet Joyce’s eyes. “If you start pushing her, she’s only going to get more upset.”
“But…”
Before Joyce had the chance to pull her back, Nancy took off into the bedroom.
Karen was sitting on the end of the bed, adjusting the line of her stockings under the hem of the lavender dress she’d changed into. It concealed her chest and most of the scars along her shoulder, though her neck remained exposed. She’d put on an amethyst necklace with a gold chain, its pendant a decent enough distraction.
“Is this one okay?” she asked, her hopeful expression at odds with the shakiness in her hands. “I’m not sure if I like it.”
Nancy forced herself to set the question aside. “Are you seriously trying to hide the scars?”
Karen stared at her, slowly taking in the question.
Nancy felt a sinking sensation in her stomach, a warning that she should stop while she still could. She knew she was being too harsh. She knew she should just leave it alone.
But she was too wound up to retreat.
“Do you know how lucky you are?” she continued. “You survived, and all you’re worried about is how you look? How other people perceive you?”
“Lucky?” Karen stood, bringing herself level with Nancy, her eyebrows furrowing. “What makes you think I’m lucky?”
“Look around you!” Nancy’s voice cracked. “You’re not—you’re not thinking about the fact that you’re still here.” She struggled to keep her voice level as her emotions began to overtake her. “You shouldn’t be worrying about who’s looking at your body. You should be grateful you’re alive.”
Why wasn’t she thinking about the time they’d almost lost? All the ordinary moments that, against all odds, they’d been given back? The Friday afternoons at the mall. The evenings they cuddled on the couch, laughing at crappy movies they knew they’d never watch again. The countless hours she’d been able to spend with Joyce, talking, eating, just existing peacefully in the same room. All those little pieces of time that might never have existed at all.
How could she take any of it for granted when there had been a time when they’d thought they’d never have another moment together?
“You don’t have to cover them.” Nancy felt like a little girl begging to stay up for another hour, her insistence sounding feeble even to her own ears. “Nobody cares, mom. Nobody.”
“Well, I care.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re on my body.”
Nancy’s throat felt hollow. “So?”
“So I don’t like them.”
“Well, that’s…” Nancy faltered, wiggling her hands at her sides as she tried to shake the anxious energy buzzing through her body. “That’s vain.”
Karen stared in disbelief. “Excuse me?”
“I almost lost you, and you’re acting like the worst thing that happened was that you don’t look the way you used to.” Nancy shrugged helplessly, as though she didn’t care. “That’s bullshit.”
Joyce poked her head out of the bathroom, immediately noticing that Nancy’s shoulders were hunched with anxiety, her hands restless at her sides, while Karen had drawn inward, her face visibly hurt.
“Hey. What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Nancy mumbled, her gaze falling on the carpet.
“Oh, it’s not nothing.” Karen turned and went over to the dresser, picking up the first pair of pearl earrings she could find. She removed the sapphires and replaced them with the pearls, her movements stiff. “We’ll talk about this when I get home, Nancy.”
“Why?” Nancy muttered. “It’s not like you’re going to be any less selfish.”
Karen pressed her lips together, holding back whatever response had risen to the tip of her tongue.
“Isn’t she, Joyce?” Nancy turned to the other woman, desperate for someone to validate what she was saying.
Joyce merely shrugged, unwilling to insert herself into the argument.
“It is selfish,” Nancy insisted. “All you can think about is yourself. You’re not thinking about what any of us went through.”
“Nancy!” Karen’s voice rose. “This is not up for debate. Go—” She stopped, realizing how little authority the old threat of sending Nancy to her bedroom held now. “Just go check on Holly.”
Nancy stood there for another moment, but when Karen’s eyes widened expectantly, she finally turned and hurried out of the room. The door shut behind her with enough force to make the picture frames along the hallway wall shake.
She wrapped her arms around herself and hesitantly made her way into Holly’s room, where her younger sister was sat on the carpet in the middle of a little tea party.
There were plushies surrounding her in a loose circle, some sitting against pillows while others were slumped face-forward. A purple Care Bear and a mustard-coloured duck were currently being served their tea.
Holly set the Care Bear and duck aside when she noticed Nancy. “Have mom and Joyce left?”
“No, not yet,” Nancy mumbled, joining her on the floor. She picked up one of the brown teddy bears and a tiny ceramic teacup and saucer. “Pretty fancy tea party you’re having.”
“Yeah.” Holly lifted the little teapot and carefully pretended to pour tea into Nancy’s cup. “You look sad. Everything okay?”
“Mhm.” Nancy forced a smile, but it came out so wobbly that she knew Holly wouldn’t believe it. “Close to my period. Probably just hormones.”
“Here.” Holly reached into the pile of pretend food and handed her a little biscuit from the set Karen had bought her for Christmas the previous year. “Cookie to make you feel better.”
“Thanks, Hols.”
── .✦
Spending three hours with her sister wasn’t something Nancy could complain much about.
Coming home, sleeping in her old room that had gradually become half bedroom, half storage space, was surprisingly nice. The lingering guilt of dropping out of college still weighed on her, but her family had been her biggest supporters, encouraging her to throw herself straight into her career instead. Being home meant being surrounded by the people she loved most, even if it came with its fair share of complications. She didn’t have to do her own laundry, either.
Most of the evening was spent watching Cinderella while they coloured an entire forest scene with little rabbits, winding paths, and drooping willow trees. Later, they changed into the matching pyjamas Nancy had purposely bought in anticipation of babysitting. They were made from the same light pink fabric, with tiny white hearts all over. She’d bought a smaller size for Holly, but after her recent growth spurt, the pair Nancy had originally intended for herself fit Holly much better, leaving Nancy with the smaller ones.
Being the shortest sibling was humbling some days.
The front door opened around ten, Joyce’s keys jingling as she hung them on the hook by the wall. She dropped her purse on the entryway bench before turning to help Karen, who was considerably less steady on her feet. She put an arm around Karen’s waist, supporting her as they made their way inside, then reached back to shut the door behind them.
Holly immediately jumped to her feet and hurried over. She took Joyce’s purse and hung it on the hook, then grabbed Karen’s heels from where Joyce had set them aside and carefully put them under the bench. She seemed to instinctively know what needed doing.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Karen mumbled, pulling Holly into a gentle hug. She loosely held onto Holly’s forearms, using them to balance herself when she began to sway.
Joyce waved Nancy over, a strange sorrow in her expression. “Will you grab her a glass of water?”
Immediately, Nancy planted her feet, stopping just short of the threshold between the entrance and the living room.
Her heart began pounding within seconds, the realization that the woman in front of her was inebriated sinking in.
“You’re kidding me.”
Ignoring the mutter, her own anxiety poorly masked, Joyce took Holly by the shoulders and gently pulled her away from Karen. “Hey, it’s way past your bedtime.”
Holly whined dramatically. “But you only just got home. Mom said we could watch another movie when you guys came back.”
“We’ll make it up to you. Two movies tomorrow. Your pick.”
Holly considered the offer. “Three movies, and I get to stay up until eleven.”
“Deal. Race you to your room.”
Holly then hurried after Joyce up the stairs, still bargaining over how late she’d be allowed to stay awake. Nancy watched them disappear, a little stunned by how natural their routine seemed. She’d only seen glimpses of it over the past few nights, but Joyce had clearly settled into the role of putting Holly to bed: reading her stories, tucking her in, and checking on her if she woke during the night.
Karen was left leaning against the wall for support, nudging the upturned corner of the carpet with her foot. She seemed coherent enough to notice the little things that needed tidying, but not sober enough to concentrate on anything for more than a few seconds.
“Mom?”
Karen looked up—or rather, to the side, just past Nancy’s shoulder, then somewhere around Nancy’s nose. “Mhm?”
Nancy inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled through her mouth. “You promised you wouldn’t do this again.”
“I know, baby.” Karen frowned sympathetically, lacing her fingers together in front of herself. “I’m sorry.”
Nancy’s lips parted, the words sitting on her tongue—you’re not sorry, you’ve never been sorry—but she stopped them before they could reach the air. It wasn’t right to add even more weight onto the mountain of problems they already had.
“Sit down, okay?” she said instead. “I’ll get you some water.”
After filling a tall glass, Nancy joined Karen in the living room and watched as she sank back against one of the decorative floral throw pillows. She rested her hands over her stomach and stretched her legs across the couch. Nancy took the armchair beside her.
“Holly went to bed?” Karen asked, only just registering that her other daughter was missing. “I didn’t say goodnight.”
“Mhm. It’s pretty late.” Nancy scooted closer to the edge of the seat. “Did you and Joyce have fun?”
“Oh, definitely. We had a nice time.” Karen shut her eyes, pressing her hands more firmly against her abdomen. The nausea seemed to be either subsiding or gathering momentum. “We went to that restaurant downtown. The pasta was really good.”
Nancy raised her eyebrows, feigning curiosity. “And what did you drink?”
Karen didn’t answer. Her eyes remained firmly shut, as though refusing to acknowledge the question might make it disappear. She shifted onto her side, then rolled onto her back again with an uncomfortable groan.
Nancy immediately leaned forward and helped pull her upright into a slumped sitting position. Karen was almost dead weight in her arms, but Nancy had built up enough strength over the years to manage her.
“You can’t lie on your back if you think you’re going to be sick,” she scolded, adjusting her until she was leaning slightly forward. “You know that.”
“It’s fine. I’m not going to throw up.”
“Well, we don’t know that.” Nancy anxiously brushed the curls away from Karen’s face, keeping them out of the way. “And I don’t know what’s going on with you anymore. I thought you were finally getting better. I really thought you were.”
“Everyone drinks, Nancy.” Karen weakly pushed Nancy’s hands away from where they hovered anxiously around her. “I’ll start over tomorrow. That’s part of the process, remember?”
Nancy sat down beside her.
“That’s not the point. You’re not even trying to get better. You aren’t trying for Holly, or Mike, or Joyce. You’re not even trying for me. And I’ve—” She trailed off.
Telling stories never seemed to open her mom’s eyes, at least not all the way. Nancy could explain everything she remembered, every frightening little detail she’d carried with her, and Karen would apologize. She would look genuinely remorseful, genuinely heartbroken by what she had put her daughter through, but her remorse never seemed to carry through into action.
She knew what she’d done. That was almost the worst part. She knew, but she still couldn’t seem to understand that it hurt Nancy even now.
It had hurt when she was a little girl—the sickening dread, the certainty that she would be the one holding her mother’s hair back, finding her medicine, searching for a place to hide the bottles, making sure she was breathing. She had spent so many years learning how to look after someone who was supposed to be looking after her.
And that feeling hadn’t disappeared just because she’d grown up.
Nancy drove her to AA meetings because she was terrified Karen would turn around and leave. She searched through every pamphlet in the hospital waiting room, reading each one from beginning to end, desperate for some sentence that might finally reach her mother. She’d even spoken with Joyce, who wholeheartedly supported Karen’s sobriety, but even Joyce had let her drink tonight.
Why?
Why did no one seem to understand how much pain this was causing her?
“If you won’t try for us, won’t you at least try for yourself?” Nancy asked quietly. “Don’t you want to live?”
“Of course I do, baby.” Karen placed a hand on Nancy’s thigh, a futile attempt at reassurance. “What a silly thing to say.”
Nancy covered her mother’s hand with both of hers, noticing how cold her fingers were. “Then why don’t you act like it? You’re hurting yourself every time you drink.” The deep scarring peeking out from the side of Karen’s dress caught her eye. “And you’re acting like your scars define you.”
“They do.”
“No, they don’t.”
Karen shook her head. “I miss who I was before everything happened.” Her words were spaced apart, almost hard to follow. “That doesn’t mean I wish I died. I don’t. I miss feeling like myself. I miss looking like myself.”
Nancy didn’t see much difference. She still saw her mom. Her hair was shorter now, but no less beautiful. Her smile could still brighten a room. Her hugs still felt safe and warm. Her eyes were still the same caramel colour. Nothing had changed in Nancy’s eyes. Nothing had ruined her or made her any less of a person. She couldn’t understand why scars could make someone feel so profoundly different from the person they used to be.
“I don’t understand. You lived. You’re still here. That’s all that should matter.”
Karen slowly leaned back into the couch, clumsily playing with her necklace. “Well…” she mumbled. “I remember being afraid. I remember not knowing if I’d see you again. I remember wondering if I was going to die.”
“But you’re okay. You don’t have to be scared anymore.”
“I guess I am vain, then.” Karen stared down at her necklace, tracing the dark stone with her peach-coloured nails. “When I look at my body, I remember feeling helpless. All of those feelings come rushing back.” She hiccuped, pausing as a wave of nausea jumbled her thoughts. “On top of that, I see them every day.” Her voice grew quieter, the words becoming increasingly slurred. “I can’t go a single day without someone seeing them. I’m reminded of that monster, of everything I didn’t even know about, every single day. All of it comes back just by looking in a mirror.”
The longer Nancy listened, the softer her expression became.
“I thought you just hated the way you looked,” she confessed softly.
It was difficult to understand at first, but Nancy was beginning to see where she was coming from. They were a physical reminder of everything she’d endured, a permanent record of the worst thing that had ever happened to her, layered on top of all the problems she already had to face every day.
And suddenly, Nancy felt ashamed.
She had been so quick to dismiss her mother’s discomfort, so certain that vanity was the only possible explanation, because it was easier to believe Karen was being unreasonable than to consider that there might be something deeper. She’d heard I feel ugly and thought Karen was complaining about something superficial. She hadn’t stopped to wonder what she was actually saying.
Nancy looked at the scars again, but this time she tried to see them the way her mom did. They were memories she carried on her skin whether she wanted them there or not.
“Sometimes I do.” Karen tilted sideways without seeming to notice, and Nancy quickly caught her arm, bringing her upright again. “Sorry. I know I shouldn’t have…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t even own up to the fact she was drunk.
“It’s okay,” Nancy answered.
She was looking for peace. Nancy knew that much, at least. The drink was meant to fill her stomach and empty her head, dulling whatever she could. She’d done the same countless times before. After all, she’d learned from the best.
A glass or two at dinner had never seemed abnormal when she was an impressionable five-year-old. She’d thought everyone’s mommy liked wine, liked wandering through the liquor store and browsing rows of expensive glass bottles. It had been a normal part of her childhood, as ordinary as Barbies and teddy bears were for other kids.
She knew what it was like to feel so unbearably alone that even a mouthful of liquid could fill the emptiness, if only temporarily.
For a long time, she hadn’t understood. She hadn’t even breached the surface of forgiving her mother for expecting her to brush everything aside. She still hadn’t fully accepted how much what happened to her had influenced her own decisions, or her own relationship with alcohol.
She got drunk. So what?
She went out, socialized, partied until her words melted together, did things she regretted in the morning. It was all an attempt to feel something—to find something at the bottom of the red cup she sipped from, in the split of the can she shotgunned, in the warped reflection of the bottle she’d stolen from the rack her mother hovered over.
To fill the silence with sloshing liquid, with the sound of retching at three in the morning. What was the point? Even Nancy didn’t know.
Perhaps it ran through her veins now, an inherited compulsion she’d spent years pretending wasn’t there. Perhaps the only way she’d ever escape it was by never allowing alcohol to touch those veins again.
But would she be able to give it up when her own mother couldn’t?
“I’m more mad at Joyce than I am at you,” she admitted. “I didn’t think she’d let you drink again.”
“Don’t be angry with her. It’s my own fault.”
“But—”
“Nancy.”
“I really thought this would be it. I thought you were doing so well. You told me you were doing well.”
Karen gave her a half-hearted shrug. “I can’t tell you everything. You’ve got so much going on these days—your own problems. I’d hate to call you every time I had an issue. That would be unfair.”
The accountability was astonishing. Nancy wouldn’t have expected it from any sober conversation between them, but it felt reassuring in the moment. To have her mom acknowledge her tendency to rely on her children—rather than pretending it didn’t happen—was strangely comforting.
Nancy felt guilty that she couldn’t be there for every awful moment. A part of her was always worried that her mom needed her, that Holly would call her in the middle of the night, confused and frightened the same way Nancy had been when she was little.
Nancy wanted more for herself. She wanted a career, a life of her own, somewhere she could go without constantly wondering if her family was alright.
But did such a place even exist?
“You’ll try again, won’t you?” she asked tentatively. “You’ll go to AA? Talk to Joyce?”
“Of course.”
“Promise?”
Karen leaned towards her and lightly kissed her cheek. “I promise.”
Nancy scooted closer, wincing at the scent of vodka on her mother’s breath, and wrapped her arms around her. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Karen whispered, squeezing Nancy’s shoulders.
They stayed like that for only a moment before Nancy reluctantly pulled away. The smell of alcohol was becoming too strong to ignore. She sniffled, quickly wiping her nose with the sleeve of her sweater.
“You’re still pretty,” she mumbled. “I don’t think anything could change that. I mean, I hardly even notice the scars anymore.”
“You’re one in a million, unfortunately.” Karen rubbed at her sternum, grimacing as something rolled in her throat. After a moment, she swallowed. “Even tonight…the ones around my neck had people asking what kind of accident I’d been in.”
She had only gone out for dinner. She hadn’t asked anyone to scrutinize her body or make her explain what had happened to it. Did people not see the person behind her exterior? Couldn’t they see that she was a mother, that she had children who were grateful every day that she’d survived? Couldn’t they see how kind her soul was, how undeserving she’d been of everything that had happened to her in the first place?
“Then they should’ve minded their own damn business. You don’t owe anybody an explanation just because they’re curious.”
── .✦
The door squeaked, and Nancy did her best to shut it behind her without making another sound.
With Holly’s nightlight and the little glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, there was just enough light to make out the shapes of the furniture without being bright enough to disturb anyone’s sleep. Holly was tucked under the covers, but she wasn’t the one who had fallen asleep. Joyce was completely out, still wearing her dress, her head resting on the pillow beside Holly’s.
Nancy sat down on Holly’s side of the bed. “Mom’s asleep on the couch,” she whispered. “Should we take their bed?”
“Duh.”
Holly carefully climbed out of bed, tucking the blankets back around Joyce before reaching over to switch off the nightlight. She immediately grabbed Nancy’s hand once the room went dark, not trusting the darkness quite as much as she pretended to.
The two of them got into their mom and Joyce’s bed, and for a few minutes, Holly was unusually quiet. Now that they were alone again, whatever had been occupying her mind seemed to have resurfaced.
“Go on,” Nancy mumbled, her face half-smushed in the white pillow.
“…Is mom okay?”
“Yeah. Of course. She’s fine.”
Holly shifted restlessly, trying to find a comfortable position. “That’s what Joyce says. But you guys are so worried about her, and you’re always helping her do things.” She paused. “I want to help, too.”
Hearing her sister ask to shoulder even a fraction of the burden stung. It stung worse than any wasp in the summer, worse than frostbite on Christmas. There were moments where Nancy desperately wanted someone else to carry it for her, but she couldn’t bear the thought of passing it down to Holly.
“I know you want to help, but it’s not your responsibility.”
“Is it yours?”
Nancy sighed. “Not exactly.”
“Then whose is it?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think mom’s the one who has to decide she wants to get better. We can help her, but we can’t do it for her.”
Holly scooted closer, trying to curl into Nancy’s warmth. She was probably regretting not bringing one of her plushies with her, so she sought out Nancy’s presence instead. “So we just wait for her to figure it out?”
“I guess so.”
Holly huffed. “What if she doesn’t figure it out?”
Nancy stared into the darkness. She wanted to give Holly an answer that would make everything feel less precarious, something that would make the uneasiness in her sister’s voice disappear, but there wasn’t one.
“Then we’ll deal with that if it happens.”
“That’s not a very good answer.”
“I know.” Nancy rested her cheek on the top of Holly’s head. “I’m still working on it.”
For years, Nancy had treated her mother’s problems as though they were her own. If Karen was hurting, Nancy searched for a way to make it stop. If she was struggling, Nancy tried to compensate. Somewhere along the way, she had convinced herself that if she tried hard enough, she could keep everything from falling apart.
She could listen to her mom. She could help when she was able. She could remind Karen that she was loved. She could be the best daughter in the world.
But she couldn’t make her stop drinking. She couldn’t take away the scars she disliked. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life holding herself accountable for wounds she hadn’t caused and had no power to fix.
Only now she realized admitting that didn’t mean she loved her mother any less.