Best Friend

Best Friend

When I was younger, I believed that I was different than everyone else. It was my mom and what she did every other night that made me feel this way. On Friday nights, when I was in middle school and couldn’t drive myself around, my plans usually evolved around whether my mom would be able to drive me somewhere if my dad was going to be working late. I wasn’t sure if she would be safe to ride in a car with.
         I was hanging out with a friend from work last summer and we were just playing on the local playground – acting like kids again – trying to attempt the things we could once do, but no longer could. A little girl saw us having a good time and decided she would come up to introduce herself and say hi. I looked over her shoulder and saw a man following her, her father I presumed. I don’t know what it was about this little girl, but she kindly and bravely took my hand and dragged me off to the teeter-totter. This little girl, who looked about five years old, didn’t even know me, yet, she trusted me enough to play with her. I looked around and saw no other children who could be her siblings. All she had was her father and me.
         Her father approached me and began talking to me. He asked what my name was, where I lived, how old I was, and where I was going to be going to college. I kindly told him all about myself, all while playing with his daughter. The girl’s name was Kayla I found out after asking her and patiently waiting for her to answer. Her father seemed like a good guy too. For some reason he felt comfortable telling me his life story.
         “Yeah, I’m just taking my daughter to the park for some fun time. Her mother is away and so I try to keep her busy,” he said to me.
         “That’s nice of you. It’s a really warm night for this too,” I said back to him.
         “Yeah it is. Her mom is in a facility right now. She’s – ” he confessed while making a shape of a glass with his right hand and tipping it toward his mouth. I knew what he meant. On more than one occasion I had made that exact same sign to one of my siblings if I knew that our mother had put a few drinks in her again. What should I say back? What could I say back?
         “Oh yeah?... I know what you mean. I’m sorry,” was all I came up with. He kept talking about his situation with his wife, and I…well, I began to flash back to my own memories of my own mother and what it was like for me when I was only a few years older than his daughter.
         I remembered that I wasn’t fully aware of what was wrong with my mom until I was about eight or nine years old. Even my little sister, who was four years younger than me, knew how to tell if someone was drunk at a young age. My mother was an alcoholic who denied it her whole life, as well as my family’s whole life. There was one summer, after she had lost another job, where she would drink practically every night. During those times, I became very close to my dad. We had a lot of discussions about what we were going to do about her. She was ruining everyone’s lives. I believe that the worst memory I had about her was when we all had a big fight with her very late one night.
         I was in middle school at the time. My sisters were in elementary school and my brother was one grade ahead of me. As soon as we got home from school we could tell how the night might end up like. It was her eyes. There was something about the way she moved her eyes and the way she would stare at us. One eye would look straight ahead, but would move in small circles. The other eye would be slightly to one side, like a lazy eye. Even if she had had only a glass, we would know it. I couldn’t believe it, but she had actually stayed at home for most of the night. Usually, she would leave at around eight o’clock, the time when she would run out of booze. My dad, then, took the opportunity to grab her keys from her purse so she wouldn’t get the chance to drive this time; however, he knew she would go straight to him for her keys once she did decide to leave and so he came to my room and told me to hide them. No matter how much she screamed or cried for her keys, I knew that I could not let her have them.
         Finally, at around eleven o’clock at night, she wanted to leave. We all heard the screaming between our parents, even with the doors closed. It was always hard to try to stop her.
         “Give me my keys you puke! It’s my car!” I heard her yell and slur.
         “What do want them for? Do you plan on leaving or something?” my dad yelled back.
         “Shut up! Just give me my damn keys asshole!” she screamed.
         “Mom, just go to bed. You’re not driving anywhere. You’re drunk!” I joined in. She continued to yell and shout back at us all, spit shooting from her mouth as her words slurred together, but there was nothing she could do. I actually thought that, this time, she would give up and go to bed. She was going to make a run for the garage door, but my brother was quicker and got in front of the door first.
         “No mom! You’re not leaving tonight! Now take off your shoes and go to bed! Seriously! Mom, please!” my brother cried, tears rolling down his cheeks.
         “Get out of the way, Nick!” she said, trying to convince him to move. He wouldn’t budge. She just stood there. I wasn’t sure what she was going to do next, but somehow I found myself defending the door with my brother, tears rolled down my own face, and said a silent prayer in my head. God, please let her listen to us.
         “Ok. Fine. I’ll go to bed. Can I have some water?” she said, surprising us all, and started to back away from the door.
         “I’ll get it for you,” I offered.
         “No. I want one from the fridge downstairs. I can get it myself,” she said. I quickly thought if there was any possibility that she could escape. She sounded like she meant what she said. Then, all of a sudden, she took off running toward the stairs. Nick immediately reacted and ran after her, stopping her before she got to the living room, just twenty feet from the stairs. I followed him, but as I was about to help him she kneed him in the stomach and I saw him crouch over and fall to the floor. My dad was afraid to touch her, since she had filed assault charges against him before – again, because he was only trying to prevent her from driving drunk. I took my chances and ran after her, but she was too determined to get away and out the downstairs door she went. That possibility must’ve slipped my mind.
         More tears streamed down my already tear-stained cheeks, I went back over to my brother. He lay in the fetal position, holding his stomach with tears in his eyes as well. There was a pool of vomit next to his face now. My dad was kneeling over him, trying to help him up. It was hard for me to believe what had just happened. On nights like this, I never considered her my mother. She was just some drunk living in our house, coming and going as she pleases.
         “Where do you think she went, Dad? We have all of her keys so she can’t drive anywhere. When do you think she’ll be back?” I fired the questions him.
         “She’ll do anything to get more booze. She’ll either hitch hike or walk until someone picks her up. I really hope it’s the police so they can put her ass in jail,” he breathed out, rather calmly.
         “But when will she be back? Is she even coming back?” my little sister, Sophie, asked through tears.
         “Who knows. Are you going to be okay, Nick?” he answered and then looked down at my brother.
         “Oh… my stomach. She kicked me in the stomach,” he whimpered. I had a hard time looking at him. He had gotten up from the floor and now sat in a chair, still clutching his stomach.
         “I can’t believe she would do that,” my other sister, Katie, cried out.
         “She’s an alcoholic and very wasted. When she’s drunk, we aren’t her family anymore. We’re just the people who are getting in the way of her best friend,” explained my dad.
         We all decided it would be best to just go back to bed and wait until morning to do anything. My dad cleaned up the vomit and we all went back to our rooms. I said a silent prayer, asking for my mom to make it back home without getting hurt – whether I liked it or not she was still my mom. When I woke up the next morning, she was sleeping on the couch, covered in a blanket. Her hair was snarled, her make up smeared, and drool slowly dripped from her mouth unto the floor. I walked by, first making a look of disgust on my face, and walked into the kitchen. My dad was already up and reading the paper. When I asked what time mom got home, he told me at around two in the morning. We still had no idea where she ended up or how she got back, though she claimed to have walked to her sister’s house, about five miles away. We didn’t trust her enough to believe her.
         I came back from that memory and looked at the little girl and then her father. This time, I felt more sympathy for the two. I almost felt tears beginning to form as this little girl was rocking the teeter-totter with me, looking as if her life was normal. I don’t know if little Kayla knew about her own mother’s problem, or how much she had already been exposed to at her house. Does she have the same memories as I do? Will she only remember those tragic events more clearly than happy ones? Has her father done all he could do for his wife? No matter what the answers are, this little girl might be luckier than I was. At least her mom was getting help, whether it was forced or not. Once her mom comes back home, I will pray that she won’t go back to her old ways. If she does, her daughter will have the hardest times of her life. No child should have to grow up too fast to be able to know what being drunk looks like, how to tell if someone has been drinking, or that the first thing to do is to take their keys. I knew all of those things at a young age, but I wish I didn’t.
         When I got back home I told my dad about the girl and her father and about what he told me about his life at home. My dad just nodded his head, knowing that there were other people struggling with the same struggles we have. .