Free Family Man by Marie Sexton, Heidi Cullinan Page A

to go into campus to do a little research at the library that afternoon, and I was childishly impatient on the way home. The EL seemed to be moving half its normal speed. I fidgeted in my seat and checked my watch repeatedly, just to assure myself that I did indeed still have plenty of time. I practically skipped up the front steps to my door.
    I walked into my own private version of hell.
    If there’s one certainty about living with an alcoholic, it’s that nothing is ever certain. Nothing, that is, except the next relapse.
    My mom had been sober for three months this time. Three months where we all smiled and laughed and acted like a happy family. Three months where we all pretended like we believed it might last this time. I knew as soon as I walked in the front door that her clean streak was over.
    There are a lot of stereotypes about alcoholism, most of which look like some kind of movie of the week: screaming, yelling, blackouts. In my early teens, I’d seen the movie The Burning Bed . I’d been haunted by the character of Paul and the cruel, sadistic, almost sexual heat in his eyes as he stared at his wife and calmly told his kids to go to bed so that he could do unspeakable things to her. I’d thought over and over about how much he deserved what he got. Yet at no point did I connect his illness with my mother’s disease.
    Disease.
    I fucking hated that word.
    The beast that ruled our house wasn’t full of rage or violence. There were no screaming fits or visits from the police. My mother’s alcoholism was the clichéd elephant in the living room. The weight around our necks that had settled in after my father had died, the silent beast we tiptoed around and pretended not to see.
    The house was eerily still, yet not silent. My mother sat alone on the couch, watching Home Shopping Network with blurry and unfocused eyes. The cheery chatter of the saleslady on the television seemed false and obnoxious.
    I found my grandmother in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher. Her shoulders were permanently stooped, her fingers crooked from the arthritis. She had weak knees that were aggravated by the extra weight around her hips. She had to move with exaggerated slowness, putting away one dish at a time, shuffling from one side of the kitchen to the other in her muumuu and slippers.
    “Gram, you don’t have to do that,” I told her. “You know I’ll take care of it.”
    She waved her hand at me dismissively. “It does me good to move around.”
    This is one of the games we play, as we dance around this “disease”. The truth was, my grandma couldn’t stand to sit in the living room with my mother, watching her sway, listening to her slurred words. My mother would stare resolutely ahead, refusing to acknowledge that she’d done anything wrong. It was easier for my grandmother to occupy herself with chores than to face what her daughter-in-law had become.
    “I forgot to thaw the hamburger for dinner,” she told me. “How about some nice fish sticks?”
    “It’s okay, Gram. I won’t be here. I have a…” Not a date. “I have plans.”
    “Oh?” She turned to me with a twinkle in her eye. “What lucky boy has finally talked you into going out?”
    While my mother did her best to pretend my homosexuality didn’t exist, my grandmother seemed to find a reckless kind of joy in it. She teased me all the time about finding a nice boy. I felt myself blush under her curious scrutiny. “It’s Vin,” I said. “Vin Fierro.”
    Her eyes widened in surprise. “Little Vinnie?” She shook her head. “I never would have guessed.”
    “I don’t think he’s really out, Gram, so don’t do anything to embarrass him, okay?”
    “Okay. Okay.” She turned back to the dishwasher with a sigh. “I guess you saw.”
    Another step in the dance, acknowledging without saying the words. “I did.”
    “Are you meeting Vincent out somewhere?” Another step, moving on to the next subject before we could say anything that