Walking on Broken Glass Read Free

it home. She wanted to drive you, but you absolutely refused. When she asked about whether to call Carl to pick you up, you told her … well, that's not worth repeating.”
     
    “So I had a few too many. It was a party. People drank. I drank. I’ll apologize to Carrie for whatever I said.”
     
    “You don’t remember, do you? Do you remember that night we went to Rizzo's for the company dinner?” She paused while two tricycling kids and a set of parents meandered past us.
     
    If my brain had a file cabinet of events, the drawers were stuck. Dinner at Rizzo's. Retirement. Somebody retired. I tugged at the memory and tried to coax it out.
     
    “Of course I remember. That guy, what was his name? He retired.” I leaned back and wished the wrought-iron bench slats were padded.
     
    “And?” Not really a question.
     
    “And, what? Since you already know the answer.”
     
    “Leah,” she said and leaned toward me. I still couldn’t look at her. “Dinner was late. You grabbed the wine bottle from the waiter, gave him your wine glass, and then told him you two were even. You said if we’d pound our silverware on the table, we’d be served faster. You almost dropped a full bowl of gumbo in your lap. You said it looked like something you’d thrown up the night before.”
     
    I wanted a button to zap a force field around me. I wanted silence. A piece of me had broken, and Molly had found it. If I talked too much, other pieces might shatter. I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk turning inside out.
     
    “You were out of control,” she said, the words filed by her softness so the edges were smooth when they pushed into me.
     
    Yes, and out of control was exactly what I’d planned.
     
    I couldn’t look at Molly yet. I couldn’t admit to my best friend in the universe that Carl told me almost every night something was terribly wrong with me. I thought I’d managed to divide myself quite nicely: Leah in the bedroom and Leah outside of the bedroom.
     
    “I want to disappear,” I said to the grass blades mashed under my shoes.
     
    “You are disappearing. That's the problem. You’re my friend. I want you here.” She slid next to me and placed her hand on my shoulder. “In the two years we’ve known each other, your drinking has gotten worse. I know you suffered after losing Alyssa. I know you still do. But you need help, or something awful is going to happen.”
     
    I wanted to hate her. But how could I hate a friend who loved me enough to save my life?
     

     
    “I lost my sanity at the apple juice case,” I repeated to Dolores, the intake clerk who scribbled information onto whatever form they used to admit the inebriated. She placed her pencil on the glass-topped desk, clasped her hands over the clipboard, and peered at me over her reading glasses.
     
    “Were you buying it to mix drinks?” she asked quietly, as if afraid the question would hurt me.
     
    I’m being admitted into rehab by a woman who clearly failed to understand that apple juice mixed with few, if any, hard liquors. My galloping knees knew that was something to be jittery about. Hadn’t I explained the twelve-pack of beer in the grocery cart? Why would I be worried about mixing? Did rehab centers hire teetotalers so they’d never have to worry about employee discounts for services?
     
    “Noooo. It just seemed too overwhelming to decide which brand to buy. You know, the whole cost per ounce thing.”
     
    No doubt Dolores knew I was ready for admission after that, but she persisted. She asked who referred me.
     
    “This was all my friend Molly's idea. She even made the appointment for me. This morning after our walk. Before my husband's golf game ended.” Good grief. My inner child needed a nap.
     
    This information about Molly seemed both unsurprising and amusing to Dolores. “Yes, it often works that way. People see in us what we can’t see in ourselves. Don’t need mirrors here.”
     
    Thirty minutes later,