One of Us

For John

They separate us into groups of nine. In my group there are three addicts, a sister, a mother, two brothers, and a wife. I cross and uncross my legs. I put my hair in a pony tail, and then I take it down. My handouts are damp with my sweat. ENABLER is circled with permanent marker – the only thing I could find in my purse.

“Who wants to start?” One of the addicts asks.

The sister says, “I guess I will.”

Across the room in your own group, you are talking about how you drove your new truck into a stop sign.

The sister says, “I guess I'm the Hero Child because I always just want to fix things, ya know? Just make them better.”

I don't want to talk yet, so when she's done I look away from her.

“I'm an addict.” Someone else says, “But I was a Scapegoat Child once. My mother, she was really into pills, and she would get so angry sometimes…”

Your back is to me. I can't hear what you're saying anymore. I wish I could communicate with you telepathically. I'd say I love you but I'm really fucking scared right now . And you would say, Why, sweetheart? And I would say, Because I don't want to be the girlfriend of an alcoholic.

The wife clears her throat. Her eyes are red. “I guess I'm an enabler.” She says. “I pick up the pieces for him, so he doesn't lose his job. We run a business together, and I just don't know what I'd do if we lost it. I keep covering for him. I keep looking the other way.”

I think of all the times I covered for you. I stop at fifteen and start thinking of all the times I've bailed you out of jail. Three. Not including the last time, when I stayed at your apartment and washed your dishes. When you came home, you paced for a while with your fists in tight balls, and then you let me undress you and lay you down and you cried torrents.

I love you , I think to the back of your head.

The wife goes on, “But I think that's why I married him. He reminded me of my father.”

One of the addicts, the one who used to be a Scapegoat Child, says, “Was he one of us?”

“Yes,” the wife says, “he was an alcoholic.”

Alcoholic . That's you, babe. You're shifting in your seat across the room. You rub the back of your neck with a thick hand. Alcoholic. For a while, I ignored that. Then something happened. The day after your fourth arrest, I was folding your clothes when I found red wine stain on the back of one of your sweaters. I thought, How the hell did he get a red wine stain on the back of his shirt? That's when I knew it was serious. Isn't that ridiculous? Four alcohol-related arrests and it took a stain on the back of your shirt to make me realize there was a problem.

“What about you?” the wife asks.

I want you to hear this.

“I'm an enabler,” I tell them, “He's got a little girl, and I just kept fixing things and justifying it by saying that I'm doing it for her.”

I look at you, willing you to turn around. You don't.

“It was for me. I was doing it for myself. I'm just as co-dependant as he is.”

The other girlfriend nods.

“I feel like it's my job to keep him safe, ya know? It's my job to keep him sober. But I don't think I'm going to do that anymore.”

You finally turn around and look at me.

You smile. You wink.

One of the brothers hands me a tissue.

I didn't even know I was crying.