The Best Sunday Brunch.

Red and blue flashing lights are first to assault my eyes. I only open them halfway because my head is too fuzzy to open them any farther. Pressure surrounds my skull and I somehow know that if I open my eyes anymore, I will feel pain everywhere, so I squint allowing the red and blue lights to twirl around me.

The sirens are what overload my senses next. All kinds of whistles, horns and noises invade my ears. The sounds get louder and louder as I try to make out what is happening around me. In between the sirens I hear screams and cries, but I don’t recognize any of the voices. Where am I? What has happened to me? What have I done? That terrible thought is the last one I have before the lights and the noise all fade away and everything goes black.

“Good morning lovey” a deep, gruff voice sings out to me. I smile hearing my fiancé’ Ben’s voice. “Are you awake? We have to get to my mom’s in less than two hours. You know if we are even a minute late, she won’t ever let us hear the end of it.”

I loathe waking up early, especially on a Sunday but despite myself, a smile creeps across my face as I listen to Ben start the shower. I slide my long bare legs out of bed, even as the crisp linen begs my body to stay. I ignore my tired body and forge ahead to meet Ben in the shower. He is right, if we don’t get to his mother’s Sunday brunch on time, we will never hear the end of it.

Today’s brunch is more important than any of the regular twice monthly brunches, even though no one knows it yet. This is the brunch that Ben and I plan to tell everyone that we are engaged. After 6 years together, two living in the same house, we are finally going to be married. His parents will be thrilled. Even though they adore me, and consider themselves modern, open-minded parents, they secretly hate that their son moved in with his girlfriend before putting an engagement ring on her finger. What is ok for other children, or the rest of society has never been ok for their only son. None of that matters anymore. Or it won’t as soon as we tell them our happy news. I smile as I look down at the diamond on my finger. It’s only been there for three days, but it feels as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

We arrive at Ben’s mother’s house precisely 5 minutes early and its already bustling with the usual friends and family. As we walk through the front door we are engulfed in hugs, kisses, and squeals of delight. Anyone watching the display of affection would think this was a family reunion 20 years in the making. In reality it’s just an average Breyer family brunch.

“Penny, what kind of Mimosa do you want?” Karlie my soon to be sister-in law asks.

My breath catches as I stare at her blankly. My tongue is suddenly dry and twisted into knots. I’ve delt with this question what feels like hundreds if not thousands of times in the last 3 years. As a recovering alcoholic you get used to being asked what kind of drink you want at almost any event, even if it occurs on a Sunday afternoon. The more often it happens the easier it is to answer. After a few months of sobriety, I realized that most people offering drinks are only trying to be good hosts. Rarely do they actually care what it is you are drinking, determined more to have a glass in every guest hand making sure they are content. But Karlie’s question makes my skin crawl. But why is this so upsetting? She along with the rest of Ben’s family know that I don’t drink. They don’t know the exact reason why, like Ben does, but they know I do not partake in any alcoholic beverages.

Why is she asking me? And more importantly why can’t I answer her? Am I that nervous to tell them the good news of our engagement? Maybe I’m not as confident as I thought. Am I scared that once they do find out I’m in recovery they won’t want their son marrying me? Sobriety yields many gifts, one of those being that we will “not regret the past or wish the shut the door on it.” This promise has come true for me, but now suddenly I feel uneasy again about my past. To the outsider I look like an average 26-year-old that is enjoying her life with her fiancé. I’m tall and thin, my long auburn hair falls in layers down my back. I’m wearing a stylish tennis inspired dress that is just the right length to show off my toned legs but not too short to be inappropriate. Minimal make up is applied to my delicate features while my smile is open and engaging. You would never know that only four short years ago when I first met Ben, I was nearing the end of my drinking career and rapidly approaching rock bottom.

Ben was wonderful and stayed with me as I navigated the hospital detox center, my liver almost failing me at the ripe age of 22. He and I had been together for a tumultuous year when I ended up in the hospital due to binge drinking. It was in that hospital that I cried myself to sleep for nights on end, realizing I had inherited the disease that killed my father and grandfather. It was Ben who stayed with me each night, holding me as I cried telling me that he wasn’t going anywhere. Telling me that we would get through this together. Ben somehow saw through the devastating disease of Alcoholism that had me in its vice. He saw through my lies during our relationship, not fully understanding that it was the disease talking through me, trying to protect itself against sobriety. As an alcoholic my default setting in life is to drink until I’m dead. Before I started working a program of recovery, I knew no other way to live.

Imagine learning that all of your thoughts aren’t true and that your mind can’t be trusted. What would you do? Alcoholism is a devastating and devious disease that does everything in its power to convince it’s host that it doesn’t exist, that drinking is not their problem. Regardless Ben saw the glimmer of hope and light behind my eyes that first year. He stayed with me as I started attending AA meetings, first online while in the hospital hooked up to tubes and then in person when I was released.

I never fully understood why Ben stayed with me. He and I had only dated a year before my kidney’s started to fail. We had no financial ties, and only some emotional ones but he stayed nonetheless, and I got sober. Each year getting stronger physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I’m suddenly brought back to the present day when I hear Karlie’s voice.

“Penny, I know you don’t drink but there is something special about today. I don’t know if it’s the alignment of the planets or what, but I just feel something special’s about to happen, she beams. We have, watermelon, Peach and original. The peach is fabulous. You’ve got to try peach.”

She pours the champagne in a glass and looks around for the peach mixer. Less than a moment later Karlie hands me the peach mimosa and turns to her cousin Rudolf, asking him what kind of mimosa his wife would like to sample.

I stare at the drink in my hand when suddenly Ben is at my side, taking the drink away.

“You’re fine babe. I’m sorry I don’t know what’s gotten into Karlie. But don’t worry, I’ve got you.” He kisses me quickly on the lips and walks away with the peach mimosa in hand.

The rest of the brunch is a whirlwind. There are probably 20 additional people that Ben’s parents have invited because it’s June and the weather is simply amazing in southern Michigan. We are at the family lake house and the breeze off the lake cools our warm skin as the sun rises into the clear blue sky. Right at the height of the brunch Ben stands up, grabs my hand and announces to his family and friends that we are engaged. There are smiles, hugs and tears of joy as I am officially welcomed into the Breyer family. Ironically, no one offers me another drink although this would be the time to do so. Ben and I are, however, toasted but I raise my glass of iced tea, and no one says a word. They are too busy smiling and wishing us a wonderful life. I look up to Ben, squeeze his hand and smile. I couldn’t have asked for more. I’m beyond happy.

“Stop, you’re hurting me. I scream through the pain that is searing through my leg. It’s hard to scream because the pain is so intense. The words that I’m trying to get out don’t sound right and that’s when I notice that there is something over my face. It’s a plastic breathing mask. It’s helping push air into my lungs while at the same time preventing my words from leaving my mouth. I’m angry, confused and scared all at the same time.

The paramedic, scowls at me with disdain. Why is she looking at me like that? I’m able to open my eyes fully now and as I look around, I see I’m in a room lying on what looks like a hospital bed. It’s now that the memories of the last few hours start coming back to me, the car accident, the red and blue police lights, and the ambulance sirens. I look down and I can see that the doctors are doing something to my leg, I can’t tell what but whatever it is it hurts, and I see blood on the white sheets. A lot of blood.

I close my eyes as the memories come back to me. I tremble as I remember. Ben and I at our apartment, he’s yelling at me. But why? I look around the room and I see beer bottles everywhere. I’m sitting on the bed, crying into my hands. Where are the white linen sheets that I woke up on? Why are my hands shaking? Why can I taste the beer on my lips?

I shut my eye’s tighter trying not to remember. I don’t like these memories, but the more I try to forget the more memories flood my mind and flash before my closed eyes. Ben drinking with me and laughing, then yelling. Us getting in the car, Ben jumping in behind the wheel smiling at me.

“It’s ok babe, get in. Let’s just go for a drive to the lake. I hate fighting with you. Let’s just go drive to the lake. My parents won’t care.” He smiles.

I open my eyes and see the doctors above me; I can’t feel any pain now but I’m still coherent when I hear one say. It’s a miracle she’s alive. That accident was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s too bad though, did you see her chart? Oh, yes. I’m sure she’s an alcoholic, with her liver enzymes so high. This wasn’t the first time she drank, even at her youthful age. It’s just so sad.”

The next time I wake up I’m in a hospital bed, luckily, I don’t feel any physical pain. But I sense the emotional pain is far worse. As I come too, I realize that I don’t feel my engagement ring on my left hand. As I feel the clean sheets, and all the tubes attached to the back of my hand I move my finger and notice its bare. Where is my ring?

“Where is my ring” I demand when the nurse walks into my room. Where is Ben? Where is my fiancé?

The nurse stares at me with a sad expression on her face.

“Did the EMT’s take my ring off? I want it back.

“Honey, calm down. There wasn’t a ring or any jewelry on you when you were placed into the ambulance.

“What”? I stammer. No ring? I love that ring. Some bastard EMT stole my ring and I want it back.

“What about my purse? Where are my things?” I cry.

I have this awful headache and I feel hung over, but that can’t be. Even as the terrible images filter through my mind in the room with all the doctors, they can’t be true. I’ve been sober for 4 years. What is going on?

The nurse gets up to leave, she has finished taking my vitals while I’ve questioned her repeatedly about my ring and fiancé. Once she realized I wasn’t listening to what she was telling me she gathered up her items to retreat, but before she leaves, I’m able to get out one last question in. I plead through the tears that have started to fall down my face.

“Is Ben, ok?”

The nurse turns and says quietly “No, honey, your boyfriend is not ok. He’s dead.”

In that instant the truth takes my breath away, because although her words are terrible. The truth is far worse then what the nurse has just told me. Her words were only the tip of the iceberg. Her words opened the door to show me the terrible awful truth.

I never had a fiancé, only a boyfriend, I never had an engagement ring, and I never had 4 years of sobriety. It was all a dream. It was a snapshot of what I could have had if I had gotten sober. But in reality, it was only a beautifully terrible dream.