Footnotes

The house is empty when I get home. I shut the door against the wind that threatens snow, closing myself into a greater threat - an empty house. It takes me a minute to remember what my wife, Katie, told me as I was going out the door this morning. She was wrestling our 3-year-old into a bright pink coat while reciting the day’s itinerary that I was never going to remember. 

    “And remember, Julie’s game is at 6 at the Vale complex. I’ll text you which court. She’s probably going to start. You should come.” Her information came in rapid bursts as she fastened Amber’s coat-buttons.

    I’d muttered something non-committal and left, but not before I’d seen her look. 

    Reproachful. You’d said you’d try this time - really try. Don’t you realize what’s riding on this? Her look stayed with me for a while, until the stresses of the day buried it alive. 

    I should go to the game. If I leave now, I can get there in plenty of time. Grab a popcorn. Bask in Katie’s smile and hold Amber in my lap. Cheer Julie on. Be a dad she can be proud of. 

    The keys to my car jangle in my pocket as I take another step into the house. One hand automatically scoops them out. I stare at them for a moment. Then put them on the entryway vanity. I need a drink first. Some water. And I need to change. Then I’ll go.

    The cat rushes up to me as I walk into the kitchen. Probably wanting food -it’s a shameless beggar- but I ignore it and walk to the fridge. Cold air pours into the kitchen as I open it and the cat scurries away. My hand goes automatically to the shelf in the door. But instead of a bottle, my hand closes around a tub of yogurt. I have to stare at it for several moments before I remember. We’d moved them, or rather Katie had moved them. 

    “You’ll be less tempted if it’s not right there,” she’d said as she hefted the cardboard box filled with bottles. The hope in her voice had cut me deep enough to stop me from arguing. 

    I close the fridge, fill a cup with water, and try to pretend I’m satisfied. Upstairs I change, switching my scrubs for a comfortable pair of sweats and my old college sweatshirt. 

    Back downstairs the keys on the vanity wait for me. I glance at the clock. I’ll be fifteen minutes early. Twenty if I speed, and haven’t Julie’s games been starting late? My feet move past the vanity and down the steps to the garage. My eyes scan the room, looking for the cardboard box. Katie must've hidden it. 

    She wouldn’t have thrown it away. There is probably a hundred bucks worth in that box, and Katie has a hard time throwing away a shampoo bottle unless she’s filled it three times with water and used that, insisting that the barely diluted mixture is a comparable substitute for hair wash.

The garage refrigerator’s light barely flickers on when I open the fridge door. The contents of the cardboard box are lined neatly on one stained shelf. I grab a couple and head back inside. The coolness of the bottlenecks cuts into my hands as I walk into the living room. 

I have to push some of Avery’s toys aside to sit on the couch. The plastic dolls and multi-colored building bricks sound unnaturally loud as they fall in a heap on the floor. My legs and back protest as I sit down, and my shoulder twinges painfully as I reach over to put the bottles down on the side table. The shoulder’s a new singer in the chorus of pain that I’ve been listening to for the past year. Part of growing older. Or maybe part of the strain of being an RN. I roll the shoulder back and forth, grinning humorlessly at the irony of pain I get from a job that is meant to relieve other’s pain. 

The bottles glint in the sun’s setting rays. What was it the head nurse had said during our morning meeting? 

“Self-medication, in terms of drugs and alcohol, is putting a bandaid over a bullet hole. We need to address work-burnout and personal stresses with healthy alternatives, like taking time to exercise, meditate, or do yoga.” She’d said this as she handed out schedules for next week. I’d been given extra shifts. Again. 

I reach for the first bottle. Work can tell me to take time for myself all they like; I’ll start listening once they give me the hours to do that. 

I’d forgotten a bottle opener. But instead of getting up to get one, I stay seated. In front of me is a collection of photos that’d taken Katie the better part of a week to arrange. Even in the darkening winter light I can see the faces in the photos. Katie, smiling shyly as she poses in a lace-covered wedding gown. Julie and Avery holding sparklers, pop-sickle-colored smiles on their faces. Baby Amber, with her characteristic frown gracing every photo she is featured in. And the “Dad is My HERO” certificate, sporting a picture of Julie and I at one of her first basketball games. Her hero.

My fingers slip on the bottle I’d been ready to drink. I look down at my hand and realize I’m shaking. Her hero. I lose my grip on the bottle completely as the stress of the past two sober weeks bursts out of my frayed control. Some part of my mind, the part that holds a medical degree and years of work in the field, recognises that I’m in the throws of a panic attack, probably brought on by the unaddressed stresses of work, paternal and marital life, and fighting an addiction. Of course, part of it could be lingering withdrawal. 

My shaking hands press against my forehead, where a spectacular headache is blooming. My dry throat seems to be closing, and now my whole body is shaking. I close my eyes and focus on breathing, not on the fact that the thing that would take away all these feelings, all this stress, is two feet away from me. Decorated with a bright label, sweating slightly in the 78 degrees Katie insists is a normal temperature to keep a house in the winter. 

Even the thought of the cold bottle next to me calms me. It would be so easy. Just a quick tug on the cap -I don’t need to get a bottle opener, really- and a quick upwards tilt of the bottle. And relief would come. Of course, guilt, shame, regret would be on its heels. Somehow, I can’t really bring myself to care about the future’s consequences more than the present’s pain. 

My hand reaches for the bottle. Her hero. I don’t know when the idea of being someone’s hero turned from a source of pride to panic. Her hero. I don't want to be her hero anymore. I don't want to hear the hurt in her voice when she tells me it’s ok that I missed another game. I don’t want to see the confusion on her face when she listens to another lame reason why I stayed home. I don’t want to look at Katie and know that I failed again. That I broke another promise. I don’t want to be the reason my girls cry.

I snatch my hand away from the bottle as if it burned. I intertwine my fingers together as if I don’t trust them on their own and lean back. I watch the ceiling and feel my body start to calm. My eyes trace the outline of the ceiling fan as I admit to myself that what I really want is to not be afraid. 

Slowly, almost unwillingly, I turn my head to look at the bottle. I turn to face my fear. My fear of what I will choose.

I realize, as I sit on that couch, surrounded by toys and blankets and empty fruit snack wrappers, that I will face these two choices every day for a long time. Maybe forever. 

The first choice? I can say no. Soldier my way through the evening, smile through the pain. And then I’ll have the same decision tomorrow night, and the next night, and the one after that, all these nights stretching out in an unending line. The slow, painful process to sobriety, with its slow-bearing fruit. 

The second choice; I can pick up that bottle and forget. Forget my fear, forget my troubles, and just let my body and mind be. Never mind that I’ll have the consequences to face in the morning. I can have the instant gratification the sweating bottle next to me offers. Oh, I’ll regret it after an hour. But I’ll still have that hour in between.

And that’s what terrifies me. That an hour of relief is worth my health, my career, my family. I’m terrified that I’m even considering that hour. That those bottles are sitting within arms reach. I’m terrified that even if I win this battle tonight, it’s just a footnote in the war. And somewhere deep inside me, I’m terrified that because of those bottles, I can never be the dad my girls need me to be.

For a long time, I just sit there, my eyes bouncing between the hero certificate on the wall and the bottles next to me. Finally, My mind makes itself up, my decision forming into resolve, which hardens into action. Slowly, I stand up. I reach out, my fingers brushing the bottles, and grab my phone. The movement breaks the power of those glass bottles, and for the first time since I’ve gotten home my head feels clear.

“I’ll be there soon.” I send the four words to Katie. Four words. Barely a footnote. But a victory nonetheless, a choice that I must make.

I pull on my old tennis shoes that I’ve had since we were married and grab the keys from the vanity. Snow blows into the house as I open the door. Today, I’ll choose to be a dad. Today, I’ll be Julie’s hero.