Page 10 of Capacity
“This is uncharted territory for me. I’m always pretending like I have everything together but last week showed me I don’t have shit together.” I chuckled but it was void of joy.
“Listen, if you need someone to talk to let me know. If you ever feel like you want to give in, call me.” He took an AA card from the refreshment table and scribbled his name and number down. Underneath his information, he wrote:be strong. “How long you been sober?” He quizzed, handing me the card. I pocketed it and shrugged. I hadn’t really thought about it that way.
“I guess since last Monday. I haven’t had a drink since I came in here and sat in the back last week.” I’d thought about drinking more times than I could count. I sat outside of the liquor store every day last week. I sat at the bar tonight and I was probably going to do the same tomorrow night.
“Seven days sober. It’s a milestone. You should be proud.” Terrence’s voice was deep and I could tell if he spoke up it would fill a room. “Keep that up for twenty-three more days and you’ll get your one-month chip.”
Maybe it sounded stupid to other people. Maybe it was cheesy and just a simple rewards-based method of pseudo-psychology but looking forward to having a one-month sobriety chip excited me. The idea of having something to work toward made sobriety a little easier.
“I can try,” I nodded.
“You will. Just take it one day at a time. Find a hobby or a side hustle to sink your time into. I started cleaning and organizing my house because it was something I’d been avoiding since Dianna, my wife, passed.
The house was filthy, man. Papers everywhere, the fridge hadn’t been cleaned out in months, and I forgot what the vacuum cleaner even looked like. After a few meetings, I started going home and cleaning. I started shredding old bills and documents then I set up a filing system that continues to work for me today.”
“That’s amazing, Terrence,” I said with a genuine smile.
“What’s even more amazing is I turned that into a side hustle and started making money cleaning and organizing other people’s houses. Now, I have five workers under me. Hell, I’m so busy I usually don’t think about drinking.”
“Shit, I need to get on your level,” I told him. “How long have you been sober?”
“I’m coming up on one year.”
“Damn, Terrence. You’ve been hanging in there. I hope I can do the same but…” I rolled my shoulders a little, shrugging off the weight of addiction still heavy on my back. Even right then, talking to Terrence, I wanted a drink.
“You can do it. You remind me of myself when I first started. You got my number if you need it. I wanna see you back in here on Monday, Knight. Even if you fall down…come back. You’ll get on track.”
I thanked him and we said our goodbyes before clearing out of The Mystic Crystal. I didn’t head to my car right away. I stood on the sidewalk fighting the urge to go into the wine bar. My feet took me a few doors down under the guise of looking for the beautiful woman and her friend but I knew what that dull ache and burn was in the pit of my stomach.
I stood at the doorway of The Pour People battling with a heavy-footed, clawed, snarling beast that kept shoving me toward the bar. Everyone inside smiled and laughed and tipped wine glasses to their lips. I imagined the tart dry flavor of wine splashing against my tongue. My lips parted and I swept my gaze around the bar. The beautiful woman wasn’t there anymore. I promised her I’d go to that meeting and speak up. I did that. I didn’t promise her I’d never drink again.
Why the fuck was I thinking about this woman? More importantly, why was I weighing her against the decision to have a drink? She played an oddly warm and comfortable counterweight in my mind.
When I saw the ring of shadowy sadness around her emerald honey eyes, a chill raced down my spine. She’d seen some shit in her life. I could tell by how reserved and quiet she’d been even though I sensed her piqued interest. I bet she wasn’t a fucking alcoholic even though I was certain she had her share of grief and pain like everyone else.
I don’t know why, but I allowed the thought of her to push me away from the bar and back to my car. Someone I’d never had a full conversation with helped me go home instead of drinking.
…
My house was dark and quiet. It was always like that but it jumped out at me now like an exclamation point at the end of a lonely sentence. I hit the lights and went into the kitchen. I opened the cabinet above the stove and stared at the bottle of Johnnie Walker whiskey. My throat warmed at the thought of swallowing it down.
With a sigh, I shut the door and hung my head. The smart thing to do would be to dump every drop out and toss the bottle, but I couldn’t bring myself to pour it out. Why pour it out when I could stay sober in the face of it? I didn’t have to clear out the one bottle of whiskey left in the house to prove anything. I knew my willpower. I could walk by that bottle for the next twenty-three days and not touch it.
It became a deep-seated objective. I had to get sober despite the liquor in my cabinet. I would be able to say I did it with my head held high.
“You’d be proud, Hazel.” I walked over to the mantle and slid my fingertips over the series of framed pictures I placed there in ode to my wife. They were bittersweet pictures of her final days.
Right then, they were more bitter than sweet as I consumed them, staring at every feature on Hazel’s perfect face. She was thinner than usual in the pictures and her head was smooth and shiny from losing her hair during chemotherapy. Grayish circles gathered under her eyes. She looked tired without any lashes to frame her chocolate-brown pools.
My heart screamed in agony looking at her frail frame curled on her side. The huge hospital bed we kept in our living room seemed to be ten times bigger than she was. She was smiling in every picture. Her smile was still so bright and beautiful even framed by the oxygen tubes.
I touched the last picture in the set and shut my eyes against the burn of tears. It was the picture that hit me hardest. The picture of me leaning down to kiss the top of her head while she smiled with her brown eyes shut. It was like she was making peace with it all in that picture.
I curled my fingers to my palm and cursed the tumor that ate her brain and stole her from me. She barely recognized me on her last day. She still smiled at me though. She smiled at me until she couldn’t open her eyes anymore. My girl.
When I opened my eyes to look at the pictures again, my chest felt like it would cave in. I still didn’t regret taking those pictures of Hazel’s last moments. I knew from the moment she got the brain tumor diagnosis that I would be the one to photograph her throughout her journey.
It was a combination of my passion for photography and my love for Hazel. The two crashed together and tangled in a way that proved to be cathartic for both of us. I knew eventually those pictures would be all I had. I made sure they captured Hazel’s soul. The soul of our marriage.
