Best Kept Secret: A Novel

On Tuesday afternoon the following week, I go to the home store to find paint for the master bathroom Derek thinks I need to spruce up before putting the house on the market. I find a gallon of pale butter yellow on the mistake rack while I talk to Nadine about seeing Vince at the restaurant.

“Ha, I knew it,” Nadine says. “I could see it in his eyes.”

“I need to wait, right? I shouldn’t sleep with him.”

“You can sleep with whomever you choose,” she responds. “But I wouldn’t recommend it. Not yet. If he’s truly interested, he’ll wait.”

“I think I can live with that,” I say, and I hang up, smiling.

Later that night, I’m standing in the kitchen sipping my coffee, staring out at yet another drizzly June evening. Just as I work up the motivation to get started painting the bathroom, I get a call from Scott.

“Mr. Hines wants to meet with both you and Martin at his office next Monday,” he says.

“What should I be prepared for?” I ask, marking the day on the calendar. June 20.

“He just wants to see how you two interact. Be yourself. Be as kind as possible.”

“What if I can’t be kind?”

“Then at least be polite.”

After working my four shifts at the cafe, I spend the weekend with Charlie, who asks, after I suggest a city bus trip to the Children’s Museum downtown as a way to escape the rain, if we can just stay home. He is tired of the continuous activity I’ve put him through the last few weekends we’ve spent together.

“What do you want to do, Mr. Man?” I ask once he has his things settled in his room.

“Hmm . . .” he says, tapping his index finger against his cheek. “I know! Let’s build Spider-Man’s fort! You can be Mary Jane!”

“Oh . . . great!” I attempt to manufacture enthusiasm as we spend the afternoon building a cavelike structure in the living room out of blankets and the kitchen chairs. Part of me feels edgy and impatient as we do this—in the past, it’s the kind of activity I have needed a couple glasses of wine to get through. I manage to quell that feeling and throw myself into creating a superhero’s luxurious secret lair, complete with a gigantic spiderweb made out of some black string I found in the garage. Charlie dons his slightly-too-tight Spider-Man Halloween costume and decorates the space with all of his Spider-Man stuffed toys. In the spirit of things, I pull an old pair of bright red tights over the top of my head and sashay around the living room.

Charlie scrunches up his face at me. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m being Mary Jane!” I say, swishing the skinny red legs of the tights around my neck. “Don’t you love my red hair?”

He giggles and finally the unrest in me begins to settle down.

“Help me, Spider-Man, help me!” I prance around the dining room table and look back over my shoulder. “I’m being chased by the Green Goblet!”

He laughs out loud, snorting a bit as he tries to talk. “It’s the Green Goblin, Mommy. Not goblet.”

“Ohhhh,” I say. His laughter soothes me further.

“Can we sleep out here?” he asks as we stand back to admire our handiwork.

“Sure. I’ll get the blow-up mattress for you and I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“What about movies? Can we watch movies in our fort?”

“Sounds good. With pizza. And ice-cream sundaes for dessert.”

“Woohoo!” My son lunges at me with a full-force embrace. I soak up his affection like it was the sun.

For the most part, it is a good, calm weekend and so on Monday, I use it. When I am on my way to Mr. Hines’s office and my heart begins to rattle behind my ribs like a wild monkey in a cage, I think about how my son smells. I focus on how he felt curled up with me on the floor Saturday night while we watched The Lion King for the hundredth time. I picture his wide smile when he saw the amount of hot fudge and whipped cream I put on his sundae and how the pride in my heart swelled to an almost unbearable level when he generously offered me his maraschino cherry.

After I arrive at his office and Mr. Hines steps down the hall in front of me, I can’t help but feel that I’m being led to a guillotine. Again, I think about Charlie. I tell myself I am strong enough to survive this meeting. I have to be. I need to do this for my son.

Martin is already in the room we enter, which is different from the one I sat in during my first meeting here. It’s a little larger with a grouping of comfortable, coffeehouse-style chairs and the same ugly, paisley-patterned carpet. I imagine this would have been the living room if it were still someone’s home. The shades are drawn and a single table lamp lights the room.

Martin gives me a perfunctory smile as I sit down in the chair directly next to him. If someone were to draw lines between our three chairs it would form a perfect equilateral triangle with Mr. Hines sitting at its peak.

“So, thank you for coming,” he begins. “I’ve gathered some important information from both of you, but I think there are a few things each of you might need to hear from each other. From the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”

I nod enthusiastically, my eyes wide. I want to be sure to appear engaged in this process, despite the dread I feel bouncing along through my blood.

“Like what kinds of things?” Martin asks.

“Well, Martin, I’d like you to talk a little bit about when you first started to suspect your ex-wife had a real problem with alcohol.”

My face immediately flushed. I expected we’d talk about Charlie, what we each thought was best for him. Not this. And he’s always called me “Ms. Sutter,” but he calls Martin by his first name. What’s up with that? I am instantly plagued by the fear that Mr. Hines’s decision has already been made.

“Aren’t we here to talk about our son?” I ask.

“We are,” Mr. Hines says. “And your drinking relates to him. Would you disagree?”

I shake my head, chastised.

Mr. Hines bobs his head. “Martin?”

Martin clears his throat and throws me a quick glance before moving his eyes back to Mr. Hines. “Well, I think the first time I noticed her drinking was back in September of last year when I came to pick Charlie up for the weekend. Her face was red and I could smell the wine. I thought maybe her friend Susanne had been there and they’d had a couple of drinks. But then that kind of thing happened maybe two times before Christmas, and that’s when I really started to think something might be wrong.”

“And why did you think that?” Mr. Hines says.

“I brought Charlie back to Cadee’s house the day after the holiday. It was about seven o’clock, I guess, and she came to the door with a glass of wine in her hand. I could tell I woke her up—her hair was messy and there were creases on her cheek, like from a pillow. But her eyes were glassy. And she was slurring her words a little. And it wasn’t like she didn’t know we were coming. I thought it was strange. Especially that she’d obviously just woken up and decided to grab a glass of wine before she even answered the door.” Martin speaks as though he’s giving an oral book report in front of a class; his voice lacks any noticeable inflection.

I shift in my seat and attempt to keep my back straight. I remember that night. I barely made it through Christmas Day at Jess’s house without Charlie. I was halfway through my third bottle of wine in twenty-four hours by the time Martin showed up. I remember thinking I looked fine. I felt fine. I remember thinking there was no way Martin would suspect I was drunk.

“Do you remember this night, Ms. Sutter?” Mr. Hines asks.

I nod curtly. There is nothing left for me except honesty.

“Would you say Martin’s assessment of you was accurate? Were you drunk?”

Again, I nod. “That was a very rough holiday for me. Charlie being with Martin and Alice. I’d never been without him for Christmas morning.”

“So that makes it okay?” Martin asks.

“No, that doesn’t make it okay,” I snap. “I’m just saying how I felt. That’s all.” So much for being polite.

Mr. Hines scratches down something on the notepad he holds on his lap. “Any other times you were concerned?” he asks Martin.

My ex-husband stares straight ahead, his eyes on Mr. Hines. “There were a few times on the phone. She would call me, wanting to talk.”

“What?” I say, incredulous. “I did not.”

Martin swings his gaze to me, his lips pressed into a hard line before he speaks. “Yes, you did.”

I don’t say anything, but cross one leg over the other and shake my foot wildly. I feel a sinking sensation in my abdomen. He might be telling the truth. I hate that my mind is so foggy. Heavy cotton gauze is wrapped too thickly around certain images for me to see them clearly. I have a vague recollection of calling him, but I can’t for the life of me remember what was said. I feel ill thinking what he’s about to reveal.

Martin takes a deep breath. “The calls were always late at night. She would cry and tell me she was scared, but she wouldn’t tell me what she was scared of. And it was odd, because she isn’t someone who cries a lot. Her words were slurred and she’d repeat herself over and over. I’d usually have to hang up on her.”

“Are you sure you don’t remember any of those calls?” Mr. Hines asks me.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” I look at Martin. “I guess I more remember the feeling of them.”

Martin’s head whips around at the same words he used to describe his memory of his father on our first date. His eyes flash, but he doesn’t say a word.

I drop my gaze to the floor. Quiet, fractured memories drift through my mind. Memories of things I’d said to Martin with my phone in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. Memories of tears. But the specific conversations were just out of reach.

“Is it possible you blacked out during them?”

My stomach twists and I stop shaking my foot. “Yes. I suppose it’s possible.” Probable, actually.

“Did you ever ask Charlie about his mother’s drinking?” Mr. Hines asks Martin.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Martin nod. “After Christmas, I asked him if he had seen his mommy drinking out of a wineglass. He told me yes. I asked him if it was a lot, and he sort of shrugged and wouldn’t look at me. I told him it was okay that he tell me and he said ‘yeah.’ ”

“Yeah, what?” Mr. Hines pushes.

Martin sighs. I recognize the sound; he’s not exasperated, only tired. He’s not enjoying talking about these things any more than I am. “Yeah, she was drinking a lot. He told me she was sleepy a lot, too. And had headaches.”

Tears burn in the back of my throat. I swallow twice, hard, trying to keep them down. The muscles in my chest feel like they’re trapped in a vise. I take a couple of deep breaths and then turn to look at Martin. “If you were so concerned,” I ask, “why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you sit me down and talk to me about it?”

“I don’t know,” Martin says. “I guess I trusted you on some level. That you’d keep a handle on it. You’ve always held everything together.”

“Did you think you might be imagining it was happening?” Mr. Hines asked Martin.

My ex-husband shook his head. “No, not imagining. More thinking that it wasn’t every night. She wasn’t a heavy drinker when we were together. Or before that, as far as I knew. I thought maybe it was something she’d do a couple of times and then stop. Like maybe it was some kind of weird phase she was going through.”

“But she didn’t stop.”

“No.”

I am quiet, trying to breathe. My face is on fire.

“Are you all right?” Mr. Hines asks me. “Is hearing these kinds of things difficult?”

“Of course it is,” I say, my voice low. What a stupid question.

“A little frightening, too, I imagine, not remembering things that you’ve done.”

I nod. I hate this. Incomprehensible demoralization.

“When did you decide you had to act, Martin?” Mr. Hines asks. “When did you begin to worry Charlie might be in danger?”

“When his preschool teacher made a couple of comments to me about Charlie being late a lot and then being out sick a few days in January.”

I feel him look over to me, but I can’t meet his gaze. The tightness in my chest rises, pushing up through my throat until the tears trickle down my cheeks. I can’t stop them. I keep my eyes on the floor, still listening.

Martin sighs. “Cadence hadn’t said anything to me about it, which I thought was strange. She usually let me know if he had a cold or something like that if I was going to have him for the weekend. The teacher also said something about Cadence looking like she’d been fighting something off for quite a while. Like she had the flu. I knew she looked more tired than I remembered seeing her before, but it made me more aware, I guess, when the teacher pointed it out, too. Like I should be looking out for something.” He took a deep breath. “And then the teacher called me one morning and said Charlie wasn’t in school again. And that Cadence had called before and didn’t ‘sound right.’ So I got in my car, went to her house, and took him away.” His eyes leave me and direct their attention back to Mr. Hines.

I’m afraid I might throw up. Oh God. Who is this woman they are talking about? It can’t be me. It can’t. And yet I know it is. I rip open the gauze and I see the truth. I’d never been so drunk—I knew I couldn’t drive. I thought it was better to keep Charlie home with me. I remember my son letting his father in the door. I remember being so drunk I couldn’t protest when Martin took him away.

I remember a few hours later, wishing I were dead.

“What happened then, Martin?” Mr. Hines asks.

“She called and left me a message on my phone. She said she’d taken some kind of medication and had a bad reaction to it. She was completely drunk.”

I remember doing this. I remember the desperation I felt—the sheer unadulterated desperation. It was close to the sickening shame I feel now.

“And then?” Mr. Hines asks.

Martin rolls his shoulders back like he’s trying to alleviate tension in his neck. “Her sister called me the next day and told me Cadence had admitted herself to the psychiatric ward and would be going into treatment for the drinking. I told her I would keep Charlie, of course. And then I called my mother and asked her to watch him while I figured out what to do. She suggested I call Child Protective Services and get their advice.”

I’ll bet she did. I attempt to wipe the tears from my face. I’ll bet she offered to make the call herself.

“You’ve been quiet, Ms. Sutter,” Mr. Hines says. “Are you okay?”

I give a quick nod. Sure, I’ve been sitting here weeping, reliving the most horrific night of my life. But I’m fine. Just great.

“Do you have anything you’d like to ask Martin?”

I take a deep breath, not wanting my voice to splinter when I speak. It does anyway. “Why did you have to call CPS? Why didn’t you just wait for me to get into treatment and then talk to me? We could have found a different way through this. Charlie could have stayed with you while I was in treatment and then come back home. Or we could have worked out some other kind of schedule, so you’d feel more comfortable that I was better before he came back. You don’t need to take him away from me.”

Martin attempts to look impassive, but I can see the emotion wrestling around behind that mask. “I wanted to talk to a professional. They recommended I file for custody. I did what I thought was best for Charlie. I want to protect my son.”

CPS and his lawyer have told him that the correct response to an ex-wife’s drinking problem is to file for custody. Nothing I say will change his mind.

“What if we were still married and I developed this problem?” I ask, still ridiculously optimistic I can frame it to him in a different way. “Would you have immediately picked up and left me and taken Charlie away? Or would you have helped me get through treatment and find a way to manage it with our family still intact?”

“Our family’s not intact,” Martin says. His tone is guarded.

He might as well have slapped me. I suppose whatever mistakes he has made are now irrelevant. In his mind, my drinking trumps them all.

Still, we hold each other’s gaze for a moment. I see two distinct moments from our life together: his wide smile the first night we met, then the light in his eyes when I told him he was going to be a father. My heart aches.

“I would understand it better if I had done this more than once,” I finally say. “If I was going through treatment for a second or third or fourth time. Or if I wouldn’t go at all. But I’m not. I screwed up. I take total responsibility for what I’ve done. I’m also starting to understand that my problem with drinking isn’t only about alcohol.”

“Really,” Martin says, doubtful. “What’s it about then?”

“I guess it’s more about how I think. How I’ve learned to push down any kind of negative feelings. Some people get addicted to food or shopping or work or sex. I got addicted to alcohol.”

“I’m sorry, but I think that’s kind of a copout,” Martin says. “Like you’re not responsible. I think it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, I have a disease that made me do this.’”

“You think this is easy? You think anything about what I’m going through right now is easy? You’re trying to take my son away from me. None of this is easy.” My voice escalates; I pause for a moment before continuing. “I’m not making excuses, Martin. How many times do I have to tell you I’ve owned up to what I did wrong? And now I’m doing everything I know how to to get help and never let it happen again. Trying to take custody away from me is just making things worse. For everyone. Charlie included.”

Mr. Hines clears his throat. “What do you mean?”

“I mean my son isn’t used to being away from me. I mean he has to be struggling with why everything has changed.”

“Do you talk to him about it?” Mr. Hines asks.

“In a way,” I say. “I tell him his daddy just wants some extra time with him right now. I think he’s too young to understand a complicated concept like custody. I don’t want him to feel like he has to choose between us.”

Mr. Hines nods, and I hope this means he approves of how I’m handling the issue with Charlie.

“What about you, Martin?” he says.

“I’ve told him I want things to stay like this, his living with me, but there’s a very smart man who’s going to help us decide if it’s the right thing to do.”

Oh, please. Brownnose, much? It takes all my strength not to roll my eyes to the ceiling.

“Is there anything else you’d like to say to Martin?” Mr. Hines asks me.

“Like what?” I don’t take my eyes off Martin, who won’t look at me. The tips of his ears are red—proof positive I’ve ticked him off. I didn’t set out to make him angry, but part of me can’t help but be a little bit happy I did.

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”

I look back to Mr. Hines. “No. I don’t think there’s anything else I need to say.”

I can’t defend myself after what I’ve done. There’s nothing I can say to change my past behavior or how Martin reacted to it. He only hears what he wants to hear. He only hears what allows him to continue to be right.

“How is Charlie doing with all of this?” Mr. Hines asks Martin.

Martin breaks out his jocular grin. “He’s great. I’ve kept his routine as close to what he’s used to as possible.” He goes on to recount Charlie’s summer day camp activities and play dates at the park.

I close my eyes. I can’t do this anymore. There’s nothing left to say. I gave Charlie that routine. I am his mother. It was my job, and I lost it.