If I Die Before I Wake (15 page)

Within an hour, I'm back in my room, making a call to AA. I'm put on hold. No one comes back on the line. I call again. I get a voice mail and reluctantly leave a message. I call Tom. “I want to come home,” I say, and tell him about the party, another place I didn't fit in, where I felt like a fish out of water. “I can't do this,” I continue. “I don't know why I thought I could. I can't even get hold of anyone in AA.”

When I pause to sob into the phone, Tom says, “Give it a couple more days. If you don't like the retreat, you don't have to go. You can go lay by the pool for the next week, or go exploring. I know there is AA there … those people are everywhere.” I laugh in spite of myself. Feeling better, I hang up and call Donna, my best girlfriend in Yarnell, who's been sober longer than I. After sharing my experiences so far, I tell her I haven't been able to talk to anyone in the program. She says, “Maybe you ought to pray about it.”

IT
'
S A NEW DAY
.
I HAVE A NEW ATTITUDE
. Putting my drama queen meltdown of yesterday behind me, I revel in the glorious morning as I saunter along the narrow sidewalk to the Grand. My first class that will teach me to be a better writer. Stopped on an arched wooden bridge over a koi pond that surrounds a stained glass church on three sides, I bow my head and thank God for all that I've been given, for allowing me to be in this wondrous place, and promise that I will give it all I've got.

Although no one from AA returned my call, I reminded myself what Donna always said about it. “The people aren't the
program. You know the program, and sometimes it will just be you, God, and the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous.” My program tells me that upon arising, I am to turn my will and life over to this God of my understanding, and if I am truly able to do that, whatever happens that day will be for my best. I am always enough. It doesn't matter that I don't look like others, dress in fashion, or that I'm not as well-published or as smart—it's not a competition. For the first time in my life, I'm comfortable in my own skin, and nothing outside me should affect that.

I keep those things in mind as I ready myself for the day ahead. I will be who I am: a short, dark-complexioned woman with a brown mohawk, wearing a summer top and pair of loose-fitting bibbed overalls and sandals. For me, there is nothing worse than trying to be something I'm not. I tried that for many years, and it never worked.

It's quiet. Not many people are wandering around this early in the morning. As I make my way to the coffee shop, I admire the way the building is set up, the enormous statues of plump Hawaiian men and women lolling about, brass railings everywhere. I wonder how they keep it clean. With all the open-air restaurants, bars, and reception areas, it must be difficult. Then there are the birds. They are everywhere, fly right down on the tables while people are eating, begging for crumbs. If this place were in Arizona, it would be constantly covered in dust.

Coffee and a danish in hand, I make my way down a winding wooden staircase that reminds me of something from the Swiss Family Robinson's tree house to the lower level and meeting
rooms. The classroom I've been assigned is at the end, next to a waterfall and stream filled with colorful fish. I pull a chair next to the water, glory in all the greenery and flowers around me, savor each bite of the pastry, drink the hot Kona coffee, close my eyes, and go into deep meditation. I picture myself walking down a long hallway with many doors on each side. As I come to each door, it opens, allowing all the wonders of life to be within my grasp.

The sound of voices brings me back to my surroundings. I love to watch people, be a fly on the wall listening in on their conversations. I read that listening will help me write dialogue better … besides, I'm a bit nosey. I am absolutely fascinated with the human condition: who people are, what brought them to that point, how they think, and why. I suppose it's because I've had to do so much self-searching over the years.

Six hours later, I am walking back to my hotel. My thoughts rest on the homework assignment our teacher Don McQuinn, a best-selling science fiction author, handed out. Suddenly I hear a voice say, “I wish I'd brought my bibs.” I turn to see a woman standing in front of one of the thatched coffee huts near the beach. Surely not. She is wearing a tee shirt with an AA logo and the slogan
EASY DOES IT
emblazoned across the chest. I approach and say, “Are you a friend of Bill W.?” That's AA code for use when we are in a public place. She smiles, makes a sweeping gesture with her hand, and says, “We all are.” There are three other people sitting at a table behind her, drinking coffee. Within minutes, that strange instant bond we friends of Bill W. have has us talking like old friends.

I'm sweaty but thrilled by the time I reach my room. I'm going to a meeting with the two married couples tonight. What a day it has been. I found a common bond with the nine others I'll be attending class with each day. It's a wonderfully diverse group, both ethnically and as writers, although we are all writing fiction, or at least attempting to do so. Mr. McQuinn is an older man, tall and broad-shouldered, with thick white hair and bushy eyebrows that sweep up, giving him the appearance of a wizard. He impressed me with his years of knowledge of the writing and publishing business. He really wants us to learn, to do well with our projects. I like him and look forward to the week ahead. I have to call Tom and Donna to share my good news of the day.

——

It's Labor Day Monday, and I'm on the plane winging my way back to Arizona. I want to sleep, but my mind is too full with the glorious experiences of the past twelve days. Leaving the island was surreal, like waking up from one of the best dreams I ever had. I not only learned a tremendous amount from Don McQuinn; I made a new friend. When I discovered him sitting in front of the meeting room early one morning, we began to talk, and afterwards it became our habit to spend that time together before the others arrived. Once, toward the end of the week, Don said, “Barb, there are a lot of good writers here. Some of them will be better than you, some not as good, but you're going to make it because you're a pit bull.”

The meetings I attended at sunset at a pavilion on the beach ruined me for church basements, old schoolrooms, and meeting halls. At the second meeting I attended in Hawaii with my new AA friends, I was asked to be the speaker. Perched on the top of a picnic table, I shared my story with a group of about thirty people. Halfway through my story, much of which revolved around the deaths of my children and the pain I carried with me so long, I noticed a young man weeping. Afterwards, he stepped up to me, wrapped his arms around me, hugged me tightly, and whispered in my ear, “I know God sent you here for me.” On the ride home, the couple I rode with—who lived in Maui a portion of the year—told me that the young man and his wife had recently lost a child, and he hadn't been able to put any sober time together since. At that moment, I knew exactly what this trip to Maui was about. The writers retreat and the conference were simply the catalysts.

All the way home from the airport in Phoenix, I can't stop talking, sharing my experiences with Tom. “After that meeting, with the guy in such terrible turmoil,” I say, “I stopped worrying about anything else. I realized whatever I got from the writers thing was gravy, so I could relax and enjoy myself, and I did.” Even though I discovered I wasn't a very good fiction writer, Don and others in my group taught me what it meant to find my voice in writing. It will take me in an entirely different direction.

I am not putting words on paper now, but writing in my head. With the cooler weather, Tom and I have been doing a lot of hiking, finding new paths, new mountain areas to climb,
and have even ferreted out ancient boulders covered in petroglyphs. Having studied the symbols of rune stones and tarot cards for many years, I'm fascinated by the crude drawings etched into stone that have been there for centuries. They speak to me. I begin to research the symbols, ask around town where others have seen them. It's an exciting adventure going out to the desert, into the mountains, hunting for the treasure that is knowledge of the past. For the first time in a long time, I bring my tarot cards out to study them.

IN FLORIDA, YEARS AGO
, during my brief marriage to my fourth husband, I had a tarot reading from a woman I'd never met before. I was stunned at how dead-on she was about me and about my future. Intrigued, I inquired about how she learned to read cards. “Books,” she said. I can read books. She went on to tell me that she believed everyone had the ability to predict their own future, that the cards are simply a tool. I bought a tarot card kit, studied the meanings for over two years, and began reading, amazed at how accurate the cards could be.

Years later, after reading for hundreds of people and using my cards for everything from meeting men to abusing those I didn't like when I was drinking, karma came back to bite me in the ass. My friend Rita showed up one day and asked for a reading with the death house. Although I'd studied the various layouts for readings, I rarely did an astrological layout with the cards because it was the only one that had a place for serious illness and death. I'd seen enough death to last me a lifetime and simply didn't want to see it in someone else's cards. Rita said she was experiencing an ominous feeling that something bad was going to happen, and she begged me to read her cards. If I hadn't known her so well, I would have refused. I laid the cards out. In the death house fell a light-haired, light-eyed child. The news would come from a brown-haired, brown-eyed man from a distance. My friend was convinced it was her sister's child. They were about to embark on a cross-country move.

Sure enough, less than a month later, the dreaded phone call came. It was from a brown-haired, brown-eyed man, calling from a distance away. My brother! The child who died was my blond-haired, blue-eyed son. My brother called Rita because I didn't have a telephone. She couldn't bear to tell me, so she called Tom, who drove to Sullivan, knocked on the door, and delivered the blow that nearly killed me—and ended my card reading for years.

The self-centered, egotistical fool that I was, I thought that when Jon started having problems and behaving badly, I could handle him. I'd studied psychology all those years in college, been through therapy myself, and knew all the answers, or so I
thought. Of course, knowing the answers and applying them to my own life were two entirely different matters. It was one of those do as I say, not as I do situations.

At age 13, Jon began to ask questions about his father. I'd lied to him for years, telling him his father left us and didn't want us. In truth, it wasn't Jon he didn't want. When I divorced Jon's father, I had child support and alimony put in the papers, but told his dad that if he never bothered us or tried to contact us, I would never ask him for a penny of it. He didn't, and I didn't. I continued to lie. Jon kept asking questions.

Offended that he wanted to find his father after I'd taken care of him alone all those years, I argued with Jon. I told him I'd try to locate his dad, and every time he asked, I told him I had some feelers out—another lie.

Like me, Jon turned to drugs and alcohol. I couldn't believe that after all he'd seen me go through, he would do that himself. However, I had watched my mother drink and drug herself right into the grave and did the same thing. Jon became sullen and angry, no longer satisfied with my explanations about not being able to find his dad. Still, I didn't get him the help that might have saved his life.

By age 15, Jon was out of control and decided to take matters into his own hands. He stole a car with the idea of going to Arizona and finding his dad himself. He got caught by the cops. Tom's attorney cut him a deal. If he agreed to probation and a long-term treatment facility, there wouldn't be any jail time. He accepted. Sadly, I packed his clothes and dropped him off in Springfield at Gateway, the treatment center okayed by the
judge. The judge told him that if he left, the original charge of car theft would be reinstated and he'd do his time in jail.

Within a couple of weeks at Gateway, Jon broke his leg playing basketball. As soon as the cast was removed, he disappeared. He got a message to me to call him at an unfamiliar number. Using a pay phone, I punched in the number, sure I could talk him into returning to the treatment center. He'd hitchhiked to Florida, where he had some friends. As soon as I knew where he was, I should have told the police, but I didn't. He said he was going to Arizona. Fearful about him hitching rides with strangers, I asked him to wait until I could make some arrangements. After begging money from Tom, I called my brother. Jon was to take a bus to Phoenix and stay with him.

He made it to my brother's house and begged me to come to Arizona. He said we could start over. Everything in me wanted to go, to be with him, but for the first time, I thought I would do the right thing and try to act like a real parent. I told myself if I went, if I gave in to him, I would be following him forever—and sooner or later he'd get caught and we'd both go to jail. I refused. That was the day I uttered that prayer, asked God to take care of him. Shortly after, I read the cards for my friend. Not long after that, Jon was dead. The cards wrapped in cloth, I placed them in a box and put them in the top of the closet. I never wanted to look at them again.

——

Tom finds me sitting at the table, shuffling my tarot cards. Surprised, he says, “What are you doing?” What am I doing? What am I thinking? Can I really do it? “What if,” I say, “I do a fortune-telling kit using petroglyphs?”

IT
'
S AN UNSEASONABLY WARM FEBRUARY AFTERNOON
in 2006 when we drive into the parking lot of the small animal hospital. Sammi, our Italian greyhound, on a leash, we walk the hilly area specified for dogs to relieve themselves. Business completed, we start toward the building. I feel my feet slipping. I lose control and fall on some loose rocks. The loop of the leash drops to the ground. Sammi's loose. Frightened, she runs toward the highway. Jumping up and putting the pain in my back aside, I chase her. Tom heads her off in the parking lot. He hands me the
leash. Heart pounding, I hold her close, thinking of what might have happened.