"Hi Mom. Happy Thanksgiving!"
"Happy Thanksgiving, hon. I'm afraid I'm calling with bad news. Kyle killed himself last night."
My mind skittered through the short list of shared Kyles and eventually came to rest on the only logical choice.
"Kyle Harmon?"
"No, Kyle Charles Martinsen."
The use of his full name was intentional though not meant to subtly chastise me for my failure to think of my cousin first. His full name, spoken carefully in measured tones, was the tool she employed to put distance between herself and the groundswell of pain that inevitably arose when shit happened in our family of alcoholics and addicts.
"Wha . . ."
"He went down to the trailer on Wednesday night and shot himself. The sheriff's deputy found him when he went to serve restraining orders from Kyle's third wife. I waited until the end of the day to call so I wouldn't ruin your Thanksgiving."
In the kitchen, sounds of my husband's final preparations for our Thanksgiving dinner filtered into the periphery of my awareness. I took the phone down to the cellar so I could smoke while I continued to listen to the horror that squeezed through the thin line that separated me from her.
"Aunt Flo said he'd been in a lot of pain because of the back surgery, depressed because he couldn't work, and frustrated by the hoops he'd been jumping through to schedule more surgery to correct what'd gone wrong the first time. He was . . ."
As she continued to chatter in some half-assed effort to make sense of the senseless, my internal organs began to shake. I clenched my teeth to keep the screams at bay. She finally wound down long enough for me to speak.
"How're Aunt Flo and Uncle Jim doing?"
"She sounds fine. When I talked to her this morning, she sounded calm. It was strange. She almost sounded too calm."
"Had he started drinking again?"
"She said no but the deputy found the trailer littered with empty beer cans and liquor bottles. She said he had a few on occasion . . ."
I listened and felt myself begin to slowly unravel. This is what "hitting bottom" looks like for many of us. Death by accidental overdose, substance abuse related illnesses, or by one's own hand. My brother and great-nephew are alcoholics who have guns and the unbearable weight of that knowledge makes it hard to force my diaphragm to move enough to breathe. Ironically, the cigarettes function as a grotesque way to help eke in oxygen. The urge to hang up, get in the car, put the windows down, and hit the highway doing 120 is as great as the pressure to be there to listen, to let her talk about the things Kyle did for my aunt and uncle, how his kids adored him, and how deeply the denial of his alcoholism ran through his immediate family.
"Deanna and I were worried about calling you because we knew you'd immediately start worrying about them."
[We're terrified this is the bad news that's going to push you over the edge and make you reach for a pill or a drink.]
"Of course I'm concerned about them, Mom. What in hell are they going to do without him?"
"I don't know."
She continues to fill the void I leave with news of who's with my aunt and uncle now, who's heading there, and all things funereal. As she speaks, I half tune out to shoot emails from my cell to my cousins asking if there's anything I can do to help. Their responses bring fresh waves of nausea. "We're fine. He was possessed by demons. He's in a better place."
"I was planning to come over tomorrow but I'll call first to see if you're heading west."
"Okay hon. I'm really sorry to be the one who called you."
"Ma, it's really okay. Talk to you tomorrow. I love you."
"I love you too."
I hang up the phone, grab another cigarette, and let the memories come. I remember wanting to be dead—tried and failed a couple of times because it's harder to take in enough booze and pills to die than pop-culture headlines would lead the average person to believe. Over 8 years since my last drink. Close to 8 years since I chased a pill addictively. And still they worry. I understand and accept this. My sponsor told me her daughter closely monitored her sobriety for 10 years before Kate felt secure enough to ask for a diamond tennis bracelet for Christmas instead of a sober mother.
I take a few minutes to think about Kyle and what he meant to those who loved him. I hadn't seen him in over 20 years but his death shook me to the core. The depth of the family's denial cut almost as deeply. They preferred to believe their son and brother was possessed by demons than face the fact that he was an alcoholic, which for them meant one thing—he chose to engage in a morally reprehensible behavior that he could have controlled.
I take one last long drag on my cigarette, snub it out, walk shakily upstairs to tell my husband what's happened.
