Down the Bottle

[Warning: Please be advised, this story contains themes of poor mental health and substance abuse.]

The woman’s toes pressed against the cold bathroom tile. She sat on the tub’s plastic edge in striped pajama shorts and a bra one size too small. Loneliness settled around her in a way only the weary solitude of 3 AM could.

Her hands fidgeted with the dented gold screw-top of the Pinot Noir she’d hidden behind the toilet. She had been sober a week; one measly, miserable week. She flicked the top to the floor, watched it spin against the muted yellow of the tile—a beautiful whir of metal—and took a swig. It tasted like rubbing alcohol smells. And it burned. But oh, was it lovely. Moira loved the pain of alcohol to the throat.

At thirty-one, you might suppose she’d have a better handle on life. You’d be wrong. Moira had been like this for as long as she could remember.

She finished the already half-empty bottle in a gulp, absent-mindedly picked at her chipping plum-toned nail polish, and waited for intoxication to kick in.

She slid from the tub and sprawled onto the floor, the grout of it meeting her spine with its cool kisses. The night slipped from her in one dazed blur.

When she woke, it was to the midday sun streaming in from the windows and a pounding at her front door. Shit, her mother was visiting her today.

Moira stumbled to her bedroom and threw on a grey sweater. She wiped the crust from her eyes and combed through her auburn hair, fingers catching on knots.

The front door rattled, followed by three sharp knocks.

“Oh, quit it, Mom!” Moira shouted when her sweater snagged on the doorframe. “I’m coming; just give me a second.”

As soon as Moira flipped the deadbolt, the door swung open, hitting her in the forehead with a dull thud. Her mother stepped through, blind to Moira’s pain.

“It’s four in the afternoon,” her mother scolded. “On a Sunday.” She pursed her lips and strutted down the hall, retreating further into the apartment without bothering to remove her heels. The silver bangles on her arm clanked together. “I take it you didn’t make it to church this morning. You need community, Moira; You need connection. What will you do when nobody is around?”

Moira followed the faint smell of honeysuckle her mom always wore into the living room. “I haven’t been to church for years, and I don’t plan on going anytime soon.” She crossed her arms, scowling. “I’m perfectly fine existing as I have been.”

Her mother sat tensed on the edge of the couch, the mossy color of it outlining her in verdant green. Even the wrinkles pulling at her lips were tight. An orchid sat on the round table beside her, its stem bowing in respect toward her.

Moira scanned her mother’s face, searching the woman’s tawny eyes for kindness, for any sense of maternal warmth. She found none.

Moira picked at the peeling purple color on her nail, the pain chips fluttering away in the stagnant air of her apartment. She sniffed, not actually needing to, but wanting to fill the room with a sound other than their quiet breathing.

“So,” Moira started, “What brings you–”

“It's... I have cancer.”

Moira stared at her mother, waiting for the punchline. This must be some sick joke. Her mother didn’t give her one, so she laughed. She laughed until her sides hurt and her eyes watered. But there was no punchline, only the nauseating feeling in Moira’s gut that this wasn’t a joke at all. And then she was crying.

“Stage 4. Terminal. Caught too late.” Was all Moira could make out. She wiped away the snot dribbling from her nose, trying to clear her vision enough to actually look at her mother—at the woman fading right in front of her.

“Can I–” Her mother said delicately between her daughter’s sobs, as if afraid to shatter her daughter’s grief, “Can I have a drink?”

Moira tried to say, “Yes, of course, Mom. Absolutely, please let me make you as comfortable as I can,” but all that came out was a heartbroken wail. And so she said nothing at all. She didn’t even ask for her mother’s preference. She just loaded every half-empty and freshly sealed bottle of alcohol she could find in the house. She set them in a messy array in front of her mother. And she opened them all.

Moira’s mother brought a bottle of wine to her lips. Her bony fingers gripped the neck. It trembled in her hands. “He didn’t hear a single one of my prayers or pleas for help. Some all-powerful God He is.” A tear rolled down her powdered cheek as the alcohol found its way into her system. She passed the bottle along to Moira, who took it with no hesitation and drank until her stomach turned sour.

Sunlight bled into the corners of Moira’s vision, blanketing the pale walls and hardwood floors with a dizzying brightness. Her skin felt sticky in the dead heat, and so Moira ditched her sweater. She perhaps should have felt some shame in getting drunk with her mother in nothing more than shorts and an old bra midday on Sunday. Yet, she felt nothing but lightness; there was nothing she could do to change her mother’s fate, nothing she could have noticed sooner from a woman who had wanted nothing to do with her until now.

She felt suddenly very lonely standing so far from her mother, and so Moira sat on the ground, her thighs pressed against the hardwood floor. Her mother lounged lazily on the couch, the strap of her dress halfway off her shoulder, the fabric of it bunching up at her hips. She looked frail and girlish in this form—not like the woman Moira had always known her to be.

The two passed bottles between their lips, finishing them in long swigs, savoring sweet stories of days forever gone.