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There is more. There is always more, but I wanted to pause to be present in my current existence, happily married, sober forty years this December (higher power willing), living in northern Michigan and aging, not something I expected when I was so lost in addiction, regret, despair, and grief. Nothing has come easily including a happy marriage, losing my parents, finally reconciling with and loving my surviving older sister. My son went through a terrible self-destructive phase in high school and early college when I decided he was following in my footsteps, but with the irony that I had been a perfect mother and I was sober. Well, I wasn’t a perfect mother and my sobriety had little to do with the choices he made. When it was time to talk, to forgive, to accept, and to listen, I was there. He is safe, he is happy, he loves someone, and is loved in return.

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A paid messenger served the Order of Protection on the Sicilian. On the subway one morning I saw an ad for Jacoby and Myers offering seventy-five dollar divorces. When one of the partners died, The New York Times included this in her obituary: “Recognizing that the rich can afford lawyers and that the poor have access to free assistance programs, Jacoby and Meyers focused on serving average people who could often not afford to hire a lawyer at prevailing rates.”

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I had to get away from my mother. I’d come back from an AA meeting, and she’d ask me if “I’d had fun with my friends?” I’d start in about alcoholism being a fatal, progressive disease, and she’d tell me to set the table. I needed to find a place to live. The linen manufacturer was back from China and wanted me to return to work.

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