After Mother's AA meeting last Thursday night, she invited God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit home to celebrate her one month sobriety. Since then the four of them have filled up the house with enough light to rival the first day of creation. And all week, I have watched from the doorway, struggling with all her "amens" and "halleluiahs" and how she kneels, twenty-four/seven, hands extended to heaven as if God is about to handcuff her.
Now, I stand in the doorway and watch her roll like the fire of the Holy Spirit is burning the shit out of her.
"Cleansed and free," she chants, never opening her eyes. "Free! Thank you, Jesus. Thank you." Then she jabbers something in a foreign tongue as she rolls and rolls around in the den, like a pinball, hit the couch, bounce back; hit the chair, bounce back; hit the table, bounce back, her face wet from tears, dirty from lint and grunge from the carpet.
At this doorway, I remember all the times I watched her try to pull herself up from the floor, head wobbling on her bony shoulders, dark roots screaming through her bright red hair, eyes blackened from fatigued mascara, vodka bottle rolling around empty, hit the couch, bounce back, hit the table, bounce back, no one caring about it anymore because it had been depleted of that mattered. I remember her begging me to help her up, her saying, "I'm sorry. I am. Really. Don't look at me like that." Her slurred cries were always directed at the air around her, not me, like she sensed her tormenter's presence, her eyes wide and frantic. I never answered her, just tried to pull her off the floor, her inebriated inability fighting against me. Finally, I had to let go. I watched her fall back to the floor, watched until she went limp, stayed until her pungent snores filled the house.
And now I think about how it's really no different, being drunk on the spirit and being drunk on the drink because all you care about is what makes you drunk and nothing else, nothing, not one fucking thing, and you cling to it, afraid that if you let go, you'll become as empty as the things you have drained all your life.
And from this doorway I still watch.
But she never sees me.
Richelle Putnam is a former writer for All Headline News. She has been published in E2K Literary Journal, World Wide Writers, Orchard Press Mysteries, Southern Hum, The Copperfield Review, Cayuse Press, Writer's Journal, Obadiah Press's Living By Faith Anthology, A Tribute to Mothers Anthology, A Cup of Comfort for Mothers and Daughters, and more. Her children's literature has been published on the Institute of Children's Literature's web site, Writing Korner, and Wee Ones, Boy's Quest, Appleseeds, and Hopscotch Magazine for Girls; Her novel, Fallout, was released in 2000. She is the Founder and President of Mississippi Writers Guild. You'll find her web site at www.richelleputnam.net.