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The Bathtub on the Second Floor
From our apartment in Vermont, I reached out to New Haven charitable organizations. The Salvation Army. A synagogue. A church group. There had to be groups who’d want to distribute all those things, still in their white bags, as purchased.
In some way, I’d stepped into a parallel set of actions, replicating what I’d done while following my father’s bizarre playbook with a dozen different men, or waiting (frozen in place) for the neighborhood drug dealer to let go of my hand after his financial contribution to our lives after the house fire, or determinedly reassembling a normal home for my kids after their clothing, toys, bedding had all gone up in smoke. Two cats went also, although I don’t talk about those with the kids, even now that they’re grown men. We all loved those cats.
So, confronted with a New Haven, Connecticut, apartment filled six feet deep with bagged purchases that rose to a foot or two from the ceiling, a dead relative, an immediate burial, and a need to clean up a mess that created bitter shame and grief among the family I’d married into, I did what I always had done: I coped.
This time, fourteen years sober and in my third (and final) marriage, at last with someone who understood me and loved me for who I was, I knew the first step to take: Find help.
