It was a little less than a year ago that I received a call from TheWife about our friend ElF.
She was the mother of a friend and classmate of TheHurricane's. She was the wife of our friend JiF. She was the kind and brilliant soul who'd turned her powers of clinical focus onto her son when he was diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, working night and day to develop a program that transformed him from an almost non-verbal child with severe behavioral issues into an impossibly bright and sensitive boy — and and the good friend who'd helped us find our way after our own son was diagnosed and we found ourselves trying to navigate some of the intricacies of public special education programs.
She was a stranger on the interwebs who became a face, and then a voice, and then a good and true friend.
And then we discovered: she was a closet alcoholic of severe and profound proportions.
She was hospitalized. Repeatedly. Went in and out of programs. Came home, tried to piece her life back together... and failed. Repeatedly.
By springtime, her life - her former life - was a memory. She was estranged from her husband. Her job... I don't even know. It's our assumption that her job (and let's be clear: this is the kind of job that people spend decades studying and working and preparing for — and she was the one in a million who was actually qualified for it) had vanished sometime over the winter. And finally, she lost any claim of legal custody to her own son.
It was a heartbreaking spiral. We witnessed it only in fits and starts, but it was never less than painful, never less than entirely awful. We were never less than incredulous at the idea that someone we knew and liked and wouldn't have hesitated to trust with our own kids could fall apart so completely, so spectacularly, so terribly and irrevocably.
A couple of weekends ago, we met with JiF for the first time since the spring. It was a playdate, of course — a chance for his son and TheHurricane to refamiliarize themselves with each other. A chance for JiF to kick back and relax, if only for a few hours.
I'll admit: we were apprehensive. Not that we weren't curious - of course, we were curious - but at the same time, we were afraid of what we'd hear of ElF, of what had become of her, and of overstepping boundaries and respecting his privacy. We would not bring it up, we decided. If he wants to talk about it... he can talk.
He wants to talk. JiF is an interesting guy, and one of his greatest strengths is the fact that he is completely forthright and matter-of-fact about things. He doesn't dance around the fact of the matter: he simply accepts it as fact, asks others to do the same, and plows forward to the best of his abilities. It doesn't make him a perfect guy, but it makes him a good guy doing his best under surreal circumstances.
"It's been an eventful few months," he says.
We give him the half-smile; supportive, appreciative of the understatement, welcoming him to say more if he wanted to say more.
"She's been in and out of so many programs at this point that, literally, I've lost count. She was in Atlanta for one, Texas for another, she's been in and out of McLean several times... it's a true vicious circle. She gets well enough that she has the legal right to check herself out, then she comes back here and starts circling the drain again."
"I think I told you this, but I had to go to court to get sole custody of (my son). Which was granted, with surprisingly little difficulty — I mean, to be clear enough to a court that you, as a mother, need to be legally barred not only from custody but from visitation with your child without supervision? To anyone with a rational mind, that's a pretty clear indication that things need to change."
"But what's becoming more and more clear, the farther into this things go, is that it's tough to figure out where the alcoholism ends and the mental illness begins. I mean, there have been times - multiple times - over the past year where I've found myself talking to my wife and it's like talking to a complete stranger. And I find myself just so confused. Wondering: did the person I knew ever really exist?"
"When we were first going out, she talked about a time in college when she'd had a breakdown and taken some time off from school, and her Dad came out and stayed with her and helped her for a while. But it was something that even at that point seemed like it'd happened a long time ago, and it was never something we got too much into or that I tried to understand too closely. And now? Now it's like: that was a huge red flag, and I missed it completely. Because her troubles then, and everything now... it's all connected. All of it. And it's like (my son and me) just wandered into the middle of it."
"She's got an apartment now. I actually set it up for her, when she was off in (a treatment program in another state), just so she'd have a place to live. Because we just couldn't have her at the house any more. It was, literally, like every other week the police were at our house because of one thing or another and... you know, we became those people. And it finally got to a point where I couldn't live like that, and I couldn't let (my son) live like that. Which is why I went to court, and got custody and a restraining order. But I couldn't just put her out on the street, you know? She's got an apartment over in (a nearby town), but it's like every time I have to go there..."
He shakes his head. Takes a long draw from his beer. It's the last weekend in August; a hot afternoon, and we are sitting in our back yard. An umbrella partially shades us from the sun. Nearby, four children sprint back and forth across our too-long grass, splashing in and out of a plastic kiddie pool, screaming with joy and wild energy.
"The place in Texas... she somehow signed herself out and just walked out the front door. With nobody there to pick her up, no plan of where she was going to go." He looks at us. "That's not the way it's supposed to happen. I called to check in on her, and they said, 'She left two days ago.' They found her a couple of days later — she had literally been wandering the streets. Her blood alcohol was seven times the legal limit."
"Jesus Christ," I say.
"Exactly," he kind of laughs. Because what else can you do? "That's one of the strange things about being that deep into alcoholism: that much alcohol would kill you or me. Literally: we would die. But her body has adapted." He pauses; takes a breath. "Seven. Times."
"I don't even know what to say," my wife offers.
He shrugs. "There's not much you can really do," he says. "That's what I'm learning. Every once in a while, when she's a week or two into one of these programs, I'll have a conversation with her, and she'll be lucid and her eyes will be clear and it's suddenly like: 'Hey! I remember you!'"
(he's half-smiling as he says this. they're the saddest words we hear.)
"So... she got a puppy."
"What?" I ask. I say it as kind of a laugh.
"I know. Seems like a great idea, right? She called me up and said, "I got a puppy!" Like this was a good thing, something to be excited about. Anyhow, maybe a week later I get a call from this friend of hers - this woman, this very nice woman, who she actually met in a program - and she says, "I haven't heard from ElF in a few days, but I don't want you to be worried. Because I have the puppy."
"The puppy," my wife says.
"Exactly. I tell her, well, that's great. I'm glad you have the puppy. But what about her? And she asks me to go and check on her, because she's... well, she's not that close by. So I say, fine. I drive over there, and after I park I see that her garage is open. And the door inside from the garage is open. And as I walk in, I'm completely paranoid for... actually, for several different reasons. There's all kinds of things I can find inside, and none of them are good. I'm concerned, but at the same time I'm thinking, 'Did somebody break in?'"
"Anyhow. I walk in and... she's there, and she's a mess. Incoherent. I mean, seriously incoherent. Just complete 'raving lunatic' time, you know? And it's clear she hasn't showered in days, and it's just..."
He shakes his head again.
"So I called for an ambulance. And they took her to McLean, and committed her - for all intents and purposes - and that's where she is now. Once again, it turned out her blood alcohol content was .4-something, and it literally took days before she was anything remotely close to coherent."
"Anyhow. That's where she is now."
He looks at us, we look at him. His expression is resigned. Calm, logical. Resigned. I'm sure we look entirely stricken.
Our children run circles around us. They are covered in torn blades of grass and warm sunshine and youth and laughter. Water beads off their skin like tears.
We sit on our chairs, listening to them. We look at each other, then we glance away. The bottle in my hand is growing warm. The fourth chair at the table sits empty.
