An Open Letter

An Open Letter

My senior year, I was taking all International Baccalaureate courses, was president of the Orchestra, was a twirler for the school band, and I worked 25 hours a week. My parents were getting a divorce, and both my mother’s and my own alcoholism were burgeoning.

It was getting rougher to maintain my double life. I was late to the National Honor Society meetings and dumped Baccardi into a Big Gulp cup in the back, then eventually just stopped going. I went to work and got called out for having red, glassy eyes. I wrote myself a tardy permit to first period every, single day.

One night at work in the lovely Galleria, the huge, glass front door to our contemporary women’s clothing shop shattered. Per company policy, two people had to stay – one manager and one other employee - until it got fixed. I volunteered to stay with my boss. For this, she treated me to dinner. It was late and the whole mall closed down for hours by the time the new door came.

For some ungodly reason, I drove the two of us to dinner. I had a Pontiac Sunbird hatchback – gold, complete with furry, gold seat covers. I’m sure I had New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle blasting while I smoked cloves on the way.

We went to a fabulous TexMex restaurant called Ninfa’s. My beautiful and cool boss treated me to a few margaritas. It was the 80’s. No one carded, besides I was with an adult and probably was dressed a bit too old for my age, anyhow.

Back in my car after dinner, we sat in the dark with the red signal and dashboard lights playing on our faces. The intersection was one of the busiest in Houston, on one of the busiest streets: Westheimer. When the light turned green, I attempted a U-turn.

I guess I did all right, except I curbed it and heard tires burning rubber. I wondered out loud to my boss whose tires were squealing.
“Those are your tires, baby,” came her response.

Amid this kind of living, and returning home one night, I found my mom awake too late to be up healthily, and pissed.

“Did you open this letter, Kollette? Did you!” It wasn’t really a question. She was accusing me.
I literally had no idea to what she was referring, but the fear of her vehemence was overwhelming. She was dead serious.

Hell, I may have opened the letter. I don’t know. I can assure anyone that I had no mal intent, no secret searching or snooping going on, I actually could have cared less. But alcohol can make you paranoid, especially if you’re in a black out.

Her face looked like stone. Her robe was hanging open. Her drink was in her hand. Her voice was flat, monotone when she started to ask a question, then gravelly, loud and slurred when she clenched her ending.

“Did you know it’s illegal to open someone else’s mail, Kollette? No daughter of mine can do that and live in my house! Get out! Get out!”

I did. In the middle of the nigh,t I grabbed as many things as I could that I thought I might need overnight and fled. I didn’t know where to go. Seventeen is too young to rent a hotel room. I didn’t want to bother my friends’ parents nor did I want them to know about all this. So, I went to a guy’s apartment I had been seeing. Of course, he was accommodating, and only slightly took advantage of the situation. He did comfort me.

I went back to our place in the wee hours of the morning to try to get more things, hoping to catch Mom while she was passed out. But she wasn’t there. She wasn’t there! And that’s when I knew she had gone to her boyfriend’s house, too. This cut me. Until now I had thought my mom was still living by some of her principles. At least I was a kid and not preaching about abstinence. But this was my mom. Torn open.

Date with a Pistol

About four or five years into the really bad drinking that I had become aware of at about 13, things had gotten progressively worse.

I had tried to explain to this guy I was dating when I was about 18 how my mom could get. “I don’t believe you,” he flat out let me know. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. Mom was such a beauty, and always a lady in public. All our nasty secrets were just that: secrets.

Mom’s drinking was done in the privacy of her own home, so all the havoc was mine and ours only to behold. Therefore, our hell was not even believed by some of my friends.

One night this same guy came to pick me up for a date. As I recall it, he asked my mom if he could drive me clear to Galveston. “Sure,” she said. “And where will y’all stay the night?” This, may I remind you, is out of the mouth of the woman who one year earlier threatened to remarry my father because I said that I thought it was silly to get married just to be able to have sex. Side note: this is a reference to a Bible verse my parents liked to quote which said basically that it was better to marry than to burn with passion. I said that you should just have sex rather than marry someone you aren’t sure about. This sent her into a tizzy that had her claiming I hadn’t learned a thing from either of them and that if that’s what I had decided then she should get back together with him to teach me right.

Back to the night at hand, I’m pretty sure that what happened next is that Mom continued to have a few more, and that the guy hung out with us a while before we were supposed to leave. Maybe Mom started getting mean – I’m not sure there. But I do know that she sure got ready for my date to leave. He probably asked her to calm down, and – now this I remember – she threatened to shoot him with her pistol if he did not leave.

He called me later and told me that he believed me.