This Is Not Over Part 21

That's f.u.c.ked up.

It is f.u.c.ked up. I should want to help her.

No. I mean it's f.u.c.ked up that he cares about your mom more than he cares about what you want.

He's just being a good person.

To her, maybe, but what about you?

I don't want to talk about Rob.

Awesome, I don't either. I want to talk about you.

I'm not a very good person.

Bulls.h.i.+t.

My mom needs help, and I don't want to give it.

What goes around comes around, Dawn. It's just karma.

You believe in karma?

When it comes to parents and kids I do. You take good care of your kids, they'll take good care of you. You mess your kids up, they'll mess you up right back.

My mom's already a mess.

Exactly. Karma.

There's something whacked in your logic, but honestly, I can't figure out what it is.

We all started out good and pure, right? If we're not anymore, it's because of what was done to us, probably by our parents.

But at what point are we responsible for our own lives, and our own choices, and we can't blame anyone else?

How old are you?

You've got 5 years to go. I've got 8.

Sometimes I just get so mad. I feel like I can't really have kids because of her. Like I wouldn't know what to do with them.

You can do whatever you want.

Sure, we all can.

No. You, Dawn Thiebold, can do whatever you want. In a world full of s.h.i.+tty false people, you are amazing. There should be more of you. Make more.

I've actually got tears in my eyes. Who would have thought Thad could have that effect?

I feel bad now, that I misjudged him. I a.s.sumed he was a loser. I mean, I know he doesn't have a job, and I don't get his art. But then, I don't get art, period. I've gone to museums and it all just leaves me cold. I don't know how people can stand in front of a painting for more than thirty seconds, even if it is beautiful. Because I can recognize beauty, and appreciate it, but then you move on, you know?

Thad's got this warped worldview, but there's truth in it. Plus, he makes me laugh. We've never even talked on the phone, yet there's an intimacy to the way we relate. I answer all his texts now.

I can't fully explain his allure, and I don't have to, since no one knows we're even in contact. All I know is that I'm not some Eliza Doolittle type to Thad. He's not trying to elevate me. He gets me, and likes what he gets.

It could just be that I'm hungry for male attention. There was a time when I could count on always having a guy on the string, even two or three of them, but that seems like forever ago.

Rob's always given me plenty of attention, but lately, it's felt more like scrutiny. Ever since that dinner with his parents, I catch him studying me, like he's trying to figure out how I can be so cold about my dead father and my live mother. It makes me want to hide. There are things he can't know, things that I can never tell. Our conversations have become depressingly superficial, and the distance between us is growing. I'm afraid of what could happen if we continue this way. I just never saw it coming.

I met Rob more than four years ago, when I was an a.s.sistant manager at Target. I was due to go back to college the following semester, with a plan to work all day, go to school at night, and study whenever I could fit it in. I was entirely independent, relying on no one, with no one to rely on me. Then one day, I glanced down the frozen food aisle, and there he was, reading the nutritional information on an entree for one. A good sign, as far as his singlehood was concerned, though not the s.e.xiest male behavior. It was-I'd soon learn-cla.s.sically Rob.

The Target customer base doubled as my dating pool. I liked to approach attractive men and offer a.s.sistance. Sometimes I did it when they looked genuinely confused, but that wasn't the case with Rob.

I was learning to distinguish between men who were attractive and men I was attracted to. In my late teens and early twenties, good s.e.x was worth the drama. The two were proportional: The greater the drama, the better the s.e.x. I liked a roller coaster, and I could spot one at a hundred paces. Love? Who needed that? I just needed the upper hand. Hard-to-get was my playbook.

But then something changed. I started noticing babies. And families. I started wanting something I'd never wanted before: a real home, one that was stable and loving. The men I was attracted to could provide multiple o.r.g.a.s.ms, but they couldn't provide that.

At the same time, I'd been reading a rash of articles by regretful women in their thirties and forties. Some had gone on to have babies without mates; some were just plain alone. All of them had the same advice: settle in your twenties, when the odds are good, before the goods are odd. In your twenties, they opined, you're not too set in your ways, and neither are the men. You can meld. You can grow, together. Settle when you're marketable, with ripe, juicy ovaries. Settle before the men are irreparably damaged. Settle without desperation. Settle now.

While there was plenty of backlash-women who offered alternative stories of finding their great love at, say, forty-three, or ones who just found the very notion of settling to be antifeminist-I was persuaded. I decided that it was time to set the table for the family I was going to have.

Enter Rob, stage left, the undeniably good-looking, neatly dressed reader of ingredient lists. I asked if he needed help, and he dug around to find some inane question, and we were off and running. I'd found someone patient, kind, and reliable, from a good family. He gave back rubs and foot ma.s.sages. He was a better-than-average cunnilinguist. What more could I ask for?

I felt so fortunate to have Rob, given my family history and my relations.h.i.+p history. That he could know all about both and still choose me-that was thrilling in itself. Sure, I left out a few details, but I was sure they would never be salient again. He proposed within the year, and not only marriage; he also proposed that I move in with him and give up my job so I could focus on school.

To any outsider, there was no settling involved. A lot of the time, I didn't even think I was doing it. But there was a niggling thought beneath it all that I didn't find Rob fascinating, in mind or body. He didn't entirely capture my imagination. He was just so knowable.

I was relieved when he did anything unpredictable. I wanted to f.u.c.k him senseless the first time his temper flared. It was a road rage incident. We'd been sideswiped, a near-collision, and he tailed the guy home, all the way to San Leandro. Rob was taller, and the other guy was more muscular, a roughneck type, but Rob was furious. He slammed the guy against the car door. "That's my wife in there!" he shouted. "You don't ever f.u.c.king do something like that with my wife in the car!" The guy started nodding, agreeing, he wouldn't ever f.u.c.king do it again, and Rob was shaking with adrenaline when he climbed back into the driver's seat. I was shaking, too, with desire. I'd been with men who'd gotten into fights before, sometimes nominally to defend my honor, but they were looking for any excuse to burn off some testosterone. It didn't mean anything. But Rob was different. He was actually looking out for me, and he was capable of bada.s.sery.

It registered that he could turn that rage on me someday. But that just added to the excitement.

I do sometimes think that I could have settled richer. If I'd relaxed my requirements about the person being attractive and in my age ballpark, I know I could have married up, fiscally. Someone would have been happy to have me as his trophy wife.

But that's a level of compromise that I wasn't capable of at age twenty-five. Would I be capable at thirty-five, or forty? Hopefully, I won't find out. Rob and I will be long past the rough patch we're in now, my parents will once again become irrelevant, and I'll get over this weird ambivalence I'm having about kids. We'll be a family, with two children at least, living in a beautiful house that Rob will buy with his great new job after extricating himself from the family business and that I will supplement with my income as a successful . . . something or other. We won't need getaways in rental homes. I won't pretend to have anyone else's life. We won't want anything but what we have.

34.

Miranda

Bewarethisrental.com: I originally posted this review on Getaway.com. The landlord, Miranda Feldt, has since taken down her listing, so I'm reposting it here. People can draw their own conclusions.

Beware of your "host"

THREE STARS.

I wouldn't have left a review at all, if I didn't feel it was my civic duty to warn others. Sure, there were small issues with the house itself . . .

Dej vu washes over me. This is how it all began, the step-by-step destruction of my life. If not for Dawn, Thad wouldn't be blackmailing me now. I wouldn't wake up in cold sweats for fear that my husband is going to find me out. I wouldn't be the liar I am now.

Dawn's thorough, I have to give her that. Hers is a thoroughly reprehensible hatchet job. Google me, and she's commandeered the whole first page of search results.

If it hadn't been for Frank, I wouldn't even have known this was going on. Maybe it would have been better that way. Because I'm not sure there's a thing I can do about her lies.

I've lost all credibility with Officer Llewellyn. When I told him about the rat, he went silent for thirty seconds, at least, and then he asked, "Did you block her like I told you to?" I said that I haven't, but I haven't actually needed to. She's too smart to contact me directly. He asked if I had an alarm system; when I said yes, he told me to set it, whether I was home or not. "That'll give you peace of mind," he said. My tax dollars at work.

Since Dawn has stopped contacting me, she's skirted the hara.s.sment laws. I know that Officer Llewellyn won't see her online smear campaign as a credible threat of violence.

But it is violent, what she's done to me. It's a direct attack. She's managed to find every disreputable site with graphics upscale enough to pa.s.s for reputable. So at a quick glance, when the page of Google results materializes, I appear to be the equivalent of a vacation rental slumlord. Bewarethisrental.com has no reb.u.t.tal feature. Others are free to add their own experiences with me, but I have no forum to respond. It's a free-for-all, and I'm a landlord pinata. The fact that I was a host and not a landlord seems to matter not a whit.

There's a website where Dawn posted our entire correspondence rather than just her skewed distillation, or rather, it's what she purports to be our entire correspondence. She's even included our text exchange. I don't have the heart to do a line-by-line, but I'm sure she must have done some creative editing. What about her calling me a self-righteous c-? Where's her mocking text about who I'll fleece next?

Her shakedown attempt reads like I was the one trying to buy her off, as if I'm the unsavory character. I'm sure I never invoked Larry's profession. She must have searched me online and found that out herself. By now, that would be far down on the list, supplanted by all her trash.

I'm also sure I never said, You need manners, and cla.s.s. But I don't blame you. I blame your parents. I wouldn't resort to such a low blow.

She acts like she's the philanthropist and I'm an ent.i.tled name-dropper, an elitist sn.o.b rather than who I really am.

Not that I'm clear on who I am these days. She's got me tense and paranoid, and I'm having to do things that I never would have considered. I'm embroiled in a double life, all because of her, and I fear she's not done yet.

There's no mention of the rat she left in my pool, now is there?

If anyone from the Homeowners a.s.sociation decided to look me up, they'd know that I'd been breaking the ordinance, and that my resignation wasn't just about being too busy to serve.

If the city attorney's office finally gets their act together, could they be pressured to prosecute me retroactively? It's possible I haven't even dodged that bullet completely. Dawn wants this to follow me. She's out to ruin me.

I feel like I'm in the midst of pure evil, and I don't know how to begin to combat that. But somehow, I have to find the strength.

I try to locate phone numbers for the websites. If I can just talk to the right person, go up the supervisory chain, I can appeal to their sense of decency. I've always been good with people if I can speak to them, live. Obviously, e-mail and text are not my forte.

Since there are no phone numbers, I have no choice but to write. I do my best to explain that Dawn's actions are malicious, and potentially actionable, and that the websites won't want to get mixed up in this. I respectfully request that they take Dawn's post down.

But I have little hope. Not just because those websites display no sense of decency, but because I have no confidence in my ability to express myself. Dawn has robbed me of that, too. It can't be an accident that there's no place for reb.u.t.tal; that's a deliberate choice the websites are making. They're for the Dawns of the world, and whether those people are lying or not is of no concern or consequence. The First Amendment protects them, and Dawn, too.

I could consult an attorney regarding defamation of character, but I couldn't go ahead with a lawsuit, not without telling Larry. Maybe just a threatening letter would be enough. I wouldn't need to tell Larry I'd done that; there's enough in my rental earnings to cover one letter. But my Thad fund is going to run dry quickly if I don't get cash for the fake foundation work.

I have the estimate but I haven't been able to approach Larry about it yet. He came home from work obviously upset, saying little. I surmised that a patient was dying, because that makes him quiet whereas hospital politics makes him loud. I'm embarra.s.sed to admit it, but I was relieved. I didn't want to encounter any more pressure about calling Realtors.

When did my life become Watergate, one giant cover-up with a million tiny moving parts? I'm not a duplicitous person. This isn't in my nature, and it's certainly not how I was raised. My mother would be horrified if she knew. It's the first time I've ever been grateful that she isn't capable of higher cognitive functioning.

Because I'm not actually this person, Dawn has the advantage. She knows how to play the game. Her conscience might not make a peep, whereas mine protests at every turn.

After dinner, I tell Larry that I'm going out with a friend for a drink, and he says that if I'm late, I should go in the guest room; he doesn't want his sleep disturbed. It's another sign of his internal tumult, but I know he doesn't want me to pry. A good meal is the best I can do for him, and I've already done that. He pecks me on the cheek. "Have fun," he says.

Nar-Anon is many things, but fun is not among them. The last meeting I attended was years ago. Yet I feel myself being drawn in again-to the promise that there are steps forward, that it works if you work it, that you're only as sick as your secrets. I'm also drawn to the people, my brethren. They'll understand, intimately, the moral quandaries and compromises that beset the family of an addict. They wouldn't judge. They might even have a suggestion I haven't thought of for extricating myself.

I have to do something. Life works if you work it.

It's the same church bas.e.m.e.nt. Same dim lighting, and rows of folding chairs, and a table with coffee and pastries. I recognize some of the faces. Our addicts have us all stuck in a time warp. There's the woman whose daughter is a bit younger than Thad, the one who clutched my arms and told me urgently that I had to keep coming back, that I had to try at least six different meetings before deciding whether this was going to help. She pegged me as a flight risk immediately. Ultimately, I did run away. I couldn't stand the thought of being a lifer, and yet, here I am.

I don't know how they arrived at this number, six, but it gets repeated often. There's a lot of repet.i.tion to the Twelve Step experience, so many sayings and slogans, and I suppose predictability is a comfort in the face of addiction's unpredictability. I don't know what my son will do, of what he's capable, but I know to end the phrases "progress" with "not perfection" and "let go" with "let G.o.d." I can antic.i.p.ate that much.

Then there's the fellows.h.i.+p. These people get it. Rich, poor, black, white, Latino, there are no divisions, only collective pain. They're tired, yet they're hanging on, and they have a smile for the newcomers, always. It's like everyone is thinking that it has to turn out well for someone, that, say, one out of ten loved ones will make recovery stick, and of course, they'd like to be the one, but they'd celebrate if it's you, too. We're all just pulling for someone on the team.

I make sure that I'm a little late, so that I can avoid the pregame small talk. I slip into a seat, smiling around like a bee flitting from one flower to another, not landing on any one person for long. I catch the tail end of the Serenity Prayer. Then the leader welcomes newcomers, and I say my name and that I'm not entirely new but I haven't been there for a while. There's a warm, enveloping chorus. I'm as close to a newcomer as they have here tonight.

Then people start sharing their stories, heartbreaks, disappointments, and lessons. So many mistakes, but they all boil down to two, really. There's enabling-giving to the addict, instead of trying to "be" for the addict. Then there's codependency-focusing on how others feel instead of how you feel, not speaking up, bottling, keeping their secrets, being furtive with your own emotions. You're likely falling into enabling or codependency by forgetting the three C's-that you didn't Cause it, you don't Control it, and you can't Cure it.

Sure, I'm making all those mistakes, but what's the way out, really? Admitting I'm powerless? That's where it fell apart for me last time. I feel like that admission would be the end of me. If I'm powerless, I'll give up. I'll lie in bed until I mummify.

They're telling me that I need to stop focusing on Thad's survival, and begin to focus on my own. But I'm already doing that. The $35K isn't really for him; it's to save myself.

I need to open up to someone, somewhere. I'm as sick as my secrets, and that's pretty sick.

I'm considering whether to speak next when a well-dressed, well-groomed man in his late middle age takes the floor. My eyes had gone right past him earlier, but now I see that he's one of Larry's colleagues. There's no anonymity anymore once I confess. He probably won't tell anyone, but every time I come across him, in other settings, I'll feel the shame.

I can try another meeting, in another neighborhood. Most likely, I won't know anyone there.

But I feel like it's a sign. Some things are not meant to be spoken out loud.

I listen to story after story about addicts and how to hold the boundaries with them. Stay strong, stop the enabling. Between all the supportive sayings, they think what Larry does. Their love is tough, like his.

I start to feel angry, because even though I feel guilty for lying to Larry, I should be able to tell him the truth. He doesn't always have to be right. It should never have been a Faustian bargain where I had to cut off my son in order to keep my marriage. I wouldn't be in this predicament if he hadn't been so hard-nosed. Thad wouldn't be able to blackmail me; he'd have no ammunition. And I would never have had to know how much my son hates me.

I look around the room. Is anyone else in here being blackmailed by their addict?

Of course not. What this meeting reinforces is that I am alone in this. I need to get money somehow. There is no other solution. There is no other way.

Then there's Dawn. What on earth am I going to do about her? The police threat clearly backfired. So what now?

I slip out the back door.

35.