Chapter 33
God, please keep the taste of unhealthy out of Junie’s mouth today. Please show her she is strong enough.
The text showed up every morning with the sun, but Henry no longer added any silly comment at the end. We both knew we were beyond that. I wanted to respond and tell him to just stop, but I honestly needed his prayers.
Like every Tuesday this summer, I read Henry’s text, prayed my own prayer, got dressed and walked the dogs, came home and showered, worked on custom hats and pieces for my Etsy shop and Bekah’s store until four. Then I would head over to the Methodist church to help Betty.
“What’s on the menu for tonight?” I asked Betty while washing my hands in the kitchen sink.
“It’s been so blamed hot, I figured we’d do something a little lighter. We’re having a salad night.” Betty smiled, happy with the idea.
“Sounds good to me,” I said, picturing us setting up a salad bar of sorts.
Turns out, salad night in a Southern church meant potato salad, pasta salad, egg salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, tomato cracker salad (of course), fruit salad, and Watergate salad. Served with various crackers and bread.
“You gonna share tonight?” Betty gave me a meaningful look as she placed a serving spoon beside the pasta salad.
“I’m not sure.” I grabbed a cloth and wiped away a splash of tea on the counter.
Betty and I had grown closer in the last few weeks and I’d confided in her that I’d been thinking about sharing with the group.
“You’ve said so yourself, how listening to others share their story has encouraged you. Just think how wonderful it would be for you to return some of that.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I left it at that and got back to work.
Once most were finished eating, Reggie took his place behind the small podium and asked everyone to stand.
“Please join me in reciting the Serenity Prayer.” He waited until we were all to our feet, then began leading us.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
While everyone else took their seats, I walked up to the podium before I chickened out. I smoothed my sweaty palms down the side of my jeans and offered a wobbly smile. “Hi . . . I umm . . . I’m Junie.”
“Hi Junie,” the group said in unison.
I took a deep breath and blinked to clear my blurry vision.
How embarrassing would it be to pass out!
Before I did that or just lost my nerve, I began speaking.
“I died once. You’d think that would be hard to do.
” I shook my head. “Turns out, it’s pretty easy to die.
The coming back though. Well, that’s another story.
You’d also think surviving an overdose would be enough to straighten me out, but surviving meant I had to face the fallout from it.
” I scanned the group and landed on Betty.
“Go ahead,” Betty mouthed, tipping her head.
“I mostly gave up pills after that but leaned heavily on alcohol. I kept thinking I just needed to numb things, ya know?” I searched for Maren.
“The only thing that accomplished was me losing everything important to me. I lost respect for myself. I lost the trust of my family. I lost track of my life. And, most importantly, I lost custody of my daughter after I drove drunk with her in the car.” I fidgeted, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.
“What I’ve come to learn is my alcoholism has taken so much away from me . . . I’m tired of losing.”
“Me too,” Kason spoke up, crossing his arms.
I nodded. “In the eight months since sobering up, I’ve realized the only way to stop losing is to stop using.
I’ve had to admit my wrongs and right them.
I’m slowly gaining respect for myself, working on regaining my family’s trust and custody of my daughter.
I pray every day that God would take the taste of unhealthy out of my mouth and I encourage you to do the same.
Thank you.” Cheeks hot, I darted back to my seat while everyone clapped.
I didn’t know—and probably never would—if my words mattered to anyone.
I guessed that wasn’t the point. My story—as humiliating and tragic as it was—needed to be shared.
I’d never told Maren how much her sharing her story helped me, so I just hoped someone here heard what needed to be heard and that it had the same effect on them.
Kason, lanky and sullen, made his way to the podium. He thinks the sun comes up just to hear him crow. I’d heard Olla use this expression once or twice and it definitely fit Kason. Mr. The World Owes Me.
“Dad found a bottle underneath the seat in my car, so he took my keys. I swear it’s old, but he won’t listen.” Kason rubbed his red eyes and groaned. “I can’t do nothing right.” Clearly, he hadn’t heard anything useful from me tonight.
My phone vibrated with a new text from Patsy in the MNS group chat. SOS. Emergency meeting tonight. Please attend if available. I looked around the fellowship hall as Kason continued to whine about the unfairness.
Making my apologies, I slipped out of the meeting as soon as Kason wrapped up his bemoaning. By the time I arrived, most everyone else was there gathered around Patsy’s dining room table.
“What’s the emergency?” Pearl asked, easing her arthritic body into a chair, grunting as she did.
All eyes were on Jackée as she silently cried.
Patsy exchanged a look with Jackée and patted her on the shoulder. “Jackée fell off the wagon.”
We waited a long pause, then Jackée told us in a hoarse voice, “Both boys are at sports camp and . . . well, I missed them and I was alone and lonely and bored. I was grocery shopping and walked right down the beverage aisle and before I knew it, I was back home with a case of Seagram’s.
I chugged three of them before I got myself under control.
” Jackée wiped her cheeks with a trembling hand and said through gritted teeth, “I’m so mad at myself! ”
I mainly kept quiet during meetings, but tonight it seemed I was in a talkative mood. “You stopped, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
“And then you came straight to us.” I eased around the table and knelt beside her chair.
“Jackée, you’re so brave. I have so much respect for you for doing that.
” I wrapped my arms around her and felt the trembling of her body.
I wished I were one of those people who could come up with wise comforting words on the fly, but that person I was not, so I hugged her tightly.
Gilbert showed up and elbowed his way to get to Jackée. “You screwed up. That don’t make you special.” Leave it to Gilbert. “But you coming here to get back on track immediately, now that, young lady, makes you special.” He winked at her and offered her a hug.
While we sat around the table in silence, Jackée started venting. It was the first time I heard her entire story.
“I had a volleyball scholarship. Nearly a full ride to the University of Southern California. But I screwed that up by sophomore year. Too much partying and very little studying. I failed a drug test and was kicked off the team. I moved back home with my parents and started stealing and pawning their belongings to pay for drugs and alcohol. They gave me an ultimatum: either go to rehab and get clean or they were kicking me out.”
“Did rehab help?” Bruno asked.
Jackée shrugged. “At first yes. I managed to get clean but made other dumb choices. I ended up having back-to-back pregnancies with two different men. Neither wanted to be fathers. Go figure.” She huffed a laugh.
“I did what I had to do. I took night classes for web design while raising my boys alone. I was exhausted all the time and a friend of mine shared her kid’s ADHD meds with me, saying it would give me the energy to be a mom and student.
She was right, but not long, that turned into a mess and I had to do an outpatient treatment for a while.
The constant up and down . . . It’s never going to get easier, is it?
” Her face crumbled as she sagged forward and began to sob.
We gathered close. I took one hand and Patsy the other while others placed a hand on her back.
No one offered platitudes nor judgment, just showed her grace.
That in itself gave me a lot to think about.
How the church was formed to be a place of grace for those needing healing of all kinds.
Physical. Spiritual. Emotional. This group didn’t look like the conventional AA meeting or church, but it certainly embodied the heart of both.