She’d never been a morning person—Dad was the early riser who had breakfast with me and would make me drink his freshly squeezed orange juice. When she was sober, she’d get up to kiss me good-bye and say, “Have a great day. I love you,” before I went to school. When she was drinking, though, she stayed in bed. In the evenings, she wandered aimlessly from room to room. Dad watched TV in the den. Mom would drift in. She sat down for a minute or two, not talking or paying attention to the show. Then she drifted out. She came into my room, said a few slurred words, and seemed fuzzy. Then she walked out. Sober Mom was purposeful, clear, and reliable. I could count on her. Drunk Mom was a muddled, blurry outline of a person. A dotted line of her movements around the house would look like the flight of a bumblebee, swirling and backtracking. I came to understand that her patterns weren’t as random as I thought. When she drifted out of the den or our rooms, she headed straight for the kitchen to sneak wine.
