I am off today. It's my second day off. The first day off, I rattle around the house like a pinball and feel guilty for not doing anything, but truly, I can't think. I spent most of the day on the couch, reading Pillars of Earth by Ken Follett. It's tightly plotted, but there's no joy in the writing, you know? The story gets told, but the sentences never bloom. In the car, when I can wrestle control of the radio away from my daughter, Lilly, I've been listening to Brideshead Revisited. It's funny and sad, too, and it really hits at the heart of being deeply involved with an alcoholic. We all talked about that at dinner last night. We went to our favorite Italian restaurant and sat on the empty terrace. It was pretty cold, but we all had sweaters. We all brought our books. We eat out all the time. Almost every night. I know we shouldn't, but we always have such a nice time. At home, the kids eat fast, then disappear--online, homework, the phone. In the restaurant, they actually talk to me for something like 45 minutes!
We had all been reading at the table--we always bring books everywhere we go--when Nick put down his book and said, "Ok, are Sebastian and Charles gay?"
"I think so, maybe--he doesn't really say it directly, does he?"
And then Lilly said, "Do you think I'm gay?"
This is a question they both seem to be stuck on. I remember being stuck on it, too, at that age. I was really afraid of being gay.
Nick and I both say at the same time, "it's okay if you're gay." And then we all start laughing.
"Would I know by now, if I were?" Lilly asked
"Maybe..." Isaid, nervously putting butter on my bread. I hate talking about sex with the kids. Ackk!
"How would I know?" She persists.
"Do you want to hug and kiss other girls?"
"ugh blechh" she says.
"Do you want to kiss boys--I don't know, David or Eli or Brian?"
"Yuck gross."
"Okay, none of the boys you know now--but maybe sometime somewhere. Like the guy in Across the Universe."
"Oh. Okay."
The waitress comes back to our table. I order a glass of wine. Lilly and I are both vegetarians, so we get pesto--Nick seems to subsist mainly on turkey sandwiches. He orders a turkey sandwich. She leaves.
"The big issue with Sebastian," Nick said "is that he's an alcoholic."
Their dad was was an alcoholic. Now he's a born again christian, married to a paralegal with fake breasts. She used to be his secretary. I'm intrigued by the fake breasts, because they were purchased in lieu of paying Lilly's tuition. My father saw them last summer, when he dropped the kids off. Not all of them, obviously. Just their...effects. "Nice?" I asked him. He paused, thought, smiled. "Yes, very nice."

Nick and Lilly don't know their dad was an alcoholic, they don't know that their stepmom was his secretary, they don't know he doesn't help financially, ever. Or at least, until last night, I didn't think they knew anything about all that.
"It's funny," Lilly said, "you know, we've got all these drugs nowlike meth and whatever, but we could have just kept fucking everything up with alcohol. It was doing a perfectly good job."
"Don't say fuck."
She rolls her eyes. "Okay. Screw. Mess. Sorry."
"Yeah, we forget. Addiction is always the same beast, isn't it?"
"It just takes over their world, all about him. Everything becomes about him." Nick took a big bite of bread.
"Break it off," I corrected him. "Don't put the whole thing in your mouth." So of course, that's what he does, then he smiles with the bread over his teeth and makes monster noises. And then, with his mouth all full of bread, he said, "Dad wath n alcoholic, right?"
"What?" I didn't understand him at first.
He swallows the bread, drinks some Mountain Dew, and repeats himself.
"Did he talk to you about that?"I asked. I hoped my parents hadn't been talking about it.
"Yep."
I felt relieved. "Yep." I had no idea how far to take this conversation.
"He's better now." Lilly interjected.
"Well, good." I said.
And that seemed to be that. Funny world. Nicholas drove us home. He just got his license. No one was out on the streets, thank god. Who goes out to eat at 9pm on a Monday night? Us.
At home we all went back to reading. Nick commandeered the stereo and we all had to listen to the Chess soundtrack, which is his favorite piece of music. We trade off turns on the music at night, so we all have to suffer equally. Then we went to sleep. Nick always sleeps on the couch. He has a bedroom and a perfectly good bed but he says he feels safer on the couch. He started sleeping there when he was 8, right after we moved into the house. I let him do it a few nights, then it just never stopped. Oh well. I think about our sleeping princess in the ICU, I wonder if her mother ever came back. I think about how blessed I am to have children who will wake up.