Dark Wine Waters - Frances Simone

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Writing Project, for early encouragement, to Laurie Helgoe, my water muse, and the “Welty” writers, Cat Pleska and Barbara O’Bryne. To my many colleagues and students, especially the teachers and writers of the West Virginia Writing Project. Drum rolls for Rosanna Reaser, who provided valuable feedback and unstinting support during the manuscript’s many incarnations. A standing ovation for Helen O’Reilly, CRP editor extraordinaire, whose comments and suggestions enriched my words. A chorus of gratitude to my twelve-step family and friends. Your experience, strength, and hope sustain me. Finally, to Simone E and Adam M, love always.

      We know ourselves by the stories we tell. My story captures the progression of my husband’s disease from the early, to middle, to late stages. I describe my husband’s attempts to control his drinking and my attempts to control him. All of that was in vain, but we didn’t know it at the time. Now I know better, and as I’ve learned in recovery, “if we knew better, we’d do better.”

      If writing is an act of discovery, then I came to know myself better as I wrote. Much of what I discovered about myself wasn’t pretty. But as my story took shape, I found the courage to admit my faults, face my fears, and forgive my husband and myself. Though the hardships I endured seemed so personal, I now know that only the particulars are unique. This book is dedicated to all who know the joys and sorrows of loving an addict. My story is your story. My recovery can be yours as well.

       Clear Water

      THE ADDICT HAS A “WOW” EXPERIENCE AND BEGINS TO FORM A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE DRUG. FAMILY MEMBERS MAY OBSERVE SUBTLE CHANGES IN PERSONALITY, AND A FORMIDABLE BARRIER TO COMMUNICATION APPEARS: DENIAL.

       Setting Sail

      I drank the water from your spring and felt the current take me.

      Rumi

      I live in currents. I am often caught and carried to places other than where I thought I was headed.

      That’s how, at thirty-four years of age, I found myself waiting for my first date in eighteen years. A blind date, no less, because on impulse I’d called a stranger from Texas and invited him to my rented cottage in the woods, off a dirt road on a cold October evening in a town where I knew next-to-no-one. In retrospect, that wasn’t wise. But I had misplaced my sense of propriety because I felt like a love-starved teenager who’d been dumped by her boyfriend.

      I had recently moved to Charleston, West Virginia, with my five-year-old son, Matt, and a broken heart. My divorce loomed ahead. The push-pull of a breakup-and-makeup ten-year marriage had depleted much of my native goodwill and emotional energy.

      One day my then husband announced “enough.” He’d moved out of our home and in with his girlfriend, and purchased a Datsun 280 ZX. Armed with a new PhD, but toting a shattered ego, I couldn’t decide whether to remain in Chapel Hill or look for a teaching position elsewhere. Back then, jobs in college English departments were in short supply. So I vacillated. My soon-to-be ex was a great dad who adored his young son. And I still loved him. But could I handle the humiliation of his shacking up with that other woman, a colleague from work? Chapel Hill is a small town and the university community even smaller. Stay, go. Go, stay. Then one day I decided to pop in on a friend to chew over the pros and cons of “the decision” once again. As I turned in to my friend’s driveway, I spotted my husband’s Datsun, alongside his girlfriend’s red Volvo. I bet they’re splashing around in the backyard pool, I thought. Maybe hugging and kissing underwater like two lovesick teens, while I’m drowning in jealousy and fear. My hands gripped the steering wheel. I shook and sobbed. I hit the gas and sped away.

      The next day I began applying for jobs out of state. A current carried me to the heart of Appalachia, a place where I never would have imagined that I would wash ashore.

      On a humid, late August morning, I slipped into a cool, dim auditorium for my first faculty orientation at a college in Stonehill, a coal mining town forty-five minutes from Charleston. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I spotted a striking-looking African-American woman near the back. She was dressed in black, with a kente cloth scarf draped around her neck. Her thin wrists were covered in silver bangles. She looks interesting, I thought, as I sank into a seat beside her. “You new, too?” I whispered. She smiled.

      “Yes, my name’s Marlene.”

      “Mine’s Fran.”

      We turned toward the stage for the business at hand. Two hours later, Marlene and I plunged into the noon heat and fumbled for cigarettes and matches (Marlene was a light smoker, always on the verge of quitting; I consumed a pack of Salem Menthols a day).

      “Did you understand even half of that stuff?” I wondered aloud. “Why do they have to go on and on about procedures and policies? Can’t they just send us a memo?”

      “Yeah, I’m still trying to figure out how I landed in Stonehill, West Virginia,” Marlene said. “The place seems so backward and primitive.”

      Like starving animals, we gnawed at the college’s deficiencies. Big city girls with attitudes—Marlene from Detroit, Michigan, and me from Queens, New York—we picked that campus apart over coffee and cigarettes in the faculty lounge during that first semester. Little escaped our scrutiny. Not the ancient campus buildings stacked like crates stuck onto the mountainside or the dank, musty offices in the administration building. Not the quirky faculty, like the humanities professor who kept a family of pet rabbits, all named Junior, in her cluttered office for many years. One cocky professor wore his Harley Davidson gear to class: black leather jacket complete with the logo, leather pants, boots, and long, stringy hair. It was rumored that this hell-raiser tried, with little success, to hit on eighteen-year-old coeds. And during lunch hour, a fraternity of staff members lumbered into the lounge, day after day, season after season, year after year, to play duplicate bridge.

      Although the students from surrounding towns were earnest and friendly, many were unprepared, as evidenced by the abundance of remedial English and math courses offered each semester. I was assigned five sections of “Developmental English.” Facing a class of twenty-plus students, many with brains but little preparation for college work, was a challenge, and I hardly knew where to begin. Not only did my students lack basic literacy skills, but many also lacked motivation, which was confirmed by their frequent absences and bogus excuses for missing class and turning in assignments late. During that first year of teaching, I treaded in rough pedagogical waters. But I learned more about teaching that year, from both my many failures and few successes, than during the subsequent thirty years (as I managed to stay afloat).

      Both college and coal mines define Stonehill, sandwiched on a strip of bottom land between steep hills, adjacent to the Kanawha River. CSX trains carry coal along tracks that slice the town’s midsection. Over the years, both the college and the mines had experienced a downturn.

      During that first semester, Marlene and I figuratively picked over the male species like shoppers fingering fresh produce at a farmer’s market. Each of us stood squarely at opposite ends of the love boat. Marlene was a blissful bride, and I, another casualty of divorce.

      “What do you think my chances are of meeting a decent single male around here? Not that I’m quite ready yet.”

      “I hate to tell you, but things don’t look too promising on this campus. Most of the male faculty are married. Then you have your total nerds and some weirdos.

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