It was 7 a.m. when my cell phone rang. I had just dropped my son at school and was running late to take my daughter. Then I had to race to pick up my dry cleaning, get home, get myself ready and drive across town for my sales meeting. I was stressed to the max and didn't recognize the number.
"This is Sonja," I said in my most cheerful and professional-sounding voice in case it was a client.
"Sonja?" It was a man's voice and he sounded as though he were crying.
"Yes," I said slowly.
"It's me, Joe," he said, sniveling. I raced through my mental man-o-dex. Joe, Joe, who the hell is Joe?
"Your brother," he said, sensing my hesitation, the strain in his voice obvious.
My heart sped up. I hadn't spoken to my brother for years or to anyone in my family for that matter. This had to be bad news. Maddy must be dead. Maybe even for real this time. Even as the thought crossed my mind, I was aware that if that was the reason for the call, he shouldn't have bothered. I didn't give a shit.
Maddy is the name of the woman who gave birth to me and my six younger brothers and sisters; the first four of us shared one father (so we were told) from her first marriage; the last three were a product of her fifth marriage. The nightmare that was my childhood played out somewhere between those two men. So much of that time is a complete blank in my mind. The mind is an amazing thing, isn't it? It protects us from that which we cannot bear to remember. Just hearing my brother's voice on the other end of my phone brought back an immediate flood of the ugliness that I did remember, and I hated it.
As I sat in traffic, waiting to hear why he had called, my thoughts betrayed me and raced back in time, to memories of Maddy.
I hadn't referred to her as "Mom" in a skillion years. As far as I was concerned, she had lost that privilege when I was a little girl. A mom is someone who cares, who loves unconditionally, and who nurtures, someone who would sacrifice anything for the safety and well-being of her children, not someone who would sacrifice her child for her own freedom. That is exactly what Maddy had done to me, and we both knew it.
She was going to school during the day, studying communications. At night, she'd landed a job as a security guard at Caesars Palace; she had fought with my father for years for the opportunity to take classes and have a career. Being the machismo Latino that he was, he wouldn't allow his wife to work and go to school. Who would take care of his needs at home if she weren't there? It didn't take him too long to figure that out.
Night after night as I sat at the dinner table across from my abuser as my mother went off to her fabulous job, my resentment and hatred grew. She knew what he was doing to me, how could she not?
I had gone from a flourishing 12-year-old to a dirty, greasy introvert covered in self-produced cuts and sores. I stopped bathing, wrongly thinking that if I weren't clean he would leave me alone. He didn't. My soul started to unravel as the months became years and I knew I couldn't take it for much longer.
And then I didn't have to. My parents were having one of the colossal fights that my brothers and sister and I had become accustomed to and then the gun went off. Justifiable homicide is what they called it. And just like that, he was gone and I was free. She was too. Free to take her children on a journey through hell, a string of men, each one sicker than the one before, and a life full addiction and disgrace. I learned a lot about relationships from Maddy; I learned how to detach. If you never get attached, you never get hurt.
Ah, sweet Maddy, the woman who bore the tracks of my tears up and down her forearms and between her toes, wherever there was a vein that she could shoot junk into. No, I haven't referred to her as "Mom" for about a skillion years because to me, she had died a lifetime ago.
"Sonja," said my brother, interrupting my trance. "Maddy is back on the junk and I can't help her anymore. She threw me out, me and Chance," he said, referring to our 19-year-old half- brother. "I don't know what to do." He started to cry again.
Stay detached. It's not your problem anymore.
I inhaled deeply before answering. "I don't know much about healthy families or healthy relationships in general other than what I've read in books and seen on TV, but as far as I can tell, they are there for one another no matter what. First you're gonna stop your crying. You aren't doing anyone any favors by enabling her to continue her drug abuse while you support her. Then, you need to pack your things, everything that is important to you, because we both know she'll set fire to anything you leave behind. And finally ... you guys are going to come to my house. You can stay as long as you need to. Understand?"
"Are you sure?" he asked, sounding stronger than he had before.
I didn't hesitate for even one second before answering: "Absolutely not."
Sonja is a writer who covers the ins and outs of relationships. Or is it the ups and downs?