Apples Fall in Pairs

The last time Stacey saw her mom was a year ago when she visited for four days during the summer while her daughter, Nancy, was at summer camp. Stacey chose to visit without her daughter because this wasn’t a vacation. The visit was to determine if Stacey could handle moving back home to care for her alcoholic mother. 

Stacey was raised in a dysfunctional yet loving family. Dysfunctional because her dad was a cheater and her mom a drunk. She often thought that her dad cheated because her mom was a drunk and her mom was a drunk because her dad cheated. Yet, they always did their best for Stacey. 

Though their best wasn’t enough. Stacey started working at thirteen as a babysitter in her neighborhood. A neighborhood of working class people who lived their lives mixed with a decent income and enough faith to be content with what they had.

Stacey’s dad worked as a traveling construction worker. He mostly picked up projects on the East Coast and down South so he could at least drive to half of his contracts. Flying Comfort Plus was some of the most luxury he experienced. Though he did gain enough points for United Airlines to get free upgrades to First Class.

But it was the women he slept with that he looked most forward to on his trips. No matter how challenging the project was, the reward of a happy ending massage, or a visit to the strip clubs, or picking up a woman at a bar was enough motivation to work hard and get paid. 

He hurt his back on one construction project in Atlanta. He had to get back surgery and almost died during the procedure. He never fully recovered from that surgery. Always had major pain. That pain got him addicted to painkillers like Percocet and Opioids. He overdosed while taking a bath. Technically, it wasn’t the drugs that killed him. The drugs caused him to blackout. He died from drowning.

Stacey was already a Sophomore in college when her dad died. She went to college as soon as she graduated high school. She didn’t have the grades for high dollar scholarships, but she was determined to get away from her family’s curse as soon as possible. However many loans she had to take out she was going to make it work.

She went to the University of Maryland. She stayed at her mom’s house for the weekend of her dad’s funeral on Saturday and drove back to college Sunday evening. Stacey’s mom took the death of her father hard, but staying home to help her mom in her grief was even harder. Stacey couldn’t afford to allow herself to get distracted from the pursuit of happiness.

Stacey graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. She had a job waiting for her upon graduating with an $80,000 annual salary, and that kind of money felt like six figures for a 22 year old. 

At 25 she bought her first home and went to the sperm bank to have a baby with a white man with black hair and brown eyes because Stacey wanted to be a single mother. For the past three years she researched the challenges of being a single mother. She learned that it takes a village to raise a child but a village didn’t come free and her family wasn’t a village, they were goons and goblins. 

Stacey did well raising her daughter, Nancy. She looked more like her father. Black hair and brown eyes. When Nancy turned five years old Stacey had gotten promoted to HR Director. They took vacations twice a year. One cruise and one flight to a foreign place. Sometimes they took a third vacation. A staycation in D.C. or New York that was only a three hour drive away.

All this time it was only Stacey and Nancy. Every vacation, Stacey imagined what it would be like to have her mother experiencing the world along with her daughter and granddaughter. But Stacey was always reluctant to have her mother around her daughter. She believed in generational curses and didn’t want to put Nancy at risk when Stacey felt like she escaped.

Although, Stacey brought her mom along to some of the staycations. She at least wanted Nancy to know her grandmother. Stacey’s mom managed to not get stupid drunk during the staycations, but she always got a drink at the restaurants they went to.

Nancy was never allowed to spend the night at her grandma’s house. Let alone spend time at her grandma’s house without Stacey there. Nancy’s grandma lived like a hoarder. She held on to clothes and toys from Stacy’s childhood. She kept all of her husband’s things. It’s understandable to keep some special things for memories like photos, and things that meant the most to the person, but to keep everything over years is living in denial that the person is gone.

Stacey’s mom lived in denial that her husband died just as she lived in denial that she had a drinking problem. Stacey felt bad though knowing that her mom’s health was only deteriorating and it wouldn’t be long before her mom would not be able to care for herself at all. Stacey spoke with a therapist for advice and was informed that Stacey would not be able to maintain the peaceful life she built for herself and her daughter if she moved close to her mom. 

The therapist also mentioned that if Stacey moved back home she would still have to outsource responsibilities to care for her mom like a home nurse, and resources to help her with her alcoholism–and thats if her mom is even willing to accept help for her alcoholism.

Stacey decided that she would take a more active role in offering resources to help her mom with her alcoholism and living condition but we maintain her distance. Nancy would continue visiting her grandmother only with Stacey’s supervision.

Stacey tried for six months to get her mom to accept an alcohol rehab but her mom refused. One day Stacey’s mom fell down the stairs and hurt her leg enough to walk with a limp but nothing was broken. The hoarding became so bad that Stacey no longer allowed her daughter to visit from fear of catching a disease. 

Stacey’s mom caught pneumonia during the winter and died a month after the diagnosis. Technically, it wasn’t the pneumonia that killed her, but the smoking and drinking with pneumonia that caused her immune system to say “fuck this,” and shut down.

A few days after her mother’s funeral she had cleaners come out and throw away all the junk in her mom’s house and donate what was salvageable. At the end of the cleanup Stacey was tired and thirsty and looked in the fridge if there was anything drinkable. Nothing but some spoiled milk the movers must have forgotten. She looked in the freezer and saw a bottle of rum. There were some plastic cups on the counter that the movers used during their breaks. Stacey poured herself a shot. Then another.