Drunk Mom by Jowita Bydlowska

Author:Jowita Bydlowska [Bydlowska, Jowita]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-385-67781-3
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2013-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

I’m back in the hospital first thing in the morning.

I spend hours in the hospital, in more waiting rooms, with the baby in the sling. My beloved boyfriend may be going blind. I cannot think about it.

I want to ask the surgeon if it’s possible to take my eye out and give it to him. I am a failure anyway. I am wasting my beautiful, healthy eyes on looking at labels on bottles, on reading charts online about how long alcohol stays in breast milk. I don’t deserve my eyes. Is there a way to make this swap?

Stop freaking out, my boyfriend’s voice echoes in my head. This is not about you.

Make yourself useful, I order myself.

When he lies in recovery, I go to get him his favourite Booster Juice. I get lost in the hospital on the way back. A very tired doctor tells me I could take the staircase—it will be faster. He doesn’t seem to notice the baby on my hip, my frantic and useless eyes. I thank him and he unlocks the staircase door with a card.

I carry the cardboard tray with the cup via the emergency staircase. I feel special—I was let into the secret passage. This sort of adventure is perfect for my secret-agent ways. I’m walking up flights of stairs, balancing the tray and the baby on my hip, in the sling.

When I get to the right floor the door seems to be locked from the outside.

The baby is stirring.

I am sober. I’ve been sober for a long time now, long for me at least. I sit on the cold stairs and breastfeed.

The juice cup is sweating. Droplets of water sparkle sickly in the fluorescent light of the staircase.

I hear the door open above me.

I shout to wait for me. I shout that I’m locked in here and that there’s an emergency. People come down and somebody takes my tray and we walk through the door and I’m led to the recovery room.

I run into my boyfriend’s surgeon and he says that the surgery was successful. I ask him if my boyfriend will be able to see once he recovers.

There’s an 80 per cent chance, the surgeon says.

I don’t like that. I want more.

Yes, I always want more. But right now I really need more. Just 20 per cent more.

Anything else? the surgeon says.

No.

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