Bold and Simful

Francis Mendenhall seated himself in the Bettencourt’s living room, unaware that he was interrupting Maxine’s daily yoga session. “So what can I do for you?” Maxine inquired, it wasn’t often that her neighbor visited, in fact she was hard pressed to remember the last time he had stepped foot in her house.

“Nothing, I just wanted to get out of the house, it’s so empty with everyone gone,” Francis answered.

Maxine noted the slight inflection of regret and decided to ask about Francis’ wife, “How is Catherine doing? I hope she’s better soon.”

“She’ll be fine, she’s never had any self control. Weak-minded my mother called her,” Francis’ answer stunned Maxine and she stumbled for words but Francis didn’t seek to fill the silence.

“Oh, well…I, hmm…How are Elizabeth and Xavier doing at Hunter?” she struggled to find something they had in common.

“Not bad, I made Elizabeth the head of the Mendenhall Foundation the other day. She’ll have to take over our charity work since her mother screwed it up with her drinking,” Francis was obviously without consideration for anyone but himself.

“I didn’t know you did charity work?” Maxine questioned, hope rising in her voice, “Isn’t that a lot on top of her school work? College is so difficult.”

“Charity is a tax write off and no, it’s not too much for Elizabeth, she’s always been the smarter and more capable of my two kids,” Francis’ matter of fact response left Maxine literally cold.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to change. Robert will be right down,” Maxine hurried out of the room and on her way up the stairs, congratulated herself for keeping her mouth shut. When she had opened the door to Francis, she considered telling him what she now knew but thankfully she hadn’t. Francis didn’t care about anyone but himself and he surely wouldn’t care about a baby.

Maxine was still a little annoyed that Robert had taken so long to tell her that the Gibson’s had adopted Lydia. Had he told her sooner, she could have avoided a third trip to the convent because as soon as the word “adopted” came out of his mouth when she mentioned how little Lydia looked like Jay or Brenda, the whole scenario revealed itself like a movie in her mind. She could however tell from the look on his face that Robert hadn’t been watching the same movie.

“You can’t leave me here. Wait, wait, Francis! Don’t hang up!” Catherine demanded, panic rising in her voice, but the phone went dead. Horizons Rehabilitation Center residents were allowed one phone call per week and she had wasted hers on her husband. Glancing at her wedding ring, she was suddenly glad that it didn’t go all the way around her finger.

“Bastard!” she slammed the phone down and looked around her, gathered her composure and went in search of the doctor.

She found him and all the other residents seated for lunch. Apparently they had been waiting for her.

“We eat together, every meal we eat together,” Paul insisted from the far end of the table.

“Do you? How very Waltons,” Catherine spit back, glaring at him.

Dr. Holdon hung his head and grimaced at his burger, Rose was a nice old lady and she had a problem but sometimes she could be so annoying, prattling on in his ear about this or that. ‘Don’t let it show, don’t let it show,’ the mantra ran through his head.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Andie half turned to Catherine, “he’s just cranky today.”

Dr. Holdon got control of himself and raised his head, “Everyone, I would like you to meet Catherine. She’s new here, obviously, and I would appreciate it if you would have some patience as she adjusts to how we do things.” He glanced around the table at each resident in turn, “Catherine, please don’t be offended by Paul. We all have our good and bad days, but we are here to help each other and we’ve become like an extended family during our time here. Isn’t that right, everyone?”

Despite the doctor’s assertions of an extended family, Catherine soon found that taking away people’s addictions led to a lot of bickering and weird behavior. This little battle between Andie and Rose started over who was going to use the telescope.

Catherine couldn’t see that it was all that important, the house stood atop a high hill near the water so all one could see was fog in the valley below, ‘wonder if they did that on purpose, to isolate us even more,’ she wondered, sipping her coffee and watching the argument go on…and on…and on.

Paul, who seemed to be the resident suck up, reported on Wayne for creepiness in the shower which led to Catherine’s first official group therapy session.

Being called to a group session for something with which she was not involved did not sit well with Catherine and Wayne was indignant about being accused of something that he claimed not to have done.

“You’re in a shower, you’re talking, you have eyes, it happens,” Wayne protested, “Maybe he should have waited until we were done talking to hop in the shower.”

“Ok, ok Everyone breathe in, breath out, deep breath in…,” Dr. Holdon began to led the group through a calming exercise and while everyone around her breathed, Catherine huffed, ‘thanks for the instruction, without you I may have forgotten to breathe.‘ but she sat still and pretended. She had already realized that she would need to be nice to get what she wanted and what she wanted was a taxi ride home.

“Now, who has a problem they would like to discuss?” Dr. Holdon opened the floor of the session.

“I saw a hat that would go perfectly with my outfit,” Andie began, “and it was a struggle not to buy it. I couldn’t even let myself go in the store.”

“That’s very good, Andie,” Dr. Holdon congratulated her and Paul, sitting next to her, chimed in with his congratulations.

‘Suck up,’ Catherine thought, ‘why didn’t she just buy the hat? Are hats considered an addiction now?‘

After session, Dr. Holdon instructed everyone to take up their hobby. Hobbies were designed to keep hands busy, because as the good doctor kept reminding them “the devil finds mischief for idle hands”.

As Catherine crammed flowers into a vase, she wondered what exactly happened to the products. “They go in our inventory,” Rose explained from her station.

“Where is that? In my invisible backpack?” Catherine mumbled, shoving a lily so hard that she cracked the stem. “Damn it, I need a drink!”

“Dr. Holdon,” Paul called in the sing song voice of a tattle tale, “Catherine thinks she needs a drink.”

“I did say that I needed a drink, but I didn’t really mean a drink drink,” Catherine sniffled when the doctor called her into the living room.

“It’s ok, Catherine,” he comforted, “it’s going to take you some time to learn to deal with frustrations without a martini in your hand. The first step is admitting that you have a problem.”

Catherine wiped her eyes, “Do you really think I have a problem?”

“The people who care about you think you do.”

“People other than Francis?” Catherine was surprised to find out that the doctor had spoken to her neighbors and her children in the days since she first arrived. ‘oh my god, my kids think I’m a drunk?’ Suddenly a light dawned and she realized how often she had been intoxicated.

“I think I have a problem,” she admitted slowly.

Because of her breakthrough, Dr. Holdon had allowed Catherine a second call to her husband but when Francis picked up the phone, it wasn’t the conversation Catherine had imagined.

“I’m glad you finally figured it out, maybe now you can get some help,” Francis was not pleased to have his work interrupted by his wife who, in his opinion, was stating the obvious. “uh huh… alright…you stay there til you’re sober again.”

Back in the study, Francis found his secretary putting the last of the folders in his briefcase, “Please, pardon the interruption, Shelly. It was nothing, now where were we?”

 

Posted on June 13th, 2008 under Horizons Rehab, Mendenhall. Tags: catherine, francis, Mendenhall, rehab. RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback.