The first time she heard “Cadillac Ranch”, she was riding in a Jeep with her dad and they were going to the cabin in the woods. They were singing loudly, as they busted through the tree branches hanging low over the dirt road. That was her earliest memory and one of her happiest. It was always the one she thought of when she was standing in the fluorescent light of the fridge. Makenzie slammed the refrigerator door and shut her eyes tightly. She shook her head a little, almost as if she were literally shaking the memory from her mind. Like an etch-a-sketch, she always hoped that she could just shake it with both hands and she could start over new on a fresh, blank screen.
Somehow she always went through this battle, trying so hard to refuse that bottle, but always giving in to the urges. Her hands shook as she attempted to smooth the furrows between her eyebrows. Tears filled the corners of her eyes and the back of her throat ached. She rested her head against the fridge door and prayed to God. Prayed for everything she could think of. Prayed for some sort of release. She knew it might never come.
As she stepped back from the refrigerator, the phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. It was her mother, again. She was always calling, making sure she was ok, always asking too many questions, pushing too many buttons. After the first few questions, she would just turn off and stop listening, just mumble some “mmhmms” and “yeahs”. Eventually her mother would get the hint and say goodbye followed by an “I love you”. And Makenzie would always respond with a “you too”. The L word never made it across her lips, except to her Daddy.
She almost made it to the living room after the answering machine finally picked up. And then she stopped, listening to her mother’s message, and she walked back to the kitchen. She ran her fingers through her chestnut brown hair and reached for the fridge handle. She yanked open the door and quickly grappled for the bottle of red wine, popping the cork and gulping down the sweet liquid without even taking a breath. Every motion was hasty and fumbling, as if someone might be watching. The more she gulped, the faster the numbness would come.
Mackenzie stepped back from the fridge and shut the door slowly, bottle in hand. Tiptoeing out of the kitchen, into the living room, she slumped into her Pottery Barn couch. This was how her nights regularly went, home from the office, bottle of wine, no dinner, and pass out on the couch. Tonight was no different. In fact, tonight may have been worse because she knew what tomorrow entailed. Tomorrow, she knew, was going to be more than she could handle. At 9 am she was supposed to sign the papers to make her divorce final. She would have to come face to face with the one man that she hated most, and worst of all she had to go sober. There would be no defense mechanism, no fog to keep her from bursting into tears, or even more possibly, bursting into a fury of rage.
Her rage had surrounded her from as far back as she could remember. There was always a bubble that surrounded her, keeping her from showing her true self. There was a side to her that not many people had seen. A side that was absolutely out of her control and something she wanted no one to witness, not even her self.
As she sunk deeper into the couch, her stupor intensified. Her thoughts faded into the night as the second bottle emptied quickly. Her eyelids became heavy and rolled back into her head. Her hands and body finally relaxed after a day filled with tenseness and anxiety. Her red wine was the only thing she had found that could bring this sort of relief. She gave in to the alcohol and passed out, forgetting what she had to face tomorrow.
*****
“Cadillac, cadillac, Long and dark, shiny and black, Open up your engines let `em roar Tearing up the highway like a big old dinosaur”. Mackenzie jumped as her cell phone alarm went off, vibrating on the coffee table in front of her. The song brought her back to her childhood with her dad, but she was quickly brought back to reality and what today entailed. There was no way around it. She had to face the present in order to get on with the rest of her life. She knew this, but couldn’t quite convince herself it was the right decision.
Slowly rising from the couch, she rubbed her eyes with the palm of her hands. She yawned and gripped the table in front of her for balance, feeling the lingering effect of the bottle. Her feet dragged on the carpet. Her head throbbed, pounding directly behind her eyes. She stripped down to bare skin and stumbled into the shower. The scalding water served as relief from the hangover taking over her body.
After her usual routine, she stepped out of the shower, grabbing her towel from the hook. Slowly, she dried her face and then her body, leaving her long brown hair for last. Her twenty minute routine of clothes, makeup, and scrunching her curly hair seemed longer than usual. She knew she needed food so she ventured into the kitchen.
Mackenzie grabbed for the cereal in the cabinet and then opened the fridge. In front of the skim milk, was the empty spot where the bottle had been the night before. It was always there, the next morning, reminding her of her problem. She poured herself a bowl of cereal and carefully poured just enough milk to cover the frosted flakes. She hated drinking the leftover milk afterwards so she was always careful to pour just the right amount. Her mother had yelled at her about this when she was young, so she was always aware of it now.
When she was done with her cereal she walked slowly to the front door. She paused for a minute as she grabbed her hoodie from the back of the door, where the empty hook was. That was where his always hung before, and she could never get past it when she was on her way out, especially today, when everything seemed to echo his name and his habits and the void of him not being there. She grabbed for the doorknob with one hand, and clutched her car keys in the other.
Mackenzie tiptoed down the stairs, hoping no one would hear her, and wishing she wasn’t about to go to her lawyer’s office. It was the day she had been dreading for weeks. There was no turning back after today, and it seemed as though there was no tomorrow. She felt as if this might be the last day of the rest of her life. She feared that she would never have anyone again. She yearned to go back in time and erase all the decisions she had made and the ones he made for her, most of them being made without her consent.
That was a lie she told herself, that the decisions were made without her consent. The truth was that she was never sober long enough to make them, so he did.
“Jesus, Kenz, we talked about this. I can’t rehash every decision we make four times because you either blackout or passout.” Taylor muttered.
“I don’t always blackout! You come home late, and I’m already asleep. How am I supposed to make any decisions with you if you’re never home!” Mackenzie said. She was always making excuses or justifying her drinking, never admitting to even herself that it was the only thing that got her through the day.
“I’m not doing this with you again. The decision has already been made. I’m moving out and you can keep the apartment. If I don’t let you have it, you’ll end up on the streets or something. Your money never makes it to the bank anymore, only to the register at the liquor store. I can’t live like this.” Taylor said, his voice trembling a little.
“Live like what, Taylor? This is normal, but obviously you need perfection. I’ll never be perfect. Not for you anyway.”
“I’m not the one demanding perfection Kenz, you are. Until you’re happy with yourself, I’ll never be what you want or need. Here’s the papers. I’ll be out by Friday.”
She blinked, snapping herself out of the trance that had taken over her thoughts. She looked around, getting her bearings in the downtown streets. She had been driving for almost a half an hour and hadn’t paid attention to anything but her own thoughts. It was the conversation she had gone over a million times in her head, trying to figure out what she could have done to make him stay.
“Nothing.” Mackenzie said out loud.
Her spoken words startled her in the silence of her Jetta. Her voice always startled her a little, as she kept quiet most of the time, even when she was around other people. He was gone, she realized and there was nothing she could do about it. She reminded herself that she was on her way to the final hearing for her divorce.
Parking her car next to a BMW, she took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel tightly. Her knuckles whitened as she willed herself to get out of the car. Finally, with a deep sigh, she opened the car door. Her heels clicked against the concrete of the parking garage and she got out of the car. Mackenzie made her way to the elevator and went back down to the ground floor. The elevator door opened and she straightened her skirt.
She made her way down the sidewalk towards the huge concrete building ahead of her. She breathed deeply as she walked up the courthouse steps and resolved, for the millionth time, to not drink tonight. The promise was genuine but was, as always, another lie.
