New Life

by Lauren Waqa

The half empty bottle of Jack Daniels lay upright still in grasp of Sheila’s skinny, frail hands. The room had a stench of old Newport cigarettes and stale rum. You could tell someone had tried to cover up the smell with cheap lavender candles and rainforest Fabreeze found at the dollar store. Piles of cigarette ash nested within the whiskey- stained carpet making the air smell foul. There wasn’t much in the room but a beaten up, ancient green couch with dog bite marks on the armrest. They didn’t even own a dog. A hand-me-down oak coffee table stood in the middle of the room. It held numerous ash trays that apparently no one used. Empty, full, and half opened bottles of liquor covered the table. There were about twenty different cups throughout the house that each held samples of different types of booze.

Half of Sheila’s body hung off the side of the raggedy couch. She woke herself up with heavy breathing as she slowly dragged her half dead body into an upright position. Eyes still shut, she sloppily rummaged around the coffee table and quickly pulled out a cigarette. She lit the cigarette and inhaled with a smile as satisfaction filled her lungs. A long night of drinking deserves a freshly packed Newport. She looked around.

“Bobby? Bobby?” She yelled from the living room. “Bobby? Where the hell are you?”

She could hear a slight snore creeping from the back room. She slowly got up trying to catch her balance as she realized the whiskey was still sitting in her stomach. Eyes blurry and body weak, Sheila peered into her room and not to her surprise, found her boyfriend Bobby passed out on the mattress laid out on the floor. There was no bed, no bed stand, just a mattress.

“Now this is great,” she said sarcastically.

The roar of Bobby’s snores rumbled through Sheila’s head as she stood in the doorway. Sheila had been living alone for the past two months but recently had been thinking of letting her boyfriend Bobby stay with her. She had many roommates in the past. But all of them seemed to end up having the same reasons for moving out. It was because Sheila had a drinking problem. Day and night Sheila would down bottles to the face not caring what could and would happen to her.

She had been told to go get help and even her mother, who she hadn’t talked to in years, flew down from Maryland just to help her cope with her problem. No one ever knew why Sheila started drinking heavily. Some tried to blame it on the fact that her father left when she was seven years old. Some looked to genetics. Her grandmother was a raging alcoholic until she was 68 years old and eventually passed away due to a drunk driving accident. But Sheila had her own personal reasons. Sometimes her small body couldn’t even take it. She had been rushed to the hospital many times due to alcohol poisoning and even had her stomach pumped. Sheila was a small skinny girl. She was about 5 foot 2, 115 pounds with long dark brown hair. On a good day the long waves in her hair would flow in the brisk autumn breeze making her dark green eyes pop.

She began to pace through the dirty house collecting her old ratty alcohol filled containers. Surprisingly she began to straighten up the house with a lit cigarette in hand. The loud snoring of Bobby began to make its way into the kitchen as Sheila piled the dirty dishes in the sink along with the old moldy silverware. It wasn’t like Sheila to do something like this. It was on rare occasions that she tidied up the house. There was obviously something running through her mind. She leaned over the kitchen sink and began to dry heave. Tears slowly ran down her pale sweaty cheeks.

Footsteps began to fill the hallway as they got closer. Bobby had finally woken up. It was about 3:20 in the afternoon which meant the night ended around 5 am. Immediately, without saying a word, Bobby opened the fridge to find it empty.

“Damn! We finished off our last 12 pack last night. I’m going to run to the store to grab another couple packs of beer, let me get some money and the car keys.” Bobby demanded.

“Didn’t I lend you forty dollars last night to buy groceries for us?” she questioned.

“I had to put gas in the car to drive to the liquor store, and the whole tank costs about 30 bucks,” Bobby said.

“Bobby! What the hell! We have no food now! I gave you the last of my money! I don’t get another check until next week!” Sheila screamed.

He quickly turned around and stampeded into the room to go back to sleep.

You could never consider Bobby to be the best boyfriend. Sometimes you couldn’t even call him a friend. All he cared about was himself. He and Sheila had met at a small bar in San Diego that Bobby’s band was playing at. At the time he had no job, no car, and lived off the little money shared between his band mates when they rarely got booked for shows. Nothing much had changed with him except that he had Sheila in his life to use as a crutch. He relied on Sheila, who worked at the local grocery store, Henry’s, a couple blocks from her apartment. She had taken the last couple of days off because she hadn’t been feeling too well. She knew something wasn’t right about her.

They had known each other through mutual friends but never formally met one another. Ironically their first date was at the bar where it all began. Some seemed to think a pretty girl like Sheila dated Bobby because of his humorous personality, since he wasn’t much of a looker. Standing at about 5 foot 8 his pale white skin brought out his frosty blue eyes that sparkled in the sunlight. You could tell he hadn’t showered in at least two days according to his long blond oily hair that constantly covered his pale face. But there was something about him that Sheila seemed to be attached to. He was the only male figure in her life.

The vibrant sun beamed through the kitchen window where the old dusty curtains began to fail at keeping the sun out. Eyes squinting, Sheila began to realize what was coming her way. She stopped for a second and could start to feel all the alcohol from the night before come up again. The whole conversation with Bobby made her whole body nauseous. Out of nowhere she rapidly turned around and began to vomit into the sink full of old rusty dishes. Her head still over the kitchen sink she began to yell for Bobby.

“BOBBY! BOBBY!” she screamed. “Bobby, get in here quick!”

“What do you want woman? I’m trying to go back to...are you okay? You’re just having a little hangover vomit, you should be fine in an hour. Just take an Advil for your head and wash off your face. It will be all good,” he suggested.

He walked over to her and found a clean glass to give her some water to clear her throat.

“Have you ever thought about getting help? You know, for our drinking habits?” she asked with a raspy voice.

There was a silence in the room. With a smirk on his face he said, “What are you talking about? I don’t need help. And neither do you. We are fine just the way we are. Where is this question coming from?”

“Bobby look at us. You have no job, no money, and we barely have a place to live. I can’t work at a Henry’s for the rest of my life and support you. I’m ready to get the hell out of here and move on with my life. Maybe even check into some kind of rehab or we could go to AA meetings at night together. It would be healthy for us. I’m too young to be living my life this way. It’s time to move on.”

The look on Bobby’s face began to seem worried. His eyes were now wide open. You could tell he knew Sheila wasn’t joking around. Sweat started rolling down the side of his head. He knew he couldn’t keep living off of Sheila’s money and apartment. But he didn’t want to come to terms with it.

“Can I just ask where all this inspiration of making a new life crap came from? Because I know you didn’t just come up with this shit over night.”

“God damnit Bobby I’m being serious! Fine, you really want to know where this spur of the moment inspiration came from?”

“I would love to hear where you came up with this crap because honestly, just the thought of you pulling off this whole sober living crap would be…”

“I’m pregnant!” She yelled as she cut him off.

Everything stopped. The look on Bobby’s pale boney face went blank. You could see his eyes glaze over into another world thinking of something that has yet to come. Sheila leaned against the kitchen countertop with skinny hands covering her tear drenched face.

“What do you mean you’re pregnant?” Bobby asked.

“What the hell do you think I mean? I’m pregnant, and that’s all there is to it! I have no idea what I’m going to do yet,” Sheila said.

“What do you mean you don’t know? Your getting rid of it right? Look at the way we are living! We are in no mind set to have a child!” Bobby explained. “I never even wanted kids.”

Sheila quickly stood up from her chair giving Bobby a nasty glare that pierced through his body. Anger began to build up inside her the more Bobby spoke.

“That’s exactly my point! I’ve thought about it for a while and having this child would help us come into sober living. For the past eight years I’ve been hiding behind bottles of alcohol and now it’s time for me to move on. I can’t do this alone,” Sheila said.

“Sheila, you’re talking crazy. Do you actually think you are going to be able to have this child and not drink or smoke?”

“We can do it together. Me and you straightening out our lives,” She said.

“Honestly, I can’t even handle this right now. I want nothing to do with this! You are thinking crazy. So once you figure everything out and straighten out your head call me. I got to go. I have work in an hour,” He said as he walked out the door.

Sheila just stood there, speechless. She had finally realized how much time she had wasted with her dumb, so-called boyfriend. She grabbed her coat and ran outside.

“That’s what you’re going to do? Just run away and leave me? You don’t even have a job you lying asshole!” she yelled from the doorstep.

Bobby didn’t answer. He was wrong for running away from it all by the way he kept looking back seeing if Sheila was still watching. Sheila stood on the doorstep looking out at the pouring rain. She could see her breath for into a fat cloud reminding her she still had the rest of a Newport waiting on the table to smoke. She closed the door and walked over the worn out couch. The television was on. It was another old rerun of The Brady Bunch. She watched for a while and fantasized about how she could one day have a family just like them. How happy she could actually be living with a loving husband with a wonderful job, and all her children playing baseball in the backyard.

She finally snapped back into reality. There wasn’t much she was left with, but a ratty one bedroom apartment and her boyfriend who left her while being pregnant with his child. Rage and sorrow filled her body as she realized what she was getting herself into. As she sorted through the cups on the table eventually she found a clean one. She grabbed a two day old open bottle of rum sitting on the ground and poured herself a glass. Just as she was about to take a sip she stopped.

“What am I getting myself into?” she said to herself.

She looked down at her lit cigarette and glass full of run. That moment Sheila realized how much of a task this whole situation is really going to be. It was only in habit that Sheila would pick up a bottle of alcohol in order to numb her pain. What was she going to turn to now? This time instead of picking up a bottle she picked up the phone and made a call to Maryland.

“Mom? Bobby left.”

“Sheila? What are you talking about? I thought you and Bobby weren’t together anymore?” she questioned.

“We weren’t, until I found out I was pregnant.”

The phone went quiet. You could feel the tension through the phone as her mother, Jane, began to speak again.

“You mean the first time you call me in almost a year is to tell me you’re pregnant??? You are just one disaster after another! First it was the drinking which I could never handle, and then it was Bobby, and now you’re pregnant! Sheila, you need to get your shit together,” her mother screamed

Ever since Sheila moved to San Diego, her relationship with her mother went south. There were never any phone calls telling Jane about her day, work or anything that went on in Sheila’s life. It was almost as if Sheila had forgotten where she came from. Right after she barely graduated from high school, she immediately left her home town in Maryland to move to San Diego. She had no plans but to move out as soon as she got out of high school.

“I need you right now. I literally have no one I can turn to. I have no friends or family down here, I’m broke, Bobby left me and all I have is just myself.”

She took a drag of her cigarette and gave an exhale of satisfaction.

“Honestly Sheila, you need to figure things out on your own. You wanted to leave the house so soon and now look at you. How do you think I had you?” Jane said.

“What? You had me just fine. You said dad left us when I was just a baby,” Sheila said puzzled.

Thoughts began to run through her mind as if to what her mother was hiding. Was she having an affair and that’s why her father left? Or maybe Sheila was actually adopted and she never told her until now. What was she hiding for all these years?

“Where do you think you get your alcoholism from? Grandma Jenny? No. When I was your age I too had problems with drinking. It got so severe I even went to rehab. Every night I would wake up at a new place, whether it would be in an apartment, bar or even the doorstep to my house. I’ve done the whole nine yards, and let me be the first to finally tell you it isn’t all it’s put out to be. I’ve took myself to AA meetings, rehab, and therapy. You know what gave me the strength to do all that?”

“What?” Sheila said focusing in on the never told secrets her mother was hiding.

“You. I have been in your shoes. I was pregnant with you when I was going through my alcoholism. Having you made me realize what I could potentially be. A mother.”

Her mouth dropped. Everything had finally made sense to her now. Saving her baby’s life might be the way to save her own as well. Sheila knew what steps she needed to take in order to get her life back together and start fresh. The conversation carried into convincing Sheila to go back to Maryland to stay with her mother in order to straighten out her life.

Sheila hung up the phone and took a deep breath of relief. There was a lot of damage that needed to be done with her and she knew it was going to be a rollercoaster of a ride. Eyes wide open, she quickly took a glance to the coffee table looking for a glass. Her weak hand reached past the rum bottle while dodging ash trays full of cigarettes. She grabbed the glass filled with water. Her frail hands began to shake as she examined the cup. Her chapped lips clenched the rim as she took a taste of her new life that was yet to come.

By, Lauren Waqa