a plastic package of tissues. She handed it to Colleen, who took it but did not pull one out; she wouldn’t give them that.
“You have been issued warnings, both verbal and written, and yet your performance continues to deteriorate. We believe you are an alcoholic and we want you to get help with your problem. Indeed, the university is willing to assist you. Our benefits will provide for time at a treatment centre and you can use the little sick leave you have left, as well as long-term leave, for the thirty days you’ll be away.”
Alcoholic. Away . Treatment centre . Colleen began to shake in earnest, the tremors starting in her thighs and moving into her belly andarms. She clenched her muscles, trying to control them, but that only made it worse. She shifted in her seat, rocking a little in an attempt to disguise the shudders.
“But here’s the bottom line, Colleen. You will agree to go home today, right now, since we don’t feel you’re in fit condition to work, and go into treatment tomorrow—I have arranged a bed for you at the Jane Ward Centre—or else we will be forced to terminate your employment, effective immediately. If you choose the first option, your job will be waiting for you upon successful completion of the thirty-day program, provided there are no further such incidents. You will also be tested for drug use, randomly, and for so long as we deem necessary.” Minot held her hand up, seeing Colleen was about to protest. “Let me finish, Colleen. If, however, you choose the second option—the termination—you will receive the severance and vacation pay owing to you, but that is all. The decision is entirely yours, Colleen, but Dr. Moore and I hope you will take the help we’re offering you. If you get, and stay, sober you can have a wonderful, healthy and productive life, Colleen, of that I have no doubt, but if you continue in this manner, your future is very dim indeed.”
Colleen wondered what gave this woman, whom she had never met before today, the right to tell her what her future would be like. If Colleen had Minot’s life, maybe she wouldn’t drink either. But she had her life, a fucking mess of a beat-down existence and who the hell wouldn’t have a drink? The idea of living without a drink at the end of each soul-numbing day to soften the wretchedloneliness of it all was impossible to imagine. The truth was, she was dying for a drink right now.
She rubbed her temples, willing the jackhammers over her eyes to quit it. “I’ve worked at the university for years.”
“We are aware of that,” the woman said, “but it doesn’t change anything.”
Colleen looked from Moore to Minot, back and forth, and everything became still. It was interesting: the direr the situation, the calmer Colleen typically became. She knew this about herself. She was one of those people who seemed made for crisis. Doubtless this skill was the better part of the legacy of growing up in a house with a madwoman.
It occurred to her that everything happening now might just be a trick of the light, some hallucination into which she’d fallen, like Alice down the rabbit hole. She might still be safe in her bed, dreaming a foul, cruel-hearted dream. She blinked, and then held her hands up to her eyes, pressing until black-and-white geometric patterns appeared on the inside of her lids. Take it back, God, she prayed, please take all of this morning back and I promise I’ll be better. She’d promised she wasn’t going to drink today and, so far, she hadn’t. This was some perverse joke of the universe, of some malevolent God focused entirely on her. Pound, pound, pound went the blood in the vessels across her forehead.
With any luck, she was having a stroke.
“We need your answer now, I’m afraid,” said Moore.
Colleen opened her eyes and was disappointed but not surprisedto find everything just as it had been. Was she never to get a break? Never to have a chance? The faces of her accusers were
“You have been issued warnings, both verbal and written, and yet your performance continues to deteriorate. We believe you are an alcoholic and we want you to get help with your problem. Indeed, the university is willing to assist you. Our benefits will provide for time at a treatment centre and you can use the little sick leave you have left, as well as long-term leave, for the thirty days you’ll be away.”
Alcoholic. Away . Treatment centre . Colleen began to shake in earnest, the tremors starting in her thighs and moving into her belly andarms. She clenched her muscles, trying to control them, but that only made it worse. She shifted in her seat, rocking a little in an attempt to disguise the shudders.
“But here’s the bottom line, Colleen. You will agree to go home today, right now, since we don’t feel you’re in fit condition to work, and go into treatment tomorrow—I have arranged a bed for you at the Jane Ward Centre—or else we will be forced to terminate your employment, effective immediately. If you choose the first option, your job will be waiting for you upon successful completion of the thirty-day program, provided there are no further such incidents. You will also be tested for drug use, randomly, and for so long as we deem necessary.” Minot held her hand up, seeing Colleen was about to protest. “Let me finish, Colleen. If, however, you choose the second option—the termination—you will receive the severance and vacation pay owing to you, but that is all. The decision is entirely yours, Colleen, but Dr. Moore and I hope you will take the help we’re offering you. If you get, and stay, sober you can have a wonderful, healthy and productive life, Colleen, of that I have no doubt, but if you continue in this manner, your future is very dim indeed.”
Colleen wondered what gave this woman, whom she had never met before today, the right to tell her what her future would be like. If Colleen had Minot’s life, maybe she wouldn’t drink either. But she had her life, a fucking mess of a beat-down existence and who the hell wouldn’t have a drink? The idea of living without a drink at the end of each soul-numbing day to soften the wretchedloneliness of it all was impossible to imagine. The truth was, she was dying for a drink right now.
She rubbed her temples, willing the jackhammers over her eyes to quit it. “I’ve worked at the university for years.”
“We are aware of that,” the woman said, “but it doesn’t change anything.”
Colleen looked from Moore to Minot, back and forth, and everything became still. It was interesting: the direr the situation, the calmer Colleen typically became. She knew this about herself. She was one of those people who seemed made for crisis. Doubtless this skill was the better part of the legacy of growing up in a house with a madwoman.
It occurred to her that everything happening now might just be a trick of the light, some hallucination into which she’d fallen, like Alice down the rabbit hole. She might still be safe in her bed, dreaming a foul, cruel-hearted dream. She blinked, and then held her hands up to her eyes, pressing until black-and-white geometric patterns appeared on the inside of her lids. Take it back, God, she prayed, please take all of this morning back and I promise I’ll be better. She’d promised she wasn’t going to drink today and, so far, she hadn’t. This was some perverse joke of the universe, of some malevolent God focused entirely on her. Pound, pound, pound went the blood in the vessels across her forehead.
With any luck, she was having a stroke.
“We need your answer now, I’m afraid,” said Moore.
Colleen opened her eyes and was disappointed but not surprisedto find everything just as it had been. Was she never to get a break? Never to have a chance? The faces of her accusers were
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