We Can’t Give You Any Money.
It was the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday. I’d just realized I had no money to do laundry or eat, and I was hoping this would garner some sympathy from the one person who loved me in the world.
“Mom?”
“Kirsten?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
I could feel my mom tense, even through the wire. I’d tried to stay away from my family since Europe, so I wasn’t sure how much she knew about my life since I’d been fired.
“How are you?” she asked, already knowing.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’ve been doing temp jobs and stuff.”
“That’s good!” My mom has encouraged every tiny step I’ve ever taken for my whole life.
“Yeah but I don’t have any money to do laundry.” I laughed a little, hoping to get the point across without asking for money.
“Are you drinking?”
I calculated my response. I was doing acid as often as I could get my hands on it, and I was smoking pot in the mornings to alleviate my horrific hangovers. So I felt like I was drinking less often. (This was not true.)
“A little bit,” I said. I didn’t mention the drugs.
“We can’t give you any money,” my mom said.
“Well even five dollars would …” I started.
“We can’t give you any money,” she said again. Her voice shook.
My guilt was overwhelming. I was sorry I called but I didn’t hang up. I didn’t want to give up just yet.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I said. If I bought a 12-pack, I’d be broke. I felt lost and hopeless.
“The only thing we can do is to send you to therapy,” she said. “We would pay for therapy for you.”
“Therapy? What do you mean?”
“We would pay for you …” Mom stopped, breathed, started again. “We can pay for you to see a psychologist.”
“A psychologist? Why would I want to do that?”
“That’s all we can do for you,” she said.
I sat silently on the other end of the line. I didn’t want therapy. I wanted five dollars. I wanted beer. I wanted anything that could take me out of feeling like I did right now and numb the pain that no longer had any discernible origin.
“Therapy.” I sighed.
“Would you be willing to go to a therapist?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “What would I have to do?”
“You’d just sit down and talk to somebody,” my mom said. Then quickly: “And we would pay.”
Sit down and talk to somebody, I thought. How hard could that be?
I was still thinking when my mom repeated: “Would you be willing to go to a therapist?”
“I guess,” I said. “What do I have to do?”
“We’ll make an appointment,” she said. “You just go.” Then she gave me the name and address of a man who was, I was sure, the only therapist in the entire Pittsburgh area.
My mother must have been holding onto his information for a long time, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know then that he specialized in addiction, or that my parents had talked to him beforehand. She called a few days later with my appointment time.
Meanwhile I still didn’t have any money for beer, and it was getting late in the day. I needed to get that 12-pack.
“Okay thanks,” I said, somewhat disappointed in the result of the call. They’d never not offered money.
It was the first time my parents had denied my incessant cries for “help” … and the first time they actually helped me.