He never knew that I already blamed myself. She never knew either. I only bought him one bottle of Crown Royal in my life, and I never bought him Coor’s Light, though he went through several bottles and six packs a week. I bought that bottle during the worst fight we ever had. I caved. I weakened because I just wanted the threats, the hateful words, and the screaming to stop. So I bought it and brought it home for him. And when I laid it on the counter I told him that I hated him for forcing me to do it. His friends brought him plenty, so he never asked me again.
He never knew that almost twenty years later I have never bought a bottle of whiskey since. Ever. For anyone. And that I can’t watch a Coor’s Light Commercial or see the purple label threading around the neck of a Crown Royal Bottle without my stomach surging into my throat.
He never knew that one of his friends made a joke that we should put a six-pack of Coors Light in his coffin and I told that man to go to Hell at the graveside. He was one of the friends that stocked my dad up on alcohol, but when he thought he might get one of daddy’s trucks or something else of his, he lied to my Grandmother and told her that I was the one that always bought it for him.
He never knew that our family splintered into a thousand tiny shards after his death. That the tension was like a thick wet quilt weighing each of us down until we could somehow claw our way out of it. Some of us never did.
He never knew that I finally gave in numbly to my husband’s convincing that if I just got pregnant, the sadness would succumb to the joy of having a child.
He never knew that it didn’t work, that the joy and the sadness joined forces in an overwhelming wave of emotions, stronger than any riptide, often bringing me to my knees while I carried the baby and almost overtaking me after his grandson was born.
He never knew that the traits I got from trying to keep our world together while I was growing up stay with me still today. That the codependent nature I got from trying to keep the pieces together while everything was falling apart still pull me like a magnet to the most fragmented and damaged of men. The ones that have nothing left to give.
He never knew that a few years after his death, my sister bought her first bottle of Crown to toast him. Then she bought another. Then another, and another. He never knew that she was arrested for DUI a few years after that while she and her family battled the wake of yet another addiction.
He never knew that when I walked through the white halls of the hospital to leave that day, I made a promise to myself that I would never lie to anyone when they asked me what happened to him. That I would always tell them that he died from alcoholism, no matter how much it hurt me to do it. Part of it was because I was mad at that nurse for telling me that I was in denial, and part of it was because I knew she was right.