STOOD IN THE SHOWER for a long time. She let the hot stream run over her, and then she had to sit down because she started to feel a little nauseous. Even from inside the shower, Claire could hear Weezy yelling up the stairs at people, giving orders.
“I can do this,” she said to herself as she shampooed her hair. It was fine. She could make it for an hour, then have a drink and some appetizers and she’d be fine. Thank God their cousin Drew wasn’t coming this year. Not that Claire didn’t love him, but when he came to family gatherings, they all abstained from drinking out of support. It was miserable. Well, all of them abstained except for Bets, who once told him that she thought alcoholics were people that couldn’t handle their liquor. “Maybe you’ll get the hang of it as you get older,” she’d said to him. Maureen was out smoking on the deck, but Weezy had stepped in to defend him.
“Mom, Drew has a disease and he’s been very brave in dealing with it,” she said, in a speech that would have made any Lifetime Movie writer proud. It was embarrassing to watch Weezy standing there, knowing that she thought she was doing something very important.
Weezy put her hand on Drew’s shoulder and the three of them stood in an awkward triangle, until Bets said, “Cancer is a disease. Not being able to drink is just a goddamn shame.”
Claire was all for abstaining when Drew was there, although sometimes she wondered if he really was an alcoholic or if maybe that was just where his problems showed themselves. He was only twenty-two when he went into rehab—a baby, practically. Which one of them wasn’t an irresponsible drinker at that age? But Claire kept this thought to herself, since Drew seemed to be doing well in the program and had gotten his life back on track.
The last time he’d come, two Thanksgivings ago, the dinner seemed to drag on forever as they’d sipped at Diet Cokes and some stupid raspberry spritzer that Weezy had made in an attempt to have a fun nonalcoholic cocktail. Bets had gotten drunk by herself, not needing any of them to join her. She was happy as a clam to down glass after glass, and all of them realized that she was much harder to deal with when they were all sober. As Drew had pulled out of the driveway that night, Weezy was already opening a bottle of red.
“Good God,” Claire said to Max. “It looks like Mom’s going to rip the cork out with her teeth.”
So, yes, it was better that Drew wasn’t coming. After all, Cathy was enough to deal with. The first year after she came out, she’d made a point to mention her sexuality at every turn. When she first brought Ruth to meet the family, she’d made a point to introduce her to Bets in a way that left no room for misinterpretation.
“Bets, this is my girlfriend, Ruth,” she said. “And by girlfriend, I mean sexual partner.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Max had said under his breath, and he and Claire had laughed. Martha shot them a look, like they were being rude, but really. She didn’t know why Cathy had to talk about her sex life all the time. No one else did. Claire was all for it, thought it was great and that Cathy should be who she was and they could all live life together. Cathy was the one that talked about it all the time, and that got tiring. It wasn’t like she’d invented being a lesbian.
“IT’S INTERESTING,” CATHY SAID ONCE at a family dinner. “Some people would think that my father being a misogynist had something to do with me being a lesbian. I don’t believe that sexuality is something we choose, but others disagree. Some think it’s something we learn.” Then she’d turned to Claire. “What do you think?”
Claire had just shrugged. How was one supposed to even answer that question? She didn’t remember Uncle Harold all that well. He’d been around when they were younger, and then he and Maureen had separated and he’d moved to Oregon. Claire hadn’t seen him since.
She remembered the time (the only time, she was pretty sure) that Cathy and Drew went to visit him there, how Cathy had called Maureen from some strange person’s house to tell her that she and Drew had been left there, that their dad had gone out and