Up Till Now: The Autobiography

from his own experience what she was fighting, and he tried so hard. Leonard felt blessed that he had been able to stop drinking. We talked about his alcoholism, and he remembered being with Susan one night shortly after they were married and she asked him if he was happy. He was, he told her, he didn’t remember ever being happier. “Then why are you still drinking?” she asked.
    That was the day he got serious about stopping. And Leonard has always been extremely proud of the fact that he never had anotherdrink. So he knew what Nerine was going through and he got involved. It was one of the most noble acts of friendship I’d ever experienced, although I’m certain he would insist he did it for Nerine, not for me. He took her to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, he spent time just talking to her, he offered advice and suggestions to me. Leonard told me once that she didn’t want to stop, she had no intention of quitting. And until she reached that point, there was little I could do.
    The horror began when she went into rehab for the third time. As always, I was so hopeful that this time would be different. This time it would work, she’d stop drinking and we’d be happy forever after. About a week before she started we were at the horse farm in Lexington, Kentucky. It was a beautiful July night and we went out for a moonlight motorcycle ride. I stopped and we just stood there, listening to the rustle of the wind. It was a beautiful, sensual moment. “What will it take to get you to stop?” I asked.
    “If you’re with me twenty-four hours a day,” she said. “If you’re there, I won’t drink. That’ll stop me.”
    “Then I’ll be with you twenty-four hours a day,” I promised.
    She had been in rehab for only a few days when the director called. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You have to come and get Nerine. She’s drunk. We want her out of here now.”
    I had finally understood that our marriage couldn’t work and I was helpless to do anything about it. Once again, we began talking about a divorce. This time I was serious about it, I thought. She was drinking every day and there was nothing I could do to stop her. Finally I called the director of the rehab facility and begged her to take Nerine back. She was very reluctant, but finally I convinced her. She said, reluctantly, “Okay, Bill. Get her sober for one day and we’ll take her back.”
    One day is such a short period of time, but for Nerine it seemed impossibly long. One Monday morning I asked a friend of mine, a New York psychiatrist who had been working with addicts for years, to help me. She wanted to hold an intervention. “I’ll come out andyou get some of her family and friends together and we’ll confront her.” Nerine’s family couldn’t help, they had their own issues. So I got some friends together. We were going to hold the intervention on Tuesday and after that she would go back into rehab. Hope is resilient.
    After setting up the intervention I called the rehab center. “I’ll have her there tomorrow,” I said. Sober.
    I had planned to visit my grandchildren in Orange County that afternoon. Nerine had been drunk the night before, but had been sober in the morning. There were two people to help at the house, so I knew she wouldn’t be there alone. I decided to go. As I was backing out of the driveway she stopped me. “Where you going?”
    When I told her she asked to go with me. “I can’t,” I said. “Nerine, you’ve been drunk so many times in front of the kids that they’re fearful and I don’t want to go through that scene. I’ll be back in the evening.” Then I added, more from habit than anything else, “Please don’t drink.”
    As I put the car back into reverse she said softly, “Please don’t leave me, Bill.”
    “I’ll be back later,” I said and kept going. I spoke with her several times during the day. By eight-thirty that night I was in the car driving home. My daughter Melanie called me on my cell phone. “I can’t raise Nerine on her cell,” she said. “Can you call her on the land-line?” I tried calling the house several times, but there was no answer. When I got home about nine-thirty the house was quiet. We had three wonderful, loving Dobermans and they were attached to her—but they were in the kitchen. If she had been home they would have been with her. I called her name several times, walking around the house. When I got no response I just assumed she’d gone out. But I