“I’m hoping I’ve hit rock bottom. Nick catching me drinking whilst caring for Fleur. … I’m a heavy and daily drinking (sic)” – Laura Bailey, August 2023
Most people check for their wallet, keys, and phone before leaving the house. I checked for vodka.
During the latter half of 2023, many days began with a ritual I wouldn’t wish on anyone: a sweep of the house. Bathroom cabinets, closets, under furniture; places no one should have to associate with liquor bottles, but where I had learned to look.
It wasn’t paranoia. It was about my daughter. I had to know she was safe if I left her with Laura, even for an hour. This was the summer of plastic shopping bags as baby toys and precariously balanced slabs of granite. The summer of booze-fueled emergency room visits and disasters narrowly avoided. I was in an impossible position: trying to keep an eye on the chaos while Laura did everything she could to shut me out.
Vodka was the usual suspect, but not the only one. White wine and prosecco often came along for the ride. I’d find half-empty bottles stashed in warm drawers, like a fucked up time capsule. To keep up appearances, she’d stock the fridge with nonalcoholic wine and pour it with mock discipline. Meanwhile, vodka and room-temperature prosecco disappeared at a pace that could make a bartender blush.
The props didn’t stop at bottles. I started finding toothbrushes and toothpaste hidden around the house. Wedged in bathroom cabinets, tucked into drawers, left in odd corners like decoys. The supporting cast in a theatre of concealment.
And then there was the bag. The large black Yves Saint Laurent, always at her side, never just an accessory. Inside were two identical water bottles: one with water, one with vodka. That wasn’t a secret. More people noticed than she likely imagined. At one of the beauty parlors she visited, it was a running joke: Laura and her two bottles.
The joke didn’t stop there. She’d play everyone’s best friend while being pampered—chatty, charming, all smiles. Then flip on a dime when it came time to pay: suddenly rude, aggressive, haggling over five pounds as if it were a ransom. Two bottles, two faces.
Looking back, it sounds absurd, almost farcical. At the time, there was nothing funny about it. My life narrowed to a single ritual: check the hiding spots, count the empties, calculate the risk. And then, if the numbers came up safe enough, slip out for half an hour and pretend for a brief moment that things were normal.
I could spot the bottles, I could count the empties, but I couldn’t stop the avalanche, already on its way. All I could do was stand there, tallying evidence, while the mountain cracked open.