I find myself slightly incapable of introducing this story. It is about a woman; a mother; an alcoholic. It is short, the writing is spare. Berlin manages to cram the cruel dynamics of addiction, neglect, duty, guilt, motherhood, and childhood into so few sentences, and not without a little wit and even warmth. It is characteristic of the whole collection, A Manual for Cleaning Women, and every time I read it, I feel like I’ve been hit by a lorry.
It is the middle of the night when the narrator realises her bottle of vodka is empty:
“At six, in two hours, the Uptown Liquor Store in Oakland would sell her some vodka. In Berkeley you had to wait until seven. Oh, God, did she have any money? She crept back to her room to check in her purse on the desk. Her son Nick must have taken her wallet and car keys. She couldn’t look for them in her sons’ room without waking them.”
Collected in A Manual for Cleaning Women, Picador, 2015
A Personal Anthology 