a sandbag and feel nothing. Yet that’s what you expect. I get that you’re tired of caretaking. And I thought I could handle it, that knowing you loved me would be enough, that I wouldn’t need you to show it because I’m not needy! I’m anti-Mallory!” I jab my finger in the air, mocking victory. “But I am needy. And so I’m saving you the trouble of leaving me. You’re welcome.”
His voice, when it comes, is gravelly, wet-sounding. “You should have told me. Given me a chance.”
“Yeah.” My own voice breaks now. “Yeah, probably.”
A wind kicks up and blows my hair into my face. I turn away from him, leaning my hip on the railing. I pull out my cigarettes and cup the flame of my lighter as I let the wind blow my hair back. My eyes water from the sting of it.
“Who’s Tony?” he asks.
“What difference does it make?” I call over my shoulder, still facing away.
“Is he really a boyfriend?”
“Do you think he is?”
There’s a long pause. “No.”
“So—” I interrupt myself with a deep drag. “Drop me off at the Holiday Inn, okay?”
He appears in front of me. His face looks wet. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t go.”
I can’t think of anything to say.
“I need you, Casey. Edna. Whoever you are, whatever you once did.”
“I’m just another problem.”
“No, you’re a person.” He stomps once in the snow, looking down for a moment. His hands had been jammed into his pants pockets. He takes them out, turns them palm up, toward me. His white breath curls around his face, which looks lined and shadowed. “Mallory’s gonna try to take the kids. Please, Casey. Don’t leave me now.”
He looks broken. That’s what this look is. I saw it in my dad, after Billy died. That essential part inside a person that keeps him upright and strong against the world, crumbled into dust, and Dad curled up on his recliner chair and that’s where he’s been all these years, getting heavier, his breathing more labored, his heart straining to keep him going, against his will.
I grind my cigarette on the rail and walk into his arms. I place my head on his chest, where it fits right over his beating heart.
“I can’t move back in,” I tell him.
“Okay,” he whispers. His face is turned sideways, he’s resting his cheek on the top of my head. He rocks me a little, back and forth, and I let him.
In a minute I’ll ask him again to drop me off at the Holiday Inn, where I’ll crawl into scratchy, sterile hotel sheets that belong to no one and decide how much I can stand.
Chapter 47
Michael
I wouldn’t have made Dylan come clean up this mess, but he asked to. And as it turns out, I’m grateful for his presence, because it keeps me focused on the task at hand by forcing me to keep up a front.
Alone, it would be hard not to react to the chore of sweeping up broken glass, removing photos from their splintered frames. Picking up the pieces of a ceramic ashtray Jewel made in art class. Her own daughter’s lopsided ashtray. She probably didn’t even see it.
We did take pictures of this first. My dad’s lawyer recommended it.
“Dad? What do we do with the TV?”
I shrug. “Guess we’ll haul it to the curb before we go pick up the girls.”
Dylan seems to have matured three years in the last three days. If anything good will come of this, maybe my boy will learn to think things through. To not be so easily led.
Except by me. I’d like it if he still did what I told him to.
After I came back sans Casey last night, they all gave me a wide berth. I ate warmed-up lasagna, and my dad and I zoned out in front of football. Everyone went to bed early. Though I enjoyed the peace and stability, and I sighed with gratitude that all my children were under my roof and my ex-wife was nowhere near us, sleep didn’t come.
I lay awake, my mind flipping like a switch between Casey and Mallory.
Casey: Is she thinking about me? Will she come back to me, ever? Is she lying awake, too? Is she drinking right now?
Mallory: Do I have to send the kids to her next week? Will that police report hurt her plans to take the children back, or will it indict me, too? What did she mean about her “situation changing”?
Will I have to hand over my kids to a mentally