He sighed again, rubbed at a spot on the bucket. “The fact is, Anna,” he told me, and I could see the weight in his eyes, that broad cliff of his brow near collapse, “I just can’t take this any longer.”
I looked down, stared at the ice cubes already softening on the ground.
Neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved. I didn’t know what to say.
Then I heard my voice, soft and low. “Don’t blame me when she’s upset.”
A pause. And then his voice, softer still. “I do blame you.” He breathed in. Breathed out. “I thought of you as the girl next door,” he said.
I braced myself for more.
“But right now I can barely look at you.”
I screwed my eyes shut, inhaled the cold tang of ice. And I thought not of our wedding day, nor of the night Olivia was born, but of the morning we harvested cranberries in New Jersey—Olivia shrieking and laughing in her waders, buttery with sunblock; slow skies above, the September sun drenching us; a vast sea of rose-red fruit all around. Ed with his hands full, his eyes bright; me clutching our daughter’s sticky fingers. I remembered the bog waters risen to our hips, felt them flood my heart, surge into my veins, rise within my eyes.
I looked up, gazed into Ed’s eyes, those dark-brown eyes; “Completely ordinary eyes,” he assured me on our second date, but to me they were beautiful. They still are.
He looked back at me. The ice machine thrummed between us.
Then we went to tell Olivia.
31
thedoctorisin: Then we went to tell Olivia.
I pause. How much more would she want to know? How much more can I bear to tell her? My heart already hurts, aching within my chest.
A minute later, there’s still no response. I wonder if all this is hitting too close to home for Lizzie; here I am talking about a separation from my husband when she’s lost hers irrevocably. I wonder if—
GrannyLizzie has left the chat.
I stare at the screen.
Now I have to remember the rest of the story on my own.
32
“Don’t you get lonely up here by yourself?”
I wriggle from sleep as a voice questions me, male, flat. I unpaste my eyelids.
“I was born lonely, I guess.” A woman now. Creamy contralto.
Light and shadow flicker in my vision. It’s Dark Passage—Bogie and Bacall making bedroom eyes across a coffee table.
“Is that why you visit murder trials?”
On my own coffee table stand the remnants of my dinner: two drained-hollow bottles of merlot and four canisters of pills.
“No. I went because your case was like my father’s.”
I swat at the remote beside me. Swat again.
“I know he didn’t kill my stepmoth—” The TV goes dark, and the living room with it.
How much have I drunk? Right: two bottles’ worth. Plus lunchtime. That’s . . . a lot of wine. I can admit it.
And the drugs: Did I take the right quantity this morning? Did I take the right pills? I’ve been sloppy lately, I know. No wonder Dr. Fielding thinks I’m getting worse. “You’ve been bad,” I chide myself.
I peek into the canisters. One of them is almost depleted; twin tablets crouch within it, little white pellets, at either side of the bottle.
God, I’m very drunk.
I look up, look at the window. Dark outside, deep night. I cast about for my phone, can’t find it. The grandfather clock, looming in the corner, ticks as though trying to get my attention. Nine fifty. “Nine fiffy,” I say. Not great. Try ten to ten. “Ten to ten.” Better. I nod to the clock. “Thanks,” I tell him. He gazes at me, all solemn-like.
Lurching toward the kitchen now. Lurching—isn’t that how Jane Russell described me, that day at the door? Those little shits with their eggs? Lurch. From The Addams Family. The gangly butler. Olivia loves that theme song. Snap, snap.
I grasp the faucet, duck my head beneath it, jerk the handle toward the ceiling. A whip of white water. Plunge my mouth forth, gulp deeply.
Drag one hand along my face, totter back to the living room. My eyes wander across the Russells’ house: There’s the ghost-glow of Ethan’s computer, with the kid bent over the desk; there’s the empty kitchen. There’s their parlor, merry and bright. And there’s Jane, in a snow-white blouse, sitting on that striped love seat. I wave. She doesn’t see me. I wave again.
She doesn’t see me.
One foot, then the other, then the first foot. Then the other—don’t forget the other. I