Erin leaned against the door and slid down to the floor.
Nancy Drew shuffled over and stared at her with rheumy eyes.
“Oh, Nancy,” said Erin, running her fingers down the dog’s back. A terrible pressure welled up in her chest as she tried to hold back the tears. They escaped anyway, like water from a glass filled to the brim, dripping down her cheeks.
Mark had seemed like a good idea at the time. His self-assuredness, relentlessly on display at the local steakhouse where they went for most of their dates, provided a sense of solidity in a world that felt like it was shifting under her feet. After six months of dating, he’d asked for her hand over the steaks he’d ordered well-done, and she’d answered “Yes” without hesitation.
After the wedding, when they settled into a well-done routine of perfectly correct married life, she put aside the feelings that didn’t quite fit into her new life with Mark.
It shouldn’t matter that steaks were starting to make her queasy—or that church services inevitably brought on a sense of anxiety. She had chosen him, and he had chosen her.
It should have been enough.
Erin wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and stood up. She peeked out of the dusty window blinds and was relieved to find that Mark had gathered his things and left. She headed for the kitchen, Nancy Drew trailing her hopefully.
“Here, girl,” said Erin, offering Nancy a dog biscuit from the glass container on the Formica countertop.
Nancy, blind as a bat, nosed around until her snout bumped the biscuit, at which point she snapped it up with doggy enthusiasm.
“How is it? Good?” Erin retrieved a second biscuit from the jar and eyed it. She tentatively nibbled a corner. “Not bad,” she mused. “I can’t get any lower than this, Nancy. My husband left me for another woman and I’m eating dog biscuits while talking to a mostly deaf dog.”
Nancy tried to focus in Erin’s general direction.
Erin handed Nancy the nibbled biscuit. “Only slightly used. But you won’t mind, will you, girl?” She kneeled and patted the dog. “Is it too early for bed?”
Nancy sat down heavily on her hindquarters, as if she was too tired to keep holding them up.
“I feel the same way,” said Erin. She rose and crossed to the pantry, where she considered a dusty bottle of red wine half-hidden behind a stash of paper towel rolls. They never drank wine, so the bottle—a gift from a wedding guest—had sat untouched for years. Erin retrieved it and rummaged in a drawer for something to open it with. A multi-purpose kitchen tool revealed a fold-out corkscrew that served the purpose.
Lacking a wine glass, Erin poured the wine into an insulated plastic tumbler and retreated into her bedroom with the tumbler and the bottle.
She drank a big swallow of wine and coughed. Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea.
Then again, she didn’t have any better ideas. She took another sip, set the tumbler and bottle on the nightstand, changed into her pajamas, and crawled under the covers.
Two tumblers of wine later, her head buzzed like a beehive. She should have eaten something to soak up the wine, something more than a nibble of dog biscuit, but it was too late.
Erin rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. The room spun. She searched her mind for comforting thoughts to chase away the impending nightmares and found nothing.
Instead, she recalled her last words to Mark.The Lord forsake you and the Devil take you.
Erin shuddered with embarrassment. Could she be any more childish? She cringed into her pillow and pulled the covers tighter, willing herself to go to sleep.
With her eyes still closed, and her mind drifting in a state between wakefulness and unconsciousness, a frisson crawled over her skin from the top of her head all the way to her toes, wiping away the tension in her body as it rippled through her. If this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up. It was far more pleasant than her current reality.
A sound like an unfurled bolt of silk brought her to the edge of awareness. She dreamily observed a pair of gray feathered wings unfolding over her. Instead of feeling frightened, she felt sheltered—safe—as she tumbled the rest of the way into the darkness of sleep.
2
The phone on the nightstand rang.
Erin groaned and rolled across the bed. She grabbed the phone and mashed the button to pick up. “Hello?”
“Well, hello there. You sound rough.”
It was Joyce, Erin’s mother.
“Mom?” Erin blinked at the clock. 8:00 a.m. on the dot.
