Page 104

“Chris…”

“I sent her wine for her birthday,” he said, almost more to himself than to me. “That haunts me now. Like I shipped her an expensive poison as a present.”

I pivoted in my seat. “Okay, first of all, you shouldn’t feel guilty about enabling what you didn’t know was going on,” I said. “She was a doctor, yes?”

He nodded.

“You’re telling me she didn’t notice? She didn’t know what could happen? There weren’t points in her decline where she could have taken steps to save herself? There weren’t doctors or friends who were with her a lot more than you were who called her out on it? Tried to intervene?”

“There were, but—”

“I lost my voice screaming for my dad to change. I was never loud enough for him to hear me. And you probably wouldn’t have been either. The reality is that most people with addiction won’t do what they have to do for anyone else. They have to want to do it for themselves, have to hit their rock bottom and decide to save their own lives. You didn’t know, Chris. And it sounds like she didn’t want you to. It’s not. Your. Fault.”

We stared at each other over the center console, and I watched my words move over him. The almost desperate look in his eyes transformed into something softer and hopeful. Like maybe what I said was the truth. Maybe he wasn’t responsible for the actions of everyone around him after all.

Chris took a lot upon himself. I saw it. The way he always looked out for Mike. The way he took such good care of Woofarine.

The way he took care of me.

I thought about the nuts he’d tossed in the trash at the cabin. I kept coming back to it. It didn’t even surprise me that he checked the pantry for me. It didn’t surprise me that he found me something to eat today, or that he took me to get these pictures. In fact, it would surprise me if he didn’t.

Chris loved with his whole heart. He gave all of himself to the people he cared about.

And he cared about me.

I could see it. The gentle way he looked at me sometimes reminded me a little of the way Mike looked at me, even though I knew rationally it was not even close to the same thing. And I couldn’t explain how I knew, but telling him that his mom’s death wasn’t his fault meant something to him because what I thought mattered. It’s why he told me and nobody else. My words carried a different weight for him, and I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why. Unless maybe I was for him what he’d become for me. A friend. Maybe even one of the closest he had.

I studied him in the light of the billboard. He studied me back.

“I think she would have really liked you,” he said quietly.

“And I would have thanked her for raising such a good human being,” I said.

Something flashed across his expression, but it was gone before I could tell what it was.

“I’m not good,” he said. “Believe me. I don’t always do the right thing.”

“But you always try.”

He breathed out like the praise took something from him. He looked so vulnerable sitting there. I had the strongest urge to hug him. To put my hand over his or climb into his lap and hold him.

I didn’t realize Mike hadn’t been there for him. And maybe that was my fault. Now that I was in Mike’s life, maybe I was taking space that otherwise might have gone to Chris.

Who comforted Chris when he needed it? Nobody.

And that broke my heart.

Something moved beyond the base of the billboard and disrupted the moment.

I turned and leaned forward to look out the windshield in the glow of the headlights.

There was an animal tangled in the blaze-orange plastic fencing lining the lot. I gasped and unbuckled my seat belt.

“What?” Chris asked.

“Something’s stuck in the fence,” I said, getting out. “I think it’s a baby deer.”

26