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A young woman stood up suddenly. She was tall and rail-thin, with bleached yellow-white hair and skin the color of candlewax. Obviously shaking, she stepped past the row of chairs and stood in front of everyone.
She looked as if she hadn’t eaten in a year, and Nick had been a cop long enough to recognize the signs of long-term drug use. No doubt needle marks ran like train tracks up the insides of her pale arms. She took an endless drag off her cigarette and exhaled heavily. “I’m Rhonda,” she said, nervously eyeing the crowd, “and I’m an alcoholic and an addict. ”
“Hi, Rhonda,” said the crowd on cue.
She sucked in another lungful. “Today’s my seventh sober day. ”
There was a round of applause; a bunch of people yelled “Way to go, Rhonda!”
Rhonda gave a wan smile and stubbed her cigarette out on the ashtray in front of her. “I’ve tried this before—lots of times. But this time’ll be differ’nt. The judge said if I can stay clean for one year, I can see my son again. ” She paused and wiped her eyes, leaving a black tail of mascara down one white cheek. “I used to be a normal girl, going to junior college, working part-time as a waitress in a ritzy restaurant. Then I met this guy, Chet, and before I knew it, I was guzzling tequila and backing it with mountains of coke. ”
She sighed, stared dully at the open door. “I got pregnant, and kept drinking. My Sammy was born small and addicted, but he lived. I shoulda been there for him, but all I thought about was getting high and drunk. My son wasn’t enough to make me quit drinking and snorting. ” Her lower lip started to shake, and she bit down on it. “Nooo, I had to drive drunk. I had to hurt someone. ” She sniffled hard and regained a measure of control. “So, here I am, and this time I mean it. I’m gonna do anything to see my son again. This time I’m gonna get clean and stay clean. ”
When Rhonda was finished, someone else started talking, then another and another. They all used different words, but the stories were the same, tales of loss and pain and anger. Hard-luck stories and bad-luck stories from people who’d been through hell on earth.
Nick was one of them, he knew it by the close of the meeting, and there was a strange comfort in admitting that, in knowing he wasn’t the only one in the world trying to wrestle with a bottle of booze.
Izzy couldn’t sleep. She went to her window and stared outside. Everything was dark and scary-looking. The only light was tiny white flecks on the black lake. Annie said those were stars fallen from the sky.
She turned away from the window. All week long, ever since Annie had told her that her daddy wasn’t coming home, she’d been scared. Yesterday, she’d stood at the window for a long time, waiting. So long that Annie had come up to her.
I don’t know when he’ll be coming home, Izzy. That’s what Annie had said to her. You remember I told you that your daddy was sick? The doctors say he needs a little time—
But Izzy knew the truth about doctors. Her mommy had seen lots and lots of them, and none of them ever made her mommy feel better.
They wouldn’t help her daddy, either.
Izzy hadn’t been able to stop crying. I miss him was all she said to Annie, but there was a lot more she didn’t say. She didn’t say that she’d been missing him for a long, long time, and she didn’t say that the man with the silver hair wasn’t really her daddy—because her daddy never got sick and he laughed all the time. She didn’t say that she thought her real daddy had died when her mommy died, and that he wouldn’t ever be coming back.
Izzy crept down the stairs and sneaked outside. It was raining gently, and a mist floated on the top of the grass, so thick that she couldn’t see her feet.
“Mommy?” she whispered, hugging herself. She closed her eyes and concentrated really, really hard. When she opened her eyes, she saw her mommy, standing alongside the lake. The vision was shimmery and out of focus. Mommy stood with her shoulders rounded and her head cocked at an odd angle, as if she were listening for footsteps, or the sound of a bird’s call in the middle of the night. The rain turned all sorts of colors, red and yellow and pink and blue.
You should be sleeping, little girl.
“Daddy’s sick again. ”
Her mom made a quiet sound, or maybe it was a breeze, kicking up along the water. He’ll be okay. I promise.
“I miss you, Mommy. ” Izzy reached for her. There was a whisper of something not quite solid against her fingertips, a brushing of heat. She closed her hand around . . . nothing.
The touching days are gone for me, pumpkin.
“Mommy, I love you, Mommy. ”
I’m sorry, Izzy-bear. God, I’m so sorry . . .
Izzy reached out, but it was too late. Her mom was gone.
An unusual wave of heat rolled across Jefferson County. Flowers unfurled and reached skyward for the precious sunlight. Baby birds squawked from nests in green-budded trees. It still rained each night, but by dawn, the world was a sparkling, gilded jewel.
Annie made sure that Izzy was busy all the time. They colored Easter eggs, baked cookies, and drew pictures for Nick—presents for the day he would return. They shopped on Main Street and bought Natalie hokey presents from the rain forest: pens with ferries in them, slug cookbooks, postcards of Lake Mystic. They doubled their reading efforts, until Annie was certain that Izzy was ready to go back to school. But when she mentioned this hope to Izzy, it scared her. I don’t wanna go back. They’ll make fun of me. Annie had let the issue rest there, knowing that it wasn’t her decision anyway. She hoped that when Nick came home, they could convince Izzy to return to school.
But for now, their routines were comforting. Izzy was talking regularly; it no longer seemed hard for her to remember the words. They were gaining strength from each other.
Annie had finally learned to sleep alone. She knew it didn’t sound like much, but to her, it was momentous. Sometimes, when she left Izzy and crawled into her empty bed, she didn’t even think about the man who used to sleep with her; sometimes she went for whole days without thinking about him. Oh, the ache was still there, and the loneliness, but day by day, she was learning that she could survive without him. She still didn’t want to, but she knew now that she could.
Every Monday, like clockwork, she called London and heard about Natalie’s week. In her daughter’s voice, she heard a burgeoning maturity that filled Annie with pride. Natalie wasn’t a child anymore, and when she learned of the divorce, she would be able to handle it.
