Here and Gone(38)

Audra saw the bottle of wine there in the fridge that evening, but she ignored it, even though she was very, very thirsty.

Another night of fragmented sleep and toxic dreams, and even as she held Sean close, listening to him gulp down formula, she felt something had broken between them. She had let him down, and she had lost something she could never get back, no matter how hard she wished for it.

In the morning, Margaret came again. And, again, Audra handed her baby over. Once more, she went to bed. Now the mattress and the sheets felt like quicksand, and she wanted to be swallowed up, to stay in the dark forever.

That night, she poured herself a glass of wine. But just the one.

The night after, she had another glass. And a second.

A day later, another bottle of wine appeared in the fridge. Audra finished the first, and opened the next. She didn’t stop until she had passed out drunk on the couch. Patrick woke her in the morning, told her she should be ashamed of herself.

That night, he brought home a bottle of vodka.

Again, looking back, she should have asked why. But the lure of the haze was too strong to resist, when all she wanted was to blot everything out.

Weeks passed like that, nights and days blurring into drunken hazes and oily hangovers. The nanny had been in the apartment almost forty-eight hours before Audra noticed her. Jacinta was her name, a pretty young woman from Venezuela who looked at Audra with an expression of pity when they met in the hallway.

‘You’re not fit to care for Sean,’ Patrick explained, ‘so I hired someone who is.’

Audra went to bed for four days, only emerging for another bottle of whatever Patrick had left in the fridge or cupboards for her. On the fifth day, a doctor came to the apartment. One Audra didn’t recognize. He smelled bad, sweat and mildew, masked with aftershave. He asked her a few questions, scribbled on a pad, and gave the paper to Patrick. Her husband came back after an hour with a bottle of pills and a glass of water. She refused the water, downed two pills with a mouthful of neat vodka, and went to sleep.

Looking back, it seemed to Audra that she had been sucked down by a sinkhole, unable to climb out again. Every time she resolved to go without a drink or a pill, Patrick would appear with a full glass, or another rattling bottle.

Sometimes she wondered about her child. She was surprised one day to pass through the living room on her way to the kitchen and see Sean walking across the room into Jacinta’s arms, a tottering gait, his hands up and flapping, giggling as he went.

‘When did he start that?’ Audra asked, suddenly aware that months must have passed without her noticing.

‘A week ago,’ Jacinta said. ‘You saw him do it yesterday. You asked me the same thing.’

Audra blinked. ‘Did I?’

‘Do you want to hold him?’

Audra didn’t answer. She went to the kitchen and fetched another bottle of wine.

She remembered Sean’s third birthday. They had a small gathering at Patrick’s parents’ apartment. Patrick had hidden the booze and the pills, told her he wanted her sober.

‘Don’t show me up,’ he’d said. ‘Don’t embarrass me.’

The fog had drifted from her mind that morning, and she studied herself in the mirror after she showered. The darkness around her eyes, the blotches on her cheeks. The skin too loose on her bones. But she did her best with the makeup and the new clothes Patrick had bought. She presented herself to him before they left to walk the few blocks south.

‘You’ll do,’ he said, a weary exhalation.

She walked next to Patrick along Central Park West, Jacinta hold-ing Sean’s hand as he tottered ahead. The buzz of the traffic fizzed in her brain, the cool air on her skin making her tingle, aware of the sensation of her clothing against her body, the weight of her feet on the ground. In spite of the rumbling ache behind her eyes, she felt something she hadn’t experienced for so long: she felt alive.

‘Patrick,’ she said.

‘Mm?’ He kept his gaze ahead, didn’t turn to look at her.

‘Maybe I should get some help.’

He didn’t answer, stopped walking. Audra stopped too, both of them standing like islands, the flow of people like water around them.

‘Maybe I should talk to somebody,’ she said. ‘About the drinking. And the pills. Try to change.’

Patrick remained quiet, but his jaw worked as he ground his teeth.

‘I didn’t know it was my son’s birthday until you told me.’

Tears came, hot on her cheeks.

Patrick took her hand, squeezed it hard, squeezed until it hurt. ‘We’ll talk about it when we get home,’ he said. ‘Pull yourself together. Don’t embarrass me in front of my mother’s friends.’

‘Why do you keep me like this?’ she asked. ‘Why keep me around at all? I’m not a wife to you. I’m not a mother to my son. Why don’t you just let me go?’

He squeezed her hand again, harder, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.

‘Do you want to humiliate me?’ he asked, leaning in close. ‘Is that what you want? So help me, I will beat you senseless right here on the street. Is that what you want me to do?’

Audra shook her head.

‘Then shut your fucking mouth and start walking,’ he said.

Audra wiped at her cheeks, sniffed, got herself under control, and walked with her hand in his, the bones aching.