Ink and Bone(88)

“Unfortunately, there aren’t any other options,” he’d said mildly. “We can only hide or anesthetize our true nature for so long. We can strive to alter negative thought patterns. But we can’t hide behind addiction and call that positive change.”

Merri didn’t buy it. Plenty of people were taking antidepressants, antianxiety meds. What made her self-medication so different?

“Antidepressants are prescribed to address chemical imbalance in the brain. Vicodin is prescribed for short-term pain relief,” her shrink informed her very cogently. “The way you’re taking it—in high doses, procured through illegitimate channels—is illegal.”

It sounded like shrink-speak to her. Anyway, she’d been off the pills since her breakdown. But she still thought about them every day, those little white keys that opened the door to the mental cloud, that silent, mellow place that she’d never once visited before or since. But it was true that she’d been less aware, less present—there but not there for her kids. If she hadn’t had three Vicodins that morning, she’d have gone on that hike or suggested that they go to the museum just outside of town. She was reasonably sure that nothing that happened would have happened, if she’d been herself.

Tonight, she was wide-awake, alert, so in tune, she was practically vibrating. She could listen to those other voices, as she often did, the ones that told her to stay put, let the police do their jobs, wait for the phone to ring. Or she could listen to that other voice, the voice that wasn’t a voice but something so deep, so indivisible from her own consciousness that it didn’t have sound. It told her to get dressed and go out there.

So she finished dressing and headed out the door as quietly as she could. She didn’t want to wake Miss Lovely and have to explain where she was going on a night when one should obviously not be going anywhere. She felt like a teenager sneaking out of the house, which was precisely why Wolf hated B and Bs.

When she stepped outside into the snow, she almost shrieked. A man, tall, just a dark shadow stood on the sidewalk by the low gate. She backed toward the door as he moved into the light. Wolf. At the sight of him, there was such a blast, a rush of emotion that she put her hand to her heart. Anger, happiness, annoyance, love.

“You’re here,” she said.

“I told you I was on my way,” he said. Snowflakes were gathering in his dark hair. He looked so young, so much like when she’d first loved him. “Where are you going?”

She walked up the path and unlatched the gate, stepping outside onto the sidewalk.

“Let me be here for you,” he said. His voice was thick, his eyes bruised with fatigue. “For Abbey.”

She moved into his arms and let him hold on tight, found herself clinging to him. A door that had been closed in her heart for him opened just a bit. She told him about her call to Blake, showed him the numbers she’d scribbled on the ivory stationery that read Miss Lovely’s Bed & Breakfast.

“You were going up there alone?” he asked.

“I have to go,” she said. “I know it’s crazy and it doesn’t make any sense. But I have to go up there.”

Was he going to try to talk her out of it, talk sense into her? Was he going to say her most hated phrase: I’m just trying to help you, Merri.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Relief and gratitude mingled as she let him take her hand. They shuffled through the slick snow in the lot and climbed into the Range Rover, plugged the coordinates into an app she’d downloaded on the phone.

“Merri,” he said.

“Don’t,” she stopped him. She didn’t want to prepare herself for what happened when Abbey wasn’t up there, or make promises about what she’d do when she realized that they were on a fool’s errand. She didn’t want to live inside of near-future failures. She wanted to live in the now, when hope was strong, when she was following the true voice of herself no matter how much she often didn’t want to hear it.

“No matter what happens,” he said. “I’m here for you, for our family. I swear to you. From now on, come what may, I’m here.”

His face was different, solemn, tired but set in some new way. He had been there, always, for the kids. And Merri always knew he loved her, even though she also knew he screwed around.

At first, she hadn’t cared so much about that for some reason. She knew what he was the first night they were together, a player, a boy always looking for the next thrill, the next piece of candy. I’ve never been faithful to anyone, he said the night he told her that he loved her. But I want to be faithful to you. She believed him, that it was what he wanted.

She also knew that he wouldn’t be faithful, that he couldn’t. Merri was a smart woman; she knew that people didn’t change. With Wolf, there would always be some girl when he was on assignment, some hookup after a press party, flirtations, one-night stands. Why didn’t she care? It was a bad habit he had, like smoking or drinking too much. It had almost nothing to do with her. She could live with it, or so she thought. But, silently, like so many other things, it gnawed at the cord that tethered them, fraying it so that when it was pulled tight in stress it nearly snapped. Nearly.

She didn’t even care about the mess with work. She understood him—his fears, his desires, that he was dishonest because he was afraid. She knew him in a way that you can only know someone you love totally. Daily, she forgave his flaws, just as she knew he forgave hers. Maybe that alone was the foundation of a good marriage, an endless willingness to forgive and to love in spite of ourselves, an ability to ride the highs and endure the lows, the decision to always go home.