The Animators(98)

She giggles. “Takin a breeaak,” she croaks. She totters a bit, going from right to left, as if neither side is up to the task of holding her up.

“Are you all right?”

She makes duck lips, gives me the A-okay sign. “Little. Stomach drama. Think I had some bad wine. Scuse me.” She weaves her way to the bathroom. A moment later, I hear the soft sounds of retching. I put a pillow over my head.

—

One night the Lincoln pulls up and lets Mel out. I’m at the window, massaging a cramp out of my leg. I watch her heave herself onto the sidewalk and stand, hands in pockets, as the car cruises back toward the BQE.

She grunts at me when she opens the door. Drags a chair across the floor, takes the ashtray off the sill. There’s the click of the lighter, the chewy, familiar smoke. The Cintiq glows behind us, at rest.

“How goes it,” I say.

“Eh.” She taps her smoke to shake the ash. I shift to my side toward her—our version of Wanna talk about it, champ?

She’s nearly done with her cigarette when she says, “I wore her down, I think.”

“What happened?”

“Words were said. That car ain’t coming back anytime soon. Let’s leave it at that.” She rises, rubbing the back of her neck with a pained expression. “Leg acting up?”

I think of the apartment listings, but keep quiet. I was tempted to log in to her laptop to look up her search history. I decided against it. Figured it was a step too shitty. Even for me.

She moves into the kitchen. The cabinet opens, shuts. There’s the snap-snap-snap of the seal being broken from a bottle of Four Roses.

“It’s all right,” I say. “Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah.”

She returns, drink in hand. Passes me a tube of Bengay. I lean over and pull up the seam of my pants. She squirts out a handful. We both massage my leg. I can feel her strong sketcher’s fingers prodding into the calf muscle, the pressure points surrounding the ankle, below the kneecap, until my entire leg burns.

She takes a drink, makes a face. “Shit. Now it all tastes like Bengay.”

“Thanks.”

“You got it.”

I wake in the middle of the night to a choking sound. I get up, shake out my leg, and stumble down to the studio. Mel is sprawled on the floor, palms splayed, neck craned over a puddle of vomit. She convulses, spews with a half sob, then looks up, teary.

“Jesus, Mel,” I say.

“I don’t,” she says. “I told her. Couldn’t help it.”

Tries to finish, is cut off by another heave. On the table by the Cintiq, the Four Roses bottle holds half an inch.

I run a washcloth at the sink and drag the trash can over. I’ve never seen her this sick. Never seen her not swagger off a puke, stumbling away, yelling something incomprehensible. She’s gray. I reach out, feel her forehead: cool and damp. I swab drool from her chin. She gurgles.

“You get. Older,” she mutters, “and you think it’s gonna get better.”

“What?” I position her over the trash can.

She leans back. Tries to get up. Falls down on her ass. Groans. “You think it’ll change. But it doesn’t.”

“Mel.”

She closes her eyes, mouth open. She’s crying. She’s not even hiding it now. I go to push her hair back and she leans her head into my hand, the weight filling it.

“It just gets worse,” she says.

“Don’t try to talk,” I tell her. She spits. I lean in, ignoring the smell.

Her body jerks forward. She retches, tucks her chin into her chest for a moment. Looks up. “Always gonna be like this,” she croaks.

“No, it’s not.”

“You don’t know,” she mutters. “You never. Still don’t.”

She curls up and sleeps the rest of the night on the floor. This is it. I’m convinced she’s finally achieved alcohol poisoning. I tip her onto her side and watch her breathe, long white hands curled into her chest. I survey the damage: blue pencils broken in half, chalk crushed, sketches ripped in two. A small crack at the Cintiq’s corner.

I lie on the couch, sleepless, listening to her snore, watching her body for signs of movement. I think of Mrs. Horsemuller: Is the little missus sleeping?

I get dressed for physical therapy at eleven. She cracks an eye open as I unlock the front door. “You know you have to clean this up,” I tell her.

She speaks into the pillow I tucked under her head. “Uh huh.”

I turn and shut the door.

—

We finish the edits on Christmas morning, almost a full year after leaving Louisville. When we get the green light from distribution, we send it out for final edits.

The week we finish, I get a tentative clean bill of health from the doctor: sturdy enough to not have to return for three months. I can travel overseas, I can drive, I can—shakily—resume normality. When he gives me the news, I ask him, “Are you sure?”

Not a day passes when I don’t lose my balance, or get a nosebleed, or look in the mirror to find part of my face slightly slack. My short-term memory is shot; my phone goes off six times a day warning me to take my pills. The studio is littered with Post-its reminding me of appointments, bill payments, deadlines. I am living a life punctuated with reminders that I will forever be in the woods, a medical bracelet wearer, the one who watches for impending death: a limp, a deep sneeze.