Hudson(95)

I started to pull my hand away, a jerk reaction, but she held it steady. “Don’t. I won’t let you break away from me, Hudson. You can’t. I’m invested in you, even if you aren’t invested in yourself. And I’m about to start a new life. One that might possibly push me further away from you, and here’s the thing—I can’t go if I don’t know you’re okay. I can’t move my world from yours until I know you aren’t going to destroy your own.”

My throat tightened. It felt like I should say something, but there weren’t words. And inside, where I usually felt empty, my chest burned. Uncomfortable, like indigestion, but even more constrictive. Like something was stirring around in there, stealing the space to breathe, about to explode out of me.

Mirabelle dug her fingers into my skin, her nails pleading as much as her words. “So will you do it? Tell me you’ll do it. Tell me you’ll quit. Tell me that you’re going to try. For me, if for no one else. Please, tell me.”

I could tell her to f**k off. I could tell her whatever she wanted to hear just to get her off my back. I could try to explain to her what the game really was, so that she could understand that it wasn’t actually a problem.

But the truth was that it was a problem. The experiments had become an obsession. I lived and breathed for them. And none of them, not a single one, ever taught me what I really wanted to know, which was why the hell I felt so goddamned empty.

So I said the only word I could. “Okay.”

“You mean that?”

I nodded, speech not easy through my clenched throat.

Her face crumpled, tears forming at the corners of her eyes as she bit her lip. She nodded a few times. Finally, in a choked voice, she said, “Thank you.”

She crawled up into my lap then, her legs to one side, and hugged me, like she used to when we were younger.

I let her.

I even hugged her back. Reluctantly at first, and then with a bear-tight grip.

“Thank you,” she said when she finally broke away. She scrambled off my lap to the bench beside me. She dabbed again at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to cry. I figured you’d take me more seriously if I remained together. But, that’s not me, I guess. Anyway. You have an appointment tomorrow.”

“An appointment tomorrow? With who?”

“A psychiatrist. Dr. Alberts. He’s an expert in experiential avoidance and a bunch of other big words that basically mean ‘aloof.’”




Other big words like sociopath?

“He’s situated in the city,” she continued, “but he makes house calls, and he agreed to come out here to meet you at ten. I arranged it before tonight even happened, Hudson. So don’t think I’m just reacting to this one incident.”

That she’d had this planned all along left a sour taste in my mouth. I hated that she’d formed an opinion about me, and then I’d proven her right. It was almost as though she’d played her own game, formed her own hypothesis, and she’d guessed correctly. Having the tables turned wasn’t my idea of a good time.

Besides that, I’d agreed to being intervened, so to say, but I’d thought it would be on my own terms. I could decide the course of my treatment. Not her. I used the obvious for my protest, “It’s your wedding day.”

“And this is my wedding present. From you.” She was even giddy about it.

“My wedding present was to not work all week.” But I already knew I’d meet with her specialist.

“This is another wedding present. You got me two.” She swiftly pecked my cheek. “Thanks, big bro.” And I was the master manipulator.

“What have you done to me, Mirabelle?”

“Good things, Hudson. I’ve done good things. Just wait and see.” She stared at my profile for several seconds. I felt her gaze like it was her hands that touched my skin. When she seemed satisfied with what she saw, she said, “But I’m going to go back to the party now and let you stay here and mope or mull or whatever really boring antisocial thing it is you like to do. Brood. That’s what you do.”

“I don’t brood.”

“Well, whatever you do, I’ll leave you to it now.” She stood, her skirt swirling in the light breeze. At the stairs, she looked back. “Ten tomorrow morning. In the study. Dr. Alberts is coming. Be there.”

“Where else would I be? Organizing the flowers with Mother?”

“Good point.” She gave me another bright smile, this time adding a wink. “I love you, brother. Thanks for making my wedding everything I ever dreamed.”

There it was. The typical words for the occasion. It made me smile a bit as well.

She blew me a kiss then skipped off into the night.

I sat on that bench for a long time after. I sipped my Scotch. And I cried. Sobbed for the first time that I could remember. There was no feeling behind the tears, just release. It was cathartic. It was a start.

Maybe it was even the beginning of the road to more.





Chapter Twenty-One



After



I wake to an empty bed. I should be used to it by now, having woken up the last several days alone. Each of those nights had been restless, sleep hard to come by without the warmth of the woman I’ve come accustomed to wrapping around in slumber.