Locust Lane(70)
He got to the office before seven and set to work with the avidity of a twentysomething trainee making his bones on Wall Street. He unleashed an avalanche of memos to colleagues and clients, copying Griff on all of them. He ignored what was happening in the Eden case, knowing that it was a rabbit hole that would swallow his efforts to play the good employee.
But he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about Danielle. He was starting to worry that he’d pushed things too far with her. When he told her that he’d seen Jack Parrish standing in the woods, he’d half-expected her to drench him with that septic Chardonnay. To his surprise, she seemed willing to listen as he told her about Oliver and Celia and his own daughter’s brief, unhappy involvement with the Parrishes. Danielle Perry, he was beginning to understand, was not the woman he’d expected. She was tough, yes, but beneath the warrior’s armor there was a vulnerability and intelligence that suggested her life might have gone another way had her luck been different. She’d spoken about Eden with the sort of hard-eyed frankness so rare in Emerson, where people tended to discuss their kids with the breathless enthusiasm usually encountered in the first round of the NFL draft. She obviously was crazy about the girl, but in a blunt, exacting manner that made it clear she saw Eden as a person and not an adornment.
They were well into their second hour—Patrick had finished his third gin, she was still contemplating the Chardonnay like it was part of an initiation rite—when she announced they should probably go. He agreed, reluctantly. Despite the whirling horror surrounding them, it was easy talking to her. The way she held his eye as he spoke; her refusal to be scared off by his obvious addiction. Their lost daughters provided a bond that was unbearable and unbreakable and more intimate than anything he’d felt in a long, long time. And there was a beauty to her. Hard and indifferent, but also undeniable. He stopped this particular runaway train of thought when he found himself wondering what it would be like to kiss her. Instead, he’d given her his cell phone number and walked her to her car. They’d parted uncertainly, Patrick to go home to drink himself into oblivion, she to travel into a more absolute sort of darkness. He wondered if they would ever speak again. The thought of that not happening added another small boulder to the sled of sadness he was tugging through the frozen tundra of his life.
At exactly ten—this was not the sort of meeting for which you were either early or late—Patrick walked the twenty strides from his office to his managing partner’s. Griff was not alone. Also present were the firm’s lawyer, Lance Avagyan, and a pleasant-looking woman with an imitation leather folder on her lap. Griff introduced her as Wendy Umans. She was a stranger, but Lance he knew well. He’d been with the firm from the first. He was a snide, thoroughly decent guy who usually comported himself like a frat house prankster. Today, however, he was subdued, so much so that he wouldn’t meet Patrick’s eye when they shook hands.
“So,” Griff said. “My preference is to skip all the stuff where we talk about your performance of late. Can we just agree it’s been subpar?”
“Stipulated,” Patrick said.
Lance smiled, though he still wasn’t making eye contact. The word was a private joke among the three of them, used to agree to another round of martinis or acknowledge the hotness of a nearby woman.
“Patrick, you know me,” Griff continued. “You know this guy here. We like it when people are happy.”
“And they aren’t,” Patrick said, his statement somewhere between question and concession.
“You aren’t. Right? That’s kind of why we’re here. Your mind clearly hasn’t been in the game since Gabi. Which is understandable. I mean, damn. But still. We got some serious assets under management and a client base that is pretty tuned in. The drinking…”
“Look, can we just cut to the chase?”
The words came out many times harsher than Patrick intended. Griff stared evenly at him. Waiting to see which way this was going to go.
“Sorry,” Patrick said. “I don’t mean to be a jerk.”
“You’re not being a jerk. You’re in trouble. And we want to help.”
He turned to Wendy. Patrick did as well. Lance continued to look at the carpet with great interest.
“First of all, Patrick, I want to say how sorry I am for your loss,” Wendy said.
Patrick nodded his thanks as she opened the folder on her lap and removed a glossy brochure from one of its pockets.
“I’m a counselor at a facility called Brook Farm. We’re in Vermont. Near Brattleboro?” She handed him the brochure. “We offer a comprehensive course in recovery services.”
Her eyes urged him to look at the brochure. He complied. He vaguely knew the name. It was one of the few places he hadn’t dragged his child to. It looked awesome. First rate. Five stars. Log cabins, volleyball, people engaged in meaningful discourse along wooded paths. Beards and smiles and flannel. Hands resting on shoulders. Vermont. Fucking Vermont.
“What we had in mind for you is a thirty-day immersive course of treatment. It would begin with a carefully monitored detox after which you would move into one our programs. It’s fully state-of-the art and welcoming. We really do get results. I think you’ll like it there.”
Like was probably a stretch. Patrick looked at Wendy. It would be so easy to hate her, with her midlength hair and the cloth bracelet undoubtedly woven by a special patient. It really would. He’d despised so many of the professionals who thought they could help his daughter. But that was wrong then, as it would be now. They were good people, especially when compared to the legions of flaming assholes afoot in the land. But they were doomed. They were lightly armed soldiers sent out to battle a hundred-foot-high, laser-shooting lizard. They had no chance.