Locust Lane(71)

“So I go here or…”

“Patrick, come on,” Griff said. “Forget about or. You go there. You beat this thing. You come back. Hilarity ensues, wealth is accumulated.”

Patrick looked back at the brochure, imagining himself there. Suffering the heebie-jeebies in a sylvan grove. His daughter’s voice calling from the pines.

“When?”

“Well, we were thinking, like, now.”

“I can drive you up there,” Wendy added.

Patrick looked at Griff.

“I know you don’t want to talk about this, but just so we know the parameters—what if I don’t go?”

“Come on, Patrick. That’s not where we’re at.”

“Then what’s he doing here?” Patrick said, tilting his head in Lance’s direction.

Once again, he wished he could take back his words the moment they left his mouth. That he was just plain nasty.

Lance finally met his eye.

“I’m here because you’re my brother and I love you,” he said quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said, the small reserve of defiance he’d managed to carry into the office fully evaporated. “I just can’t imagine not drinking. Pathetic as that sounds.”

Wendy had the good grace not to say anything supportive. A long silence ensued. It was his move. They were right. Obviously. Inarguably. He needed to get his ass to Vermont ASAP. But the thought of getting into Wendy’s Subaru didn’t feel like the first step to recovery. It felt like the end of something. Himself. It felt like death.

“Monday morning,” he said.

Unhappy glances were exchanged.

“Please. Give me that much.”

“I can’t really do Monday,” Wendy said. “In terms of driving.”

“For God’s sake, I can drive myself to Vermont,” Patrick said. “Granted, Maine would be a reach.”

There were tight smiles.

“Look,” Patrick said. “Just let me have this weekend. There’s something I need to sort out.”

“Okay,” Griff said. “But I’ll drive you. And we need to go early. I got shit to do.”

“I can be ready any time after 4:13.”



* * *



He took the rest of the day off. It wasn’t a choice, insofar as the second act of the meeting, conducted after Wendy’s departure, consisted of him signing a document Lance had prepared stating that he was suspended with full compensation and benefits effective immediately, lasting until such time as his partners determined he was fit to manage client money. Should it be decided that he was not coming back, they would enter good faith negotiations about what to do with Patrick’s ownership stake. No one was out to hose him. He knew that. They wanted what was best.

There’d been hugs and brave faces and a little gallows humor at the end of the meeting. Everyone was acting like this was nothing more than a thirty-day hiatus. Patrick played along. And then he got his phone and laptop from his office and left without saying goodbye to anyone else.

Outside, the sky was a cleansing blue, though Patrick took little comfort in the splendor. It felt as harsh and revealing as a doctor’s light on a pried-open eye. He drove straight home, where he finally allowed himself to look at the news. They’d charged Christopher Mahoun with murder. There was a lot of satisfied chatter among his friends and neighbors. The prevailing opinion seemed to be that justice was being served.

And then he saw the Twitter thread. He almost missed it in the avalanche of posts about the arrest. It appeared in Emerson Depths, a new account that had been purpose-built for telling this story. Jack Parrish, it seemed, had been a naughty boy with a young METCO student last year. And his parents had gone to considerable lengths to keep it quiet. The implication was clear. He’d been the one to kill Eden Perry.

Patrick looked once again at photos of Jack. He could see it now, as clear as the daylight he’d just fled. The shoulders, the jaw, the hair. It was him. The thread cemented it for Patrick. This was who he’d seen lurking outside the house in the middle of the night.

He watched the news conference, which the Boston stations carried live on their noon reports. The state police detective, Gates, was running the show, surrounded by a bunch of somber-looking public servants. Procopio was there, flexing and scowling. Danielle stood at the end of the line, shrouded in big sunglasses. She looked like an avenging angel. He wondered what she was really thinking; if she was buying this.

He should call the cops. They needed to be told they were making a mistake. Although he could predict how that would go, him showing up, voicing dissent on their big win, just hours after he’d been suspended from his job for drinking. Gates had talked about decisive forensic evidence during the press conference. The chief had mentioned community healing. They had their boy. If Patrick tried to hit them with a counter-narrative they’d probably put him in a much less congenial place than Brook Farm.

Besides, he had his own reckoning to deal with. He’d bought himself three days. The sane thing to do was to use the time to get his shit together. Call Lily. Speak to his son for the first time in weeks. Touch base with his few remaining long-term clients to make sure they didn’t freak out when he went missing. Pack. Shave. Floss. Be human.

But he’d meant what he said back at the office—he doubted he could handle sobriety. He’d managed ten days last October and it had scared the shit out of him. Withdrawal had been no joke, although by the third day the hand tremors had abated and the colony of cooties squirming under his skin had retreated. He’d even started to feel some physical benefits. Not puking his guts out every morning was a welcome change, as was having bowel movements that weren’t like the first explosive discharge of a clogged garden hose. In spirit and mind, however, he’d wound up feeling much, much worse. What was objectively a stunning New England autumn suddenly seemed coated with a sticky membrane of meaninglessness. His moods fluctuated between rage and despair. And then there were the dreams. Car crashes, dropped babies, futile punches, chronic pantlessness. He’d wake every two hours feeling like he was lying in a just-drained bathtub. The worst was a recurring dream in which he’d down shot after shot of whisky, rendering himself so drunk that he woke up with a drubbing hangover, even though he was perfectly sober. The ache was never-ending, interrupted only by explosions of terror and dread. Sobriety hurt. They didn’t mention that in the pamphlets. This would be what he was letting himself in for. And not just for ten days. But for thirty. Theoretically, forever. That was their plan. A forced march into a place where sweet relief was no longer at hand.