“Are you okay?” he asked immediately.
“Yes and… no.” I didn’t know how to answer the question, how to convey my emotions. I needed to hear his voice. I wished he was next to me. Then, I felt guilty. Drew is not your husband. How and when should I tell Greg that he’s not my husband any longer either? I sobbed then, the tears coming for the first time in torrents, soaking the sleeve of my hand holding the phone. My nose ran, and I let out a loud, blubbery cry like one of Leah’s. Oh, Leah, how will you deal with this when I can’t? After a few minutes, my crying subsided.
“Do you want me to come there?” Drew asked hesitantly.
I shook my head, but then realized he couldn’t see me. “No, please don’t come here. I don’t know what to do, how this is going to work.” I meant Greg, but I realized Drew would think I meant him. I was too tired to explain. All I could do was tell Drew the truth. “I love you. Don’t worry about that, okay?” Guilt sneaked back in, but I quelled it. Loving Drew was the one thing I was sure of, guilt or no.
“I love you, too, Claire. Of course I worry, especially right now, but I don’t want you to think about that, okay?”
We fell silent then, so much to say, to ask, the weight of words between us.
“Did you see Greg?” he finally asked.
I pictured Greg, small and childlike looking out the window, his back toward the door. Then I remembered the expression on his face when he turned. “Yes, I saw him. It’s definitely Greg. I… I don’t know what I thought. I guess I thought I’d come here, and it would be a mistake, that it wouldn’t be him.” I thought of Greg’s first words to me: I’m glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would. “Drew…” I had to get off the phone, but I owed Drew some kind of explanation. One I didn’t have. “I don’t want you to worry. I love you. That’s the only thing I know right now. But I have to go. I have to sleep.”
“Of course. I love you, too. Call me tomorrow.”
We hung up, and I lay down in the bed, fully clothed. Sleep would not come. I replayed every minute of the meeting with Greg, a dubbed tape on repeat.
Chapter 34
I got out of bed on Sunday, my eyes burning and my head pounding. I had resolved in the middle of the night to no longer be a victim of circumstance, to take charge of my life. I could not go back down the rabbit hole of grief. The children couldn’t go through that again.
I called Matt Reynolds, who had rented a room next door to mine. “Hi, Matt. I’m sorry to bother you so early. Do you know if Dr. Goodman will be at the rehab center today? Can I talk to her again?”
Matt said he didn’t know, but he’d find out and call me back. I hung up and waited. He called back a couple of minutes later and said that if we left immediately, she could meet with us.
I checked the clock: nine fifteen. I threw on clothes without showering and was outside my door in five minutes.
When Matt dropped me off at the Toronto Rehabilitation Center, I said, “Matt, I want to talk to Dr. Goodman, and then I’ll get back to you, okay? We can leave today, I think, but I want to make sure. And… thank you. For everything.” I hugged him. “I don’t know what I would do without you here.”
He hugged me back awkwardly. I realized then that I knew almost nothing about his life. I told him I’d call him on his cell when I was ready to leave.
I met Dr. Goodman in the same conference room. She motioned for me to sit at any one of the chairs around the table.
“How are you doing today?” she asked, not unkindly, but professionally. Her lack of humanity grated on me, but it seemed I’d have to learn to live with it.
“I’m as well as you could expect under the circumstances. I’m better than yesterday. I wanted to meet with you to discuss Greg’s treatment and my part in it. There are things you need to know, as his therapist.” I took a deep breath. “We are no longer legally married.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”
“I divorced him. We tried for two years to find him; he had vanished without a trace. It’s not a neat, clean story, and I will tell you, not because I’m justifying myself, but because it may help you with his treatment to know as much about his previous life as possible. I believe he had an affair right before he disappeared. I didn’t even know that he was in Toronto. He had left on a business trip to Rochester. I found out later that there were a number of things he lied about. I used to be angry, but I’m not anymore. I’ve moved on with my life. However, that being said, Greg is the father of my children. It’s important to me that he become well again, as long as that takes. I may not be married to him, but I will be committed to his recovery. I just need to have a plan for how that will work.”