“You did what?” With each breath, the panic grows, the fire fanned, my psyche closer to the very thin edge of hysteria.
“I dropped her back off at the house. With Simon.” My mother shifts the strap of her purse higher on her shoulder, and her keys glint at me from her hand. “What’s wrong?”
I can’t see through the panic. I can’t think through my fear. At some point, I step forward. Somehow, I have her keys. She is holding her hand, her face twisted in anger, her mouth moving, yelling, but I can’t even hear her. I only hear my heartbeat, the dull thud, the crack of my steps against the gravel, the creak of leather seats as I shove myself into the driver’s seat and shut the door.
I drive. There is the blow of a horn, and a car swerves. The pedal won’t go further, and my legs are stretched out too far, the seat way back, the mirrors on the car all wrong. Something clips against my bumper, and I grip the wheel tightly, holding it through the turn.
All I can see is her face. Her tiny hand lifting to those lips, the blowing of a distracted kiss.
When I turn down my street, I see the ambulances, the police cars. I stop in the middle of it and get out, tripping over something in my haste, my palms skinning on the rough asphalt, the skin burning. I move, stumble. I shove at a body and my foot hits the curb, climbs up the driveway.
I am stopped by arms around my waist, the black chest of a uniform bumping against me, strange hands on my shoulders. Yelling. The whip of wind and hair across my face. I scream at them that this is my house, and they don’t care. I tell them that my child is inside, and something on the man’s face… I will never forget that look, the way that his face hardened and softened, all at once. I see that look, and I understand what it means.
I love her. Even when I left her, even when I was happily writing in that psych ward or slamming dishes onto the floor in frustration—I loved her. I loved her. I love her. I need her. I need… need…
I can’t see through the tears, I can’t hear through my own screams. His chest won’t break, I pound on it until my fists sag, until he lifts me against his chest and carries me to an ambulance.
I beg him to see my daughter, but he says nothing.
MARK
After six hours of silence, she leaves the room and walks past the office door, heading to the other end of the hall. He looks up from his spot at the desk, watching her slowly trudge by, the notepad in hand, her head not turning to him. There is the quiet sound of the door closing, and he waits for a moment.
Silence.
He rises and goes to the room that she left, the door wide open, and he glances in, surprised to see a fully furnished space—a theater room that Maggie would fall in love with. Flipping off the light switch, he closes the door, a key still stuck in the lock. Returning to the office, he settles onto the couch, propping his feet on the end of it and folding his arms across his chest. Staring up at the ceiling, he wonders what she is doing.
“I’ll write it. But I need you to leave me alone to do it.”
There is a fine line between leaving her alone and neglect. At some point, she’ll need food. Medicine. Sleep. He glances at the clock, and considers an interruption. Considers telling her about Charlotte Blanton, and her mention of an article.
He’ll give her a few more hours. But then, if she is still awake, he’ll bring her something to eat. He closes his eyes, and relaxes against the leather cushion.
Three hours later, there is no response to his knock, and he quietly turns the knob and cracks open the door, tilting his head inside. The light from the hall first illuminates a child’s light switch, Beauty and the Beast dancing around the edge. The walls are a pale pink, the carpet cream. He sees the edge of a dollhouse and instantly, soberly, understands. He carefully steps inside and stops, looking down at her. A nightlight plays gently over the scene—her body curled around the notebook, her hand possessively over the top of the page, words half filling the space. Her eyes are closed, her body slack, and he bends over to pick her up, and then stops. In two months, it is the first time she has looked at peace, the lines in her forehead slack, her expression calm, her fists uncurled. His eyes move to the page, where a dozen lines repeat the same thing.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
He ignores the other pages, a sea of them across the floor, underneath her elbow and head, pages upon pages of story. Instead, he grabs a blanket from the floor, stretching it over her body, then steps backwards, gently closing the door. Returning to the office, he stretches back out on the couch and closes his eyes.
A love story has a series of requirements, an equation for success. Love + Loyalty = Happily Ever After. I’ve written and read enough in this life to understand that an equation for success rarely produces it, but that breaking the rules typically guarantees failure. I think marriage is the same way.
Can you love a monster? I did. I loved him, and I hated him, both for the entirely wrong reasons.
Did we have loyalty? No. I was more loyal to my books, to my words, to my characters, than I was to him. He was more loyal to his secrets, his crimes, his perversions, than to me.
Was there a Happily Ever After? I told you, early on in this book, the chances of that.
I wake up on Bethany’s floor, my neck sore, a page sticking to my palm when I lift it. I assemble the loose papers, turn to the last chapter, and write the book’s final scene. I have written a lot of The Ends in my lifetime. This one is both the hardest, and the easiest, I have ever written. I print the letters in a neat script, then slide the page off my lap, letting it flutter to the floor with the others.
Done. My story, start to finish. I’ve spent the last six weeks thinking that I wouldn’t be able to tell it, wouldn’t be able to walk back through that day, through those terrible moments. Now that I have, I feel lighter, as if I’ve physically stripped the moments from my heart and transferred them to the page. They say confession cleans the soul. I should have confessed a long time ago.
I close my eyes and sit back against the wall, stretching out my legs and flexing my fingers. Now that I am finished, there is only one thing I want to do.
I move slowly to my feet, my back protesting, my chest tight from the hours of constriction. I crack the wrists of each hand as I move quietly out to the hall, passing the office, Mark’s snores coming quietly through the open door, and continue to my old bedroom. Going inside, I use the restroom, then stand at the sink, meeting my eyes in the reflection as I wash my hands.
Am I ready?
I turn off the water and lean forward, examining myself. I look like death. I feel even worse. At the moment, the only thing that doesn’t hurt is my mind. I reach down and open the center drawer of the vanity, pulling out the only thing in there, a small white vial of liquid. Four ounces of peace. Four ounces of surrender.
Am I ready?
I pull it out and set it on the table.
MARK
The hand is soft but insistent, pushing against his shoulder, and he jerks awake, his back wrenching painfully as he sits up.
“Shit.” Helena’s voice moves, and there is the stumble of feet across the rug. “You scared me.”
He blinks, trying to see in the dark. “What time is it?”
“Late. I finished. Can you read it?”
He moves a foot onto the floor, pressing on his lower back as he sits fully upright. “Now?”
“No, Steinbeck. In the morning. I just woke you up to ask you the question.”
He can see more now. The hang of her dark hair, the outline of her glasses. She stands in the middle of the room, clutching a stack of pages. A ghost, that’s what she looks like, the pajamas hanging off her frame, her long fingers skeleton-like in their clutch. “You’re being sarcastic.”