The door clanged shut, and she was in the dark.
Lexi stood there, freezing already. She opened her palm. It was too dark to see the pills, but she felt them. She put them in her mouth and swallowed them without water. It took a while for them to take effect, but finally a calm settled over her. She closed her eyes and forgot all about Mia’s off-key singing and Zach’s promise of love and Grace’s mewling baby sounds. She sat on the cell’s rubber mattress staring at nothing, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, just passing through time that felt interminable.
Part Two
Though nothing can bring back the hour
of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not; rather find
strength in what remains behind.
—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, ODE:
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
Eighteen
2010
From a distance, the Farraday family appeared to have healed. Miles, the renowned surgeon, was back to doing what he did best, and if he spent too many hours in the OR, it seemed right that he should save as many lives as he could. Zach had surprised everyone who knew him by blistering through both junior college and the University of Washington; he’d graduated in three years and started medical school a year early. Now he was in his second year, and his grades were stellar. He had moved into a rental house on the island, and he did two things in his life: school and fatherhood. He seemed not to care that he had no time for a social life. Islanders spoke of him with pride, saying how tragedy had shaped him, and how well he’d risen to the challenge of fatherhood.
And then there was Jude.
For years, she had tried to reclaim the woman she’d been before her daughter’s death. She’d done what was asked of her, what was expected. She’d gone to support groups and therapists. She’d taken Xanax and Zoloft and Prozac at various times. She’d slept too much and then too little. She’d lost too much weight. Mostly, she’d learned that some pain simply could neither be cured nor ignored nor healed.
Time hadn’t healed her wounds. What a crock of shit that little cliché was. The kind of thing lucky people said to those who were less fortunate. Those same lucky people thought that talking about grief helped, and they thought nothing of telling you to “try to get on with your life.”
Finally, she’d stopped expecting to feel better, and that was when she found a way to live. She couldn’t control her grief or her life or much of anything, really (that was what she knew now), but she could control her emotions.
She was careful. Deliberate.
Brittle.
That most of all. She was like an antique porcelain vase that had been broken and painstakingly repaired. Every scar was visible up close, and only the gentlest touch could be used in handling the piece, but from a distance, from across the room, in the right light, it looked whole.
She followed a rigid routine; she’d learned that a schedule could save her. A to-do list could be the framework for a life. Wake up. Shower. Make coffee. Pay bills. Go to the grocery store … the post office … the dry cleaners. Put gas in the car.
This was how she moved through the hours of every day. She cut and styled her hair even though she didn’t care how she looked; she wore makeup; she dressed carefully. Otherwise, people would frown at her, lean closer, and say, “How are you, really?”
Better to look healthy and keep moving. On most days, that worked for her. She woke up and made it through the interminable daylight. On weekdays, she fed her granddaughter breakfast and drove her to kindergarten. A few hours later, she picked Grace up from the elementary school and dropped her off at the afternoon day care program that allowed Zach to spend his days in medical school.
Jude had learned that if she focused on the minutiae of life, she could keep her grief at bay.