I know that, which is what is making this so very hard for me. I’ve watched Jude save everyone and stupidly believed he could save me.
“As is usually the case in LA,” he continues, “there was a doctor at the party and he checked her out. When he assured me she wasn’t in any danger, I had my housekeeper clean her up and I put her into a bed. She slept for days and when she woke up, she looked like a wounded animal. She was as fragile as wayward baby bird. I couldn’t let the outside world break her any more.”
“So you just let her stay?” I ask in disbelief.
“Didn’t you?” he counters. “She told me about her family. How they always opened the door for her. She told me that they never gave up on her. There was so much sadness in her and I just wanted to fix her.”
“You can’t,” I whisper. No one ever fixed Faith, and now no one ever would.
“I know that now. It took me a long time to learn that. She stayed with me for a few weeks. Gradually she got stronger and we got to know each other.”
I want to ask if he’s always taken in strays, but I know the answer. Jude: patron saint of lost causes. A man who will pull a stranger out of a bar. A man who comes over and fixes a single mom’s car window. A man who treats a child like he’s the most important person in the world. Jude collects people and tries to put them back together. He doesn’t simply believe in lost causes—he is one.
“Did you love her?” I ask it even though I don’t want to know the answer.
“I cared for her a great deal. There was something that drew me to her. She would show me parts of herself and then she’d hide them away again. I pretended we could be happy for a while. Maybe it was all a play. She told me she came to the party with a friend, and I never pressured her for more. I just gave her the space to heal. The first time I found her stoned out of her mind, I made excuses. I should have seen it coming.” His voice is hollow with the memories, trapped in a not so distant past. “I thought if I had been there, I could have stopped it. I didn’t really know what I was dealing with then.”
“You were looking for her at NA. You were never an addict.” The realization dawns on me in horrifying clarity.
He turns to face me. “Aren’t we all addicts? I am. I’m addicted to fixing people. I want to save them. I’m sure psychiatrists would have a field day with me. Imagine: a grown man with daddy issues. But I don’t need to pay someone to tell me I’m fucked up, Sunshine. Daddy hit me. He hit Mommy. I was too young to protect her and when I finally did, it was too late. I took one swing at him and she sided with him when he kicked me out of the house. He’d broken her, and I’d let him do it for all of those years.”
“It’s not your job to fix people,” I say. “It wasn’t your responsibility to save your mother. It wasn’t your job to fix Faith.”
“But isn’t it?” he asks. “Why do you go to those meetings? You have more self-restraint than any person I’ve ever met. What’s your drug?”
I don’t answer him. We both know why I go.
“You aren’t her.” Jude levels his gaze at me.
“I’m sorry for that,” I spit back. I don’t need him to tell me that I’ve been living a lie or that none of this is mine. I built a life for her instead of for me. Faith got the second chance I couldn’t give myself.
“When I first met you, I assumed she was the one who lied. She was so good at it. I honestly didn’t know for sure until today.”
“Do you even know my name?” I whisper. I’ve shared this man’s bed. I’ve fallen in love with him, and I’m only a ghost now.
“Grace. Of course I know your name.”
Hearing it stabs me through the heart. “Why did you tell people she was dead?” he asks me, but I don’t answer him this time. He’s seen through me and in doing so, he’s unraveled me. I’m naked before him, completely bared through a truth I’d buried a long time ago. Grace has been dead to me for much longer than Faith.
“I want you to go.” We stand in silence, our eyes locked but neither of us seeing one another. Jude doesn’t ask any more questions, doesn’t pressure me for the truth. Instead he walks into the night and leaves it behind with me.
There are no answers at the bottom of the bottle, but that doesn’t stop me from looking there. Amie doesn’t think I know about her secret stash. I’ve never brought it up, because it’s never been an issue for me before. It wasn’t a problem knowing it was in the house, because I’m as big a liar as Jude. That stash never tempted me. That fact isn’t comforting. Tomorrow I’ll mourn my past and my future. Tonight I want to forget.
I finish off one bottle of whiskey and reach for whatever else I can find socked away. I sit at the kitchen table and drink until I’m bleary eyed. A hint of my face reflects from the glass neck of the bottle. It’s warped and yet familiar like the smile on a strangers’ face.