Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 121054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
She froze like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.
I took advantage of the moment to add, “I’m about to marry him, Valerie. I need to know.”
After our huge blow up the night before Emma’s wedding, a fight in which I’d threatened Valerie with physical violence and boasted of my ability to manipulate her right out of Neil’s life—not my finest moment as a human being—she had no reason to participate in a difficult heart-to-heart with me. But she cared about Neil, and I hoped it would be enough to get me the answers I was dreading.
“Oh, Sophie. I apologize for being so brusque. Of course you’re concerned about this.” Every trace of irritation or dislike of me vanished from her expression. She looked genuinely remorseful. After a pause, she answered, “Yes. When Leif died, Neil did something very similar to this. Only then, he ended up in the hospital.”
“This time, it was Valium and pot and booze,” I told her, sliding onto a stool on the other side of the island.
Valerie leaned against the fridge. “Sleeping pills and vodka.”
A chill went up my spine. “You don’t think he was…”
“No.” She shook her head to reinforce her answer. “I don’t believe he was suicidal. You know Neil and his need for control. This is just a manifestation of that. If he can’t will himself to stop feeling, he’ll drink himself into a stupor or reach for the Klonopin. I’m amazed he’s hid it from you for this long.”
“He didn’t.” I just hadn’t noticed the pattern. When Emma had gotten married, he’d responded to his grief at “losing” his daughter by keeping his blood alcohol level up. After our abortion, he’d bought weed. Any difficult conversation? Alcohol was there.
The room around me seemed to vibrate, but it was just sudden, relentless tension in my skull.
“Sophie? Are you all right?” Valerie stepped forward, and I waved her back.
“Just a little…” I tried to breathe to calm my nerves, but it didn’t help. “Anxiety attack.” My chest buckled, and in a horrifying split second, I started outright sobbing in front of Valerie. And I couldn’t stop. I’d never felt so hopelessly stupid and willfully blind in my entire life. I wanted to storm upstairs and shake him. I wanted to demand to know why he hadn’t told me. Did he even know?
I clutched the countertop and focused on the light from the skylights overhead making the granite glitter under my fingers. Over the sound of my heartbeat in my ears, I heard water running then Valerie’s high-heeled boots clacking on the tile.
“Shhh,” Valerie soothed, dabbing my forehead with a cold, wet tea towel and a motherly touch. “You’re all right.”
Any compunction I’d ever had about showing “weakness” in front of her faded in the face of my misery. “Don’t…go,” I managed between sobs.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
If someone had told me I would ever be relying on Valerie in a moment of extreme vulnerability, I would have thrown something at them. If they had said she would put her arms around me in a cradling hug, I would have started something on fire. But it was happening, and I was so grateful for her compassion, even after all the times I’d been a complete bitch to her.
When I calmed down, my face was hot, and my eyes sore from crying. Valerie went to the sink and rewet the cloth with cool water then came back to wash my face. I let her, even though I felt like a child.
Maybe that was where the mothering feeling was coming from. Emma was the same age as me, so Valerie was literally old enough to be my mom. There must have been some kind of transference going on between us, a confusion of our roles.
We were supposed to hate each other, weren’t we?
“I take it Neil has something of a problem, then?” There was a gentle scolding in Valerie’s tone, but it wasn’t directed at me. She sounded put out at him. When I nodded, miserable, she asked, “How long has this been going on?”
“I don’t know.” Just sitting there, I couldn’t put my finger on it. It might have been easier to imagine a time when Neil hadn’t responded to a bad situation by reaching for the booze. “It seems like…a very long time.”
It had been. Neil had been on pills when he’d returned home from seeing his mother in London after her stroke. He’d said he took them to cope with flying, and I’m sure that was a part of it. But there had also been…
“Oh my god.” I put my head in my hands, resting my elbows on the island. “It’s been every single time. Any time anything has been difficult or bad…”
“Then, it sounds like he’s back to where he was when Emma was little.”