The very tip of his tail moved. Was that a wag? She’d never seen him wag his tail.
Encouraged, she said again, “Marley?”
And again, his tail moved, the whole thing this time. Then he licked her face.
“Oh, Marley.” She hugged him, and joy burst through her body. Everything would be okay. She had a dog to love again. “Let’s go give you a bath, Marley.”
There was a spring in her step as they walked back to the car. After securing Marley in the back seat, she got behind the wheel and pulled out of her spot. Driving slowly toward the exit, she hummed to the music on the radio, suddenly filled with an optimism she hadn’t had in a while. Maybe she’d go house hunting with Finn tomorrow while Brody was at work. And look to get Finn into a preschool.
From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of something black bearing down on her. She slammed on the brakes, her hand automatically hitting the horn, but it was too late. An SUV that was pulling out of its parking spot backed into Annie’s side of the car. It screeched to a halt, and then the driver pulled the car forward.
Annie sat still for a moment. Then she got out, after looking back to make sure Marley was okay. She walked over to the driver of the other car, who had gotten out as well.
“Hey, you backed into my car.” That was all Annie managed to get out before the older woman began screaming.
“I did not! I stopped before I hit your car. This is a brand-new car. It has a sensor that tells me there’s a car behind me, and I stopped before I hit you.”
Taken aback by the woman’s attitude, Annie let her voice rise. “You hit my car. I felt it.” The woman continued to yell out denials, and Annie threw up her hands. “You hit me. Stop yelling.”
The woman pointed. “There’s not a dent on your car. I didn’t hit you.”
Annie inspected her car and had to admit there was no dent. But the simple fact of the matter was the woman had hit her, and instead of apologizing and discussing it like a rational human being, she was screaming at Annie like a banshee. Annie’s blood began to boil. “You didn’t hit it hard enough to make a dent, but you did run into me.”
“You’re crazy. I didn’t. Move your car. Now. I need to leave.” The woman waved her arms in the air, her face red and her mouth drawn down in an ugly snarl.
“I’m not the one who’s crazy.” Annie took a deep breath. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t engage with someone who wasn’t rational. She could either call the police and waste a lot of time filing a report, or she could walk away before she lost it.
She turned without another word. Biting her lip hard, Annie got back into her car. She pulled away and turned left out of the lot. But she made it only a few minutes before her nose prickled. Knowing she needed to pull over, she stopped at the first safe place, in front of the Saint Catherine Cemetery, and gave in to her tears.
Why was the world so intent on tearing her down? Just when she was feeling optimistic, feeling great about rescuing a dog, that ugly incident had to happen. She was shaken by the woman screaming at her when the woman had clearly hit her. And why was she getting so upset? The old Annie would have laughed it off, knowing the woman was completely irrational. But this new Annie took everything so personally it was as if the woman had physically attacked her.
Her breath quickened, and she felt that tingling sensation in her fingers and knew a panic attack was starting. She grabbed for her purse and pulled out her Xanax bottle, gripping it tightly as she tried to control her breathing. She’d been prescribed the antianxiety meds the year her life fell apart and she’d had her first panic attack in the subway. The attacks had lessened over the years, but when Finn’s life had been in danger last summer, they’d returned with a vengeance. Now she always had the bottle with her, as if the act of carrying the pills would ward off those moments of panic when her heart felt like it would stop beating. No, she wouldn’t go to therapy, but yes, she would rely on pharmaceuticals. Because a panic attack was a physical thing, and the drugs did wonders to keep her body from failing her.
As her heart raced, her vision tunneled, and she could no longer breathe. Frantically, she yanked open the door, desperate for air. When her body finally responded and she could breathe again, she flopped back against her seat. Tears dripped from her eyes, but the panic attack had her in its throes and she couldn’t even reach up to brush them away. She stayed like that for what felt like hours, battling her terror and the feeling she was dying. She knew she should take at least a half of a Xanax, but she couldn’t move.
A wet nose nudged her neck. Marley was straining against his seat belt so he could reach into the front seat. He gazed at her steadily until she was finally able to move. She twisted back to put her arms around his head and kissed him as her heart rate slowed. They stayed like that, listening to the traffic whizzing by, until she was calm again.
Then Annie took a deep breath and screamed as loud as she could. Marley didn’t move, didn’t flinch from the sound. Her grip on him tightened. She had to get it together. She had to.
4
Annie studied Finn, who was playing with his cars on the floor. They’d just come home from looking at two possible houses with a real estate agent, who’d kept calling her Mrs. Devlin. Annie hadn’t changed her last name when she got married but hadn’t bothered to correct the agent.
She rubbed the side of her head. After the scene with the screaming woman yesterday, she’d popped half a Xanax before driving home and then, as soon as she got to the Ohana, a whole one. And she’d taken a sleeping pill when two glasses of wine hadn’t made her sleepy. Which was why she’d woken up this morning in a fuzzy blur, something that was becoming all too common lately.
Brody was at work, and it was just the two of them. Maybe if they did something fun together, Finn would stop looking at her with those worried eyes.
“Do you want to go to the beach?”
“Yes!” Finn’s face lit up, and for a moment, Annie glowed from the inside. She could do this. She could make her son love her as much as he loved his father.
They changed into their bathing suits and then drove down to Lydgate Beach Park, less than five minutes away. As they walked over the expanse of grass from the car to the beach, some of the chickens that roamed freely all over Kauai followed them. Finn ran next to a mother with three little chicks, and Annie smiled at his delight.
She found a spot for them on the sand, and while she spread the blanket and opened the beach chairs, Finn finally tore himself away from the chicks. He grabbed his pail and shovel and ran to the water’s edge, only about twenty yards away. Annie kept an eye on him as she sat back in her chair, feeling the sun warm her skin and her hair catch the wind. For a second, she closed her eyes, letting the sounds of the ocean wash over her. This was why they had come to Hawaii.
When she opened them again and didn’t see Finn, she shot up straight in the chair. Her heart pounded, and it was just like that day in August: the disorientation, the sweaty palms, and the panic in her body that spread like poison in her veins. Even all these months later, the same feeling of dread made her fingers tingle, her vision darken, as she frantically searched for Finn and called out his name.