You mean the guy who forced me into rehab, who paid for the whole thing, and who was waiting for me when I came out?
You mean the guy who convinced me to give life another shot?
No, I’ve never met that man. Never heard of him.
? ? ?
I drive back to the house, humoring the girls, laughing at their jokes but inside, a dull ache fills me. I’m ready, though. I have no idea what you’re talking about, Officer. My answers will be confident but not too perfect.
When I turn onto the street, I see immediately that the police vehicle is gone. Relief floods through me. I park in the garage. The kids fly into the house.
“Daddy, I got my ears pierced!”
I walk in slowly, my pulse decelerating, the adrenaline draining from me. The M&Ms are bouncing around the house, heading upstairs to his bedroom and home office, opening the basement door.
“Where’s Daddy?”
I spot him outside, in the backyard, staring out. Something in his hand . . . a cigarette?
“Girls, put his dinner on the counter. He’s outside. I’m going to talk to him. Just me,” I say, as Macy rushes for the door. “Give us a minute, please, Mace?”
? ? ?
“Hey.”
Adam is standing by a stone fountain in the backyard, empty this time of year. He is underdressed for the cold, just a light sweater on with blue jeans. A cigarette burns in his hand.
“Since when do you smoke?” I say.
“Since pretty much never.” He looks at the cigarette and tosses it in the grass, stamps it out with his foot. “Monica started smoking to get over the oxycontin. Always seemed dumb. But I’d have gone along with anything that made her stop those pills. I even smoked a few cigarettes with her. Now, every once in a while, when I think of her, I light one up. Isn’t that the dumbest thing?”
“You’re thinking about her,” I say.
He glances in my direction, stuffs his hands in his pockets. “The attorney general’s office was here. The people I complained to after Monica’s overdose? Remember I filed that complaint?”
“I remember.”
Adam looks at me, his jaw quivering, his eyes filling with tears. “He’s dead,” he says.
“He’s—who’s dead?”
“David.”
“David?”
“David Jenner. The man who stole Monica from us and then stole her money and left her with a bottle of fucking pills to overdose on? The handsome, charismatic, glorified drug dealer?”
I try to act surprised. “Of course, I remember. I’ve tried to put that name out of my head.”
He lets out a sigh. “Me, too. And that wasn’t his name, anyway. We figured he used a fake name.”
“Right.”
“His name was Nicholas Caracci,” says Adam. “He killed himself.”
“He killed himself, huh?”
Adam shakes his head. “Apparently he was trying the same thing with some lady in Chicago. It—it backfired or something. I don’t know.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “So how are you feeling?”
“How’m I feeling? I want my wife back, that’s how I’m—”
He breaks down, something he doesn’t do often, covers his face with his hands and lets out a good, blubbering cry. I rub his back and hope that the girls aren’t watching.
“The things I said to her,” he mumbles.
“Adam, please.”
“After she left. When she was full-on using again, shacked up with some pretty boy who was handing it out to her like candy. I told her to stay away from the kids.”
“You had to.”
“I told her I didn’t want them seeing their mother as a junkie whore—”
I grab and hold him tight, while he sobs and moans.
“You had to protect the girls,” I whisper. “You tried to help her, and you would have. She would have made it. But he used the drugs to drag her over to the dark side. He turned her into somebody she wasn’t. You couldn’t let the girls see her like that.”
I remember that time, too. Talking to Monica every day, fielding the occasional frantic call from Adam. I should’ve done more. I was too caught up in my own addiction. And I was out of my element. I’d never had to dispense a single word of advice to my older sister, the successful one.
“I would’ve taken her back,” he says, his voice still shaking.
“I know.”
“After he robbed her clean and took off, and she was living in filth and waste and practically in the gutter. I would’ve brought her back and cleaned her up and we could’ve—I know we could’ve—”