NESSA’S HEART BANGED against her rib cage and blood roared in her ears. She looked over her shoulder at the house, then back at the broken door, and despaired. Was John inside the boathouse right now, peering out through the shattered door at her? Was he planning to wait until the lights went out in the house to break in?
And how high was he?
Always endless questions, never any good answers.
Call the cops? Ugh. Another police report. Another two hours wasted on minutiae that would change nothing. But if her husband was high on crack, in the throes of a manic episode, he might come after her with whatever tool he’d used to destroy the door.
Fuck.
She walked back to the house, went inside, and drew the dead bolt. Dialed 911, her most--used--digit combination. It seemed to her that she’d used them so much she’d almost worn depressions in the glass phone face.
“What’s your emergency?” The 911 operator’s flat, mechanical, almost--bored tone irritated Nessa.
“We’ve had another break--in,” Nessa said into the phone. The put--upon sigh in her own voice filled her with self--loathing.
“We’ll send out an officer. Do you want me to stay on the line until he arrives?”
Oh, I’m dying for you to, Nessa thought. Your warm, comforting presence will no doubt ease me through another harrowing stand--off. Of course, that was unfair—-the operator was just doing her job. But would it kill her to be a little more compassionate?
Nessa went into the kitchen and gripped the sink, keeping her eyes on the boathouse.
“I’m Stuck in a Condo (with Marlon Brando)” by the Dickies began playing on her phone, her ringtone for Marlon.
“Hello?”
“It’s hell being right all the time,” he said.
Nessa laughed. She had his full attention now, which was usually a little too intense, a little too penetrating. A civil engineering professor in his late thirties, Marlon’s alcoholism had taken hold during his PhD studies. Vodka had been his drug of choice, and a nearly fatal DUI sent him to rehab at twenty--six. He’d been sober over ten years, and Nessa’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor for three. Although AA generally frowned upon opposite--sex sponsorships, he and Nessa had clicked immediately.
“He broke into the boathouse,” Nessa said, hoping the inevitable police siren wouldn’t wake Daltrey, ever careful to shield her son from the chaos swirling all around him.
“Is John on the property? Do you want me to come over?”
“No, thanks,” Nessa said. “The cops are on their way.”
“You didn’t answer my first question.”
“The answer is I’m afraid he is.”
She filled the teakettle at the sink and set it on a burner.
“I don’t want to say I told you so,” Marlon said. “But I told you so. You should have petitioned for a protective order the minute you gave him the old heave--ho.”
“I know. I didn’t want to have to give depositions and talk to lawyers and cops and all that crap. I just wanted him off my property and out of our lives—-my life.”
She glanced sadly out the window above the kitchen sink, which looked out over twenty acres of hops vines. The vines were the beginnings of the niche farm her estranged husband had planted before he relapsed for the third and—-for her—-final time three weeks ago. Until then, the plants had held the promise of a new direction, a new start. John had come up with the idea of growing hops for local craft beer brewers. She’d made it clear this project was his baby—-she was plenty busy with her blog and satellite radio show. But now she’d have to hire someone to care for the hops or let them rot. It made her tired just thinking about it.
“Better get the ball rolling tomorrow,” Marlon said. “I doubt this will be John’s last unannounced visit.”
“I will,” she said. She hesitated. “Hey, Marlon. Give me a reality check, will you? I did the right thing, didn’t I?”
“Of course you did,” Marlon said. “Somebody smokes crack in your house—-I don’t care if it’s a bum or your husband or the pope—-with your toddler in the next room, you throw him out.”
“I gave him three chances,” she said.
“Yes. Which was more than generous.”
“Then why do I feel so guilty?”
“Because you have a heart.”
“Not according to him, I don’t.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “It’s an excuse. You can carry the message; you can’t carry the addict.”
She knew this twelve--step aphorism—-and all the others—-from her six years in Alcoholics Anonymous the way some -people knew The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but hearing it from a man who’d stayed sober for a decade made her feel better.
“In other words, it’s not your fault,” he said. “You did not enable him. You are not responsible for his sobriety. He is. Your priority has to be your own—-not to mention that little boy’s health and well--being, mental and otherwise.”
“I know,” she said.
Nessa turned on the burner, pulled a cup from the cabinet, and dropped in a teabag.
“Keep me updated, all right?” Marlon said. “And keep your head. Remember what’s important. Nothing is so bad that a drink won’t make it worse, right? Go to your meetings.”
“I will. Now go back to whatever it is you do when you’re not propping me up.”
“I don’t prop you up. God does. Remember that.”