Fix You

by Beck Anderson

  “And Franca?” The woman’s speaking. Her voice is clear and clean above the surf.

  “She’s a friend.” Andrew’s voice is muddled by his cough.

  “Friend with benefits?” The girl laughs, but something’s not ringing true.

  “No, no, no.” He laughs hard. Too hard. He’s drunk. I look at my watch. Yes, it’s been probably two hours. But this is a man with a problem. Someone told me once that to an alcoholic, the first drink is like falling off a cliff. There’s no going back. I remember Andrew’s comment to me about no switch. He can’t turn it off. I want to weep. This sucks, and this is the reason he and I won’t make it together.

  That realization hits me hard, but I press forward. I still need to get him home tonight. He’s sick, and drinking problem or no, his first problem is getting over pneumonia.

  As if on cue, he coughs.

  “I should take you home,” the woman suggests. “I have a cure for that cough.”

  “I’ve got a ride.” He’s coughing again. This fit is a longer one.

  I can see them, silhouetted by the orange ball of fire behind them. The woman is sitting close. She’s patting him on the back now, trying to still the coughs.

  “He does, that’s true.” I announce as I’m approaching. I call it announcing. It’s probably more like yelling, but let’s not split hairs.

  The woman straightens up, surprised. “Who are you?” She’s beautiful: huge black hair and dark eyes, luscious full lips.

  “I’m the one who’s taking my sick friend home.” I put myself between them.

  She stands up. “Interview’s over, I guess.”

  “Are you a reporter?”

  “Maybe.” She looks around, uncomfortable. Good.

  “I think maybe you should leave now.”

  “Whatever.”

  I stand my ground and consider growling at her. Behind me, Andrew tries to laugh but loses it to another round of coughing. He’s not on his feet yet, and I’m glad. I’ll deal with him in a minute.

  She stalks away, back up the staircase. I don’t know how Andrew’s going to make it. I don’t know if he can catch his breath to climb. This is a sick déjà vu to standing with another man I loved, listening to him try to catch his breath. I have to sit for a second to bear the brunt of the feeling.

  Andrew stands. “Nice.” He thrusts his hands clumsily into his pockets, and he tries to walk off down the beach. He stumbles a bit and stops.

  “Nice, what?” I am mad. I am steaming mad.

  “She’s just a reporter.”

  “Yeah, I noticed. And you’re a drunk talking to a reporter.” I pull up even with him.

  He turns to face me. “Nice.” He takes off down the beach again.

  He’s got a bigger stride, but I’m sober, so we’re an even match in the storming-off competition. “No. No, you’re not going to be all self-righteous with me.”

  He stops, and I grab him by the elbow.

  “Look at me.”

  He does. Why I’m talking to him, I don’t know. He more than likely won’t remember this in the morning.

  “What?”

  “You’re on a dangerous path. You’re sick, and you’re drinking. Plus you’re talking to some vulture. And she’s flirting with you…or something.”

  I shouldn’t have added that last part, because that’s the part he latches on to.

  “Do you think I’d even take that bait? You give me no credit.” He shakes off my hold on his elbow and starts down the beach again.

  This has to stop. He’s going nowhere, and I need to get him home. We can argue tomorrow. Or whatever. Right now it’s getting colder and colder, and he’s got pneumonia.

  “Andrew. Andrew, stop.” I try to get him by the elbow again. I use a softer tone. “Andrew, we need to get you home.”

  He shakes his arm up and out of my grasp with a hard jerk. I catch the business end of that hard jerk and lose my balance, falling backward. My hands go out behind me, and I feel something sharp under my right arm as I land in the sand.

  I sit there for a minute. The pain comes quickly. I see the glint of broken glass. Great. Andrew stands over me as I turn my arm over, revealing a sizable gash.

  Yes, Andy Pettigrew just pushed me down and cut me. Not on purpose, but I can see the headlines now. His life is over. I feel a trickle of blood on the inside of my elbow and immediately get up and look around for a place to run.

  “Kelly—”

  I shake my head. “No, Andrew. Look.” The reporter woman has turned around and is coming back down toward us.

  This is not how this is going to end. I will not allow it.

  I break into a run, fumbling for my cell in my pocket. I look back to see him crumpled, kneeling on the sand with his head in his hands.

  I lengthen my stride to put as much distance between us as possible. The crash of the waves becomes the only sound in my ears, and when I turn to look back, the bonfire is a distant dot behind me on the beach. I finally stop for a moment, try to collect my thoughts. I call Tucker.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Kelly. Tucker, call Jeremy. He needs to find Andrew, down on the beach. Now.”

  “What happened? Where are you?”

  I look up at the lights in the distance, kick off my shoes to run faster in the cool, loose sand. “I’ll call you back when I know where I am.”

  As usual, running finds me in my time of trouble, and I’m rescued by the rhythm of it. There’s blood down my arm, and I can tell there may be stitches involved. It hurts, but that’s not why I’m crying. Obviously. But the sand is soft and smooth, and I try to focus on that.

  There’s a road. I run to it, looking for a sign. The brightest lights on the street are a fancy little restaurant. I run up the beach access road to the parking lot and make the call.

  “Tucker?”

  “Yeah. Jeremy got Andrew. What’s going on?”

  “I’m at Geoffrey’s in Malibu.” I walk around the parking lot, trying to look normal as I dust the sand from my bare feet and cover the cut on my arm.

  “I’ll be there in a minute and take you to Andrew’s.”

  “Tucker, I’m staying at a hotel. Any that you can recommend would be great. And I can get a cab.”

  There’s silence. “I’m coming to get you. What about your things?”

  “We can figure that out tomorrow. I’m going to see when I can get a flight out.”

  Tucker’s in the parking lot in his plain little sedan in record time. He swings the door open without getting out, without leaving his seat. I climb in.

  He looks at me, at my arm, and his face falls. “What the hell?”

  I’ve never seen Tucker drop his guard. “I fell.”

  “Bullshit. We’re calling the police.” His cell phone is in hand.

  “Tucker. Stop. He didn’t hit me—he didn’t push me. He elbowed me. And he didn’t mean to. I fell on some glass. But I know how it looks, which is why you’re picking me up in the parking lot of a restaurant.”

  He’s grasping the phone so tightly there’s a strong possibility it will be crushed. “You just took off?”

  “Running’s kind of a reflex. Look, you called it. He’s a mess.”

  He’s quiet. We’re driving now, but he still hasn’t put his phone down.

  “It’s everything you thought was wrong, plus one more thing Jeremy knows about.”

  Finally Tucker speaks. “Jeremy told me today. A girl he knew, on his birthday.”

  “Ten years ago in a couple weeks.”

  Tucker looks at me and my arm again.

  I shake my head. “I know it’s not an excuse. I can’t be a part of his drinking. He needs help.”

  “Jeremy got him. He said he was completely wrecked and calling your name. Jeremy had to sit with him on the sand to get him to quiet down.”

  I like the image of Jeremy getting his perfectly casual outfit all sandy. I’d laugh if I didn’t hurt—and if I didn’t want to sob out loud right now. />
  “Thanks for coming to get me.”

  We’re returning to the city, and Tucker doesn’t look away from the road. “I’ll always come get you, no matter where you are, Kelly. Right now you need stitches and a tetanus shot.”

  I can’t answer. He takes me to the ER, gets me fixed up, checks me into a hotel, pays for it with who knows whose credit card, and doesn’t leave until he knows my flight number out in the morning. He will be the one who collects my things from Andrew’s, picks me up from the hotel, and puts me on the plane home the next day.

  I will be the one who covers my stitches with a long-sleeve shirt when I dress in the morning and ignores the phone calls and texts from a very flawed young man. If there was a line to be drawn in the sand, getting hurt might have been it. As much as l love him, and as much as I know he’s suffering, I can’t be an unintended casualty of that suffering. I have responsibilities beyond myself. I send him one last text before I board the plane back to my old life. It’s simple:

  Don’t call me again.

  37: Unraveling

  THERE ARE MANY REASONS I do not wear mascara on a regular basis. Number one, I never did jump on the makeup bandwagon. I had no older sister to teach me, and my mom was a strictly au natural hippie chick. Also, since then I have streamlined my morning routine to take as little time as possible. At some point I wisely admitted that waking up early is one of the worst things in the world, and I now do everything I can to avoid it. So skipping the mascara is my two minutes or thirty seconds or whatever time shaved from when I have to get up in the morning.

  Plus, I’m that terrible person who doesn’t always wash her face at night. If you don’t use a trowel to load on the makeup in the morning, it’s not the biggest deal at night to collapse on the bed without your face washed. And I’m also the person who, when applying mascara, either pokes herself in the eye or leaves a smudge smack in the middle of her eyelid that won’t come off.

  I’m getting to a point here. The biggest reason I don’t wear mascara except for oh-so-special occasions is that I cry.

  As Tessa says, I ugly cry. Not a little moisture out of one side of an eye, it’s fat tears falling down my face, snotty nose. All of it meeting on my cheeks until I use a tissue or convenient sleeve. If things are especially bad, this will also be accompanied by lots of odd snorty sounds.

  I cry at commercials. I cry when someone sings “The Star Spangled Banner” and doesn’t mangle it. I cry at assemblies when I see how much fun the kids are having. I cry from total sleep-deprivation and exhaustion when I’ve been up trying to fix and save the people I love.

  It’s safe to say I’ve not been wearing any mascara lately.

  I’m back to full-on worry mode about the future. I know—just because things have taken a turn, as my reserved English friend who doesn’t exist would say, I shouldn’t abandon the freedom and joy of living in the moment. But it’s hard right now.

  When I get home, I rally the troops. I need Tessa right now.

  She brings the boys home, and she sits with me at the kitchen table long after the boys have gone to sleep.

  I don’t know how to tell her. I pull up my sleeve. That’s the best I can do.

  Her face goes white. “Kelly Jo, what happened?”

  “He’s in trouble.” The tears start. It’s probably not realistic to expect them to stop anytime soon.

  “Did he hurt you?” Tessa is more gentle than I’ve seen her since Peter died.

  “No. No, but it was too much. That kind of drama, it sucks other people in. Getting hurt was my sign. I can’t be in the middle of a storm like that. I have to protect myself and my kids.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. Not at all. But I need to stay away until I can think straight. I can’t help him right now.”

  She picks up my phone. “He hasn’t texted you since you’ve been home?”

  “I told him not to. I just can’t, Tessa.”

  She nods and fiddles with my phone. “I could block the number if you want.”

  “It’s okay.”

  She gives me a big hug instead.

  She stays with me most of the night, but at some point she has to go home. And I lie down to stare at the ceiling. There’s no way I can sleep, despite how exhausted I am.

  I’m worried sick about Andrew, of course. I’m terrified by his behavior and completely unwilling to go anywhere near it for fear that his vortex will somehow pull me down with him, but I’m still worried.

  I also worry about the boys. How much have they noticed? Are they worried about Andrew? Are they worried about me? Have they been scarred somehow by my brief foray into dating? Is something like Andrew’s behavior in their future as young men? Could they turn into this brooding kind of person because of losing their dad? How do I steel them for the angst young American men apparently can’t handle? I don’t know. Too many questions.

  Here’s the nightly OCD anxiety routine I develop: get the boys home from school and handle assorted homework and lessons, practices, etc.; feed them; make sure they’ve bathed or at least half-heartedly promised to shower in the morning; try to clean the kitchen—though I have to admit I’ve never been very enthusiastic about dishwashing, so that often gets put aside for the following day; hang out with the boys and watch TV or read together; get them to sleep.

  Then I lie in my empty bed. Ditto snores. I lie there. I look at the clock repeatedly.

  Then I get up, go out to the kitchen, and fire up my laptop. Usually I fight against doing this until after midnight. Usually.

  Once the laptop’s on, I do normal mom Internet surfing. I check Facebook, my email. I check the weather and the headlines on the local news website.

  Then I stop the pretenses and Google him.

  The Andy Pettigrew results pop up. The worst days have images posted first. He has a beard now. Not scruff, not stubble, but a Unabomber-worthy beard. It’s unkempt. His pallor is bad. If his eyes are visible, they’re dull and very often unfocused.

  So far, just one time the news was bad enough that a mug shot popped up first. I choked. I walked away from the computer for about twenty minutes—crying my eyes out, basically. That would’ve been a time to witness the ugly cry in action. When I pulled myself together, I came back to read about his DUI arrest. The cops found him asleep/passed out at the wheel of his car, which was idling at the gate in front of his rented house.

  There’s lots of news about the friends he’s been seen with. None of them are people I remember him telling me about. Todd’s not one of them. I wonder how he’s met them. I wonder if they’re predatory. I wonder if they drag him out to clubs and let him do the buying.

  But really. The man is thirty now. He’s an adult. The worst predator is his addiction. It’ll eat him alive. He doesn’t need any frenemies for that—he can destroy his life all by himself.

  Which is how I’ve left him. Alone. I don’t know if I’ll be able to forgive myself.

  Every night I do this. I watch from afar as he spirals downward. Then usually I cry myself to sleep.

  Several of these episodes have involved me trying to decide if I should call. He’s not called since I forbade him to (Gee, wonder why?), but part of me keeps hoping he will. I’m also terrified that he will.

  I sent him a note on his birthday, writing that I hoped he was taking care of himself. I considered calling that night to check in on him, apologize for leaving him in his hour of need. Then I woke up the next day and remembered my travels down this road before. I’m just not strong enough. I have to be strong for me and two other people already. I feel like I’m carrying a steamer trunk full of baggage and the weight of the world for the boys, and I can’t carry anything more. I wish I could.

  Instead I Google him and see the path he’s tearing through the celebrity landscape. I wonder how long it’ll be before he’s the butt of late night jokes and the cliché of the Hollywood washout.

  I can’t stand it.

  But I can’t help. I can’t do
this for him. I can’t.

  So I wander around, blind to the world, running on empty, trying to pretend I’m normal. The boys probably figured out long ago that I’m not firing on all cylinders, but they’ve ridden out some tough patches of depression with me before. They know from experience to set my running shoes by the back door and call Gran if they need someone to give me a good snap-out-of-it lecture.

  When they ask after Andrew, I tell them he’s very busy, and we might not see him for a while. I’ve told them as little as I can beyond that. And I try to smile when I’m around them, as hollow as it may feel.

  Depression is a terribly mundane way to exist. It’s like death by paper cut. Or non-death by paper cut. There’s nothing as dramatic as an end. It’s just a dusk, a dimness to what used to be bright and in focus.

  It sucks. Most days, after my nightly sad habit, I wake up feeling like one of the boys is standing with a ski boot to my chest, compressing me into the coils of the mattress.

  If I could sleep forever, I would.

  Sleeping sometimes involves dreaming, though. And sleep’s necessary to have the coping skills I seem to be lacking, but I can’t stand seeing Andrew in my life again, even if it’s just a dream. It hurts. And when I dream of Andrew and Peter in the same night, the pain’s almost unbearable.

  I don’t know if I’m still talking in my sleep, but if I am, I hope I’m asking someone for help. We need reinforcements. Fast.

  38: Still No

  I DON’T KNOW which day it is, but the boys are doing their homework when I see Andrew’s picture pop up on Entertainment Tonight. I turn the TV off. I don’t want the boys to see him like this. I don’t know if they’ve been paying attention, but they don’t need to know he’s struggling, suffering. They don’t need that.

  Later that night I clean up after dinner and try hard to act normal. But I’m really waiting for the boys to wander away from the kitchen table so I can get on the computer and find out what’s happened to Andrew. Finally, mercifully, they drift upstairs to get ready for bed.

  There’s a knock at the door. I can’t even answer it before Tessa charges in.