Breaking Through

by A. M. Hartnett

  Simon shoved his feet into his boots and bent, teeth gritted to keep in his apology. She was absolutely right, but he wasn’t in the mood to admit it. Instead, he decided on a different kind of honesty.

  ‘I missed a few important messages from my girlfriend. She’s … there’s a hospital involved.’

  The combativeness on Grace’s face disappeared. ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘It’s not her, it’s her sister, but I should have been there. I should be there.’

  ‘Are you sure you should drive?’

  ‘What do you want me to do? Take a bus?’ He straightened and jangled his keys as he headed for the door. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘What about your clothes? They’re still in the dryer.’

  ‘Mail them to me.’

  He played his messages over Bluetooth as he headed down the long driveway. She had left three, all from the hospital. Her voice went from shaking with tears to dry as a leaf. He gripped the wheel until his knuckles went white as her misery surrounded him.

  A few minutes down the road, he passed Jacques coming from the other direction and laid on the horn. Through the rear-view mirror he watched the bike swivel around and stop, and Jacques’s helmet came off.

  He would have liked to stay and visit with his friend, to assure Jacques that everything was OK, but he had a three-hour drive between himself and Miranda.

  Two, if he could avoid big trucks and speed traps.

  * * *

  Though Eddie had dropped off to sleep in his playpen almost an hour ago, Miranda left the television tuned to Sesame Street. Not that Bert’s unending frustrations with Ernie’s irritating quirks did anything to soothe her. She just couldn’t be bothered to change it. She simply wanted to lie down and not do anything, and so that’s exactly what she did until the knock came at the door.

  She made no effort to get up. Whoever it was could just go away.

  Another knock, and then the knob turned and Simon poked his head in. He looked from her to the sleeping toddler, then quietly let himself in.

  Still, she didn’t budge, not until he held out his hand. Spared half the effort of getting off the sofa, Miranda let him pull her into the kitchen.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Miserable,’ she replied, slumping into a chair by the messy table, and laughed bitterly. ‘Good. She should be. She had her stomach pumped.’

  He stood opposite her, grasping the edge of a chair. ‘Did you sleep?’

  Miranda shook her head. ‘No, and don’t tell me I need it.’

  ‘What about food?’

  ‘I had some toast when I fed Eddie.’ She looked up at him. ‘You look like hell.’

  ‘You’re one to talk,’ he said, and went to the kettle.

  Miranda smiled at his back, pleased that he didn’t coddle her beyond those two questions. She felt less numb with him in the house.

  ‘I’m sorry I left so many messages,’ she said.

  Having filled the kettle and plugged it in, Simon grasped the edge of the counter and hung his head. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t reply to any of them. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.’

  ‘I shouldn’t expect you to be.’

  He turned, a scowl on his face ‘Yes, you should. I told you that you could count on me, and the one and only time you needed it I was MIA.’

  Miranda waved dismissively in front of her face. ‘Were you working?’

  ‘I was, until yesterday afternoon. And then –’ His frown deepened, and his nostrils flared as he exhaled. ‘It doesn’t matter. I was off fucking around when I shouldn’t have been.’

  They stared at one another. Miranda couldn’t think of anything to say, and it seemed that neither could Simon. After another deep breath, he pushed away from the counter and came up behind her.

  She’d never had a hug as good as the one he gave her as he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and squeezed her. She closed her eyes, grateful for his warmth, and rested her chin against his bicep.

  ‘I haven’t called my Mom yet,’ she admitted.

  ‘Do you want me to do it?’

  ‘No, I don’t want her to know yet. She’ll be mad as hell, but I think I need to talk to Juliet before I tell anyone. She might not want anyone to know, though I doubt it. I think she wanted everyone to know how unhappy she was.’

  ‘So, what do you want to do now?’

  No answer came to her at first. A few moments ago, being horizontal on the sofa had been at the top of the list, but now that Simon was there with her she realised that this house was the last place she wanted to be.

  She lifted her head and twisted around to face him. ‘I want to eat animal crackers with Nutella while you drink your tea, and then I want to go to your place, if that’s all right.’

  Simon kissed her temple. ‘I think we can do that.’

  A couple of hours later, Simon trudged into his apartment with her bag slung over his shoulders and the folded playpen under his arm. Miranda held Eddie in her arms and looked around Simon’s apartment. It was so sparse that there was little need for baby-proofing, but one thing she’d learned since her nephew became mobile is that he’d always find the least obvious route to disaster.

  ‘Do you want this in the bedroom?’ he asked as he set the playpen at the edge of the sofa.

  ‘No, here’s fine. I’ve got the baby monitor so there’s no need for him to be with us.’

  She sat down and trapped Eddie between her legs as she unwrapped him. She’d changed him into his pyjamas before leaving her house, so there was nothing to do but wait for Simon to make the baby jail functional.

  Although her overcharged brain made it hard to hold on to a thought for more than a few seconds, Miranda sensed the tension Simon carried with him. It made her squeamish to think that, in spite of what he said, he was just going through the motions of making her comfortable and biding his time until he felt he could tell her this wouldn’t work and not come off like a complete asshole.

  She tried to keep her emotions out of her face, but when he turned to her he picked up on it right away. ‘Hey, it’ll be OK.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ she said, hot tears burning as they spilled onto her lashes.

  She quickly put Eddie into the pen and gave him his play piano, then headed for the bedroom. She sat on the bed and buried her face in her hands.

  Simon joined her a moment later.

  ‘I think you need a long sleep,’ he said, sitting down next to her. ‘Let me run down to the drug store and get something you can take.’

  Shaking her head, she sniffled through her fingers. ‘I think I should just go home.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you shouldn’t have to deal with this.’

  He laughed a cynical laugh and leaned against her. ‘What would you do if you were me?’

  ‘Run,’ she said, lifting her head. ‘Run as far as I could from the fucked-up girl with the baby who crashed your life.’

  ‘You did crash my life, didn’t you?’ he said, his smile warm as he pushed her hair away from her face, but again came that shimmer of something else that warned her something was amiss.

  Miranda straightened and rubbed her wet hands against the denim covering her thighs. ‘You don’t have to pretend you’re not having second thoughts. I can see it whenever you try to reassure me.’

  Clearly taken aback, Simon raised his brows and opened his mouth. Then came the resignation, the long exhalation that preceded the truth, and she felt fresh tears coming.

  He mirrored her pose and shook his head. ‘This is the absolute wrong time to do this.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ she croaked, and wiped her eyes. ‘I can call a cab.’

  ‘Miranda, it’s not –’ He shook his head, then leaned forward, arms across his knees and hands clasped together. ‘I wasn’t planning on telling you at all, and then I was planning on telling you later, but I shouldn’t be making that decision for you. It should be up to you whether you want to stay.’

  He looked at
her, and took another deep breath. ‘I didn’t respond to you last night because I was in a motel room. I went there to get drunk, and that’s what I did. I … fell off the wagon, as they say.’

  Miranda stared at the red back of his neck, then shook her head. ‘Was there a full moon or something yesterday?’

  With brittle laughter, Simon shook his head. ‘I like that theory. It absolves me of any responsibility for what I did. Anyway, I got drunk and ended up calling Jacques. He came and took me to his place for the night. While you were going through hell here, I was deliberately walking into it three hours away.

  ‘You don’t need this right now,’ he went on, ‘less than twenty-four hours after your sister was taken away in an ambulance, but, like I said, it needs to be your choice whether you want me in your life right now, whether I’ll just be another thing for you to worry about.’

  Miranda chewed her lip. She wasn’t quite overloaded yet, but she was getting there. ‘If I go, will you do it again?’

  He gave his head a sharp shake. ‘I don’t want you to stay because of what might happen if you leave.’

  ‘I’m not. I just want to know – would you do it again if I left?’

  He straightened and met her gaze, then shook his head. ‘No, I wouldn’t. I’d want to. I’d want to do worse than I did last night, but I wouldn’t. I’d get help. I’d skip the meeting and head right back to rehab, because I don’t want to die.’

  Miranda took his hand and squeezed it, then tried to put her thoughts in order with her emotions.

  She’d known he was an addict, and part of her appreciated the irony. She’d known almost all along that he was an addict, but in the sphere of her life his past hadn’t seemed as crucial as her present. Living with someone whose demons showed their grotesque faces several times a week, it had been comforting to be with someone who had vanquished his.

  And now, on the eve of the second-worst night of her life, Miranda could see that those demons never really went away. She saw that truth in the dark smudges under his eyes and etched in the lines around his mouth.

  I should leave, but if I do that I’ll drive myself crazy wondering how good to me you can be.

  His words to her as he had lovingly teased her bubbled to the front of her thoughts. Said with a sinful growl at the time, they echoed in her mind as she sat next to him.

  Now, they were her words echoing in her mind.

  ‘All right,’ she said, letting out the breath she’d been holding as she spoke. ‘You’ve told me, and you’ve told me it won’t happen if I leave. That’s good enough for me.’

  ‘If I had said that I would fall into a drunken stupor if you left, you would have been out the door, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course. If you can’t live without me, why would I want you to live with me?’

  He pulled her into his arms. It was the best place in the world at that moment. ‘I should also point out that I’m probably going to be jobless in a few days.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said, and she meant it.

  It would probably take a few days to fully understand the reason behind his absence, but she’d been telling him the truth: she did believe he’d made a mistake, albeit a good kind of mistake.

  The kind of mistake she hoped her sister had made.

  She gave his hand a shake. ‘Hey.’

  ‘What?’ he muttered against the top of her head.

  ‘Don’t fall off the wagon again and turn me into a statistic, OK?’

  His big body vibrated with laughter as he held her tighter. ‘OK.’

  They stayed like that for a few minutes more, until the misshapen notes Eddie was letting lose in the apartment stopped and he called, ‘My randa!’

  Simon stood, and Miranda held onto his hand. ‘Do you know how to change a diaper?’

  He screwed up his face. ‘I do. The question should be whether I want to.’

  She snuffled through her wet laughter and shook her head. ‘If I take one of those pills, I won’t be able to get up when he cries.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said as she stood, then clasped both her hands to his chest. ‘I will make the ultimate sacrifice for you.’

  ‘Still trying to be chivalrous?’

  ‘I’ll keep it up until I get it right.’

  Miranda laughed again. ‘That’ll last until you find yourself staring at a loaded diaper.’

  While he ran to the pharmacy, she closed his office door and followed Eddie around as he explored every room, pointing to things with a ‘Wassat?’ before he decided there was nothing as interesting as watching his nursery-rhyme show on a really big television screen. Simon returned with not only the sleeping pills but barbecue takeout, complete with homemade mac and cheese for his youngest house guest.

  She refused to take a pill at eight o’clock when Simon suggested it, waiting until nine o’clock when they’d killed the lights and left Eddie sleeping on a mattress made of folded blankets in his playpen. She took the pill in the bathroom and carried a plastic tumbler of water into the bedroom, then laughed as she walked in on Simon adjusting the baby monitor on his side of the bed.

  ‘It doesn’t matter where you put it. When he wants to he heard, you’ll hear him.’

  ‘I’ll just have to remember it’s not the world’s most annoying alarm clock going off and fling it across the room, though I’d like to think I’m used to it by now.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and gave her his attention. ‘You look nice.’

  ‘Down, boy. I don’t have any other night clothes,’ she said of the peach and lace nightgown that left little to the imagination. ‘I don’t usually wear pyjamas. I come home and strip, and when I wake up I put on my robe until I shower.’

  Shaking her hair out, she sat with her back to him and wondered how long it would take before the pill took effect. She’d never taken one before and wasn’t sure if it would hit her like a cartoon ton of bricks or creep up on her. She hoped it was the former. In spite of the hot shower and the full belly, she still felt like a cracked windshield ready to explode into pieces.

  What I need is a hard screw.

  She entertained the idea of taking advantage of Simon’s interest in her tiny nighty, but she worried she’d have a breakdown in mid-thrust, or fall asleep.

  ‘Did you call your guy?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He sounded more than a little embarrassed that she’d brought up the call to his sponsor. ‘Yeah, he’s going to meet me mid-morning for a talk.’

  Once the light went out, she was content to be close to Simon’s body. Just as she’d dressed for bed, so had he. It was a bit of a novelty to have so many layers between them, and she said so.

  ‘See? Chivalry is my bitch. Just don’t move too much and make my dick think otherwise.’

  His grip loosened as she wriggled around to face him, and in the smudge of shadows she caught his smile.

  ‘You’re not going to tell me what happened to make you do what you did last night?’

  ‘Work,’ he said, then let out a growling sigh. ‘No, that’s only part of it. It was about the many bad decisions I’ve made in my life, and doing the opposite of what I was supposed to do by not dealing with it. Instead of going to a meeting or calling someone, I went to the liquor store. That was a bad mistake.’

  ‘I’d say,’ she murmured, and wriggled closer. ‘It was good of your friend to come and get you before something really bad happened.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, almost disgruntled. ‘Yeah, I know. He’s had it rough, but he’s always been there for me.’

  As much as Miranda wanted to show respect for his admission, an evil sprite of a thought made her giggle.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, it’s just –’ the giggle turned into rolling laughter ‘– I’m so sorry, I really am, I was just wondering –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was just wondering if we have to have one day a week where you get to take off and pay to get your ass strapped to keep you on the straight and na
rrow, or if I should just man up and do it myself.’

  ‘Ooooh, that’s not very nice,’ he said, but laughed along with her.

  ‘Maybe I should get the number of your guy or girl, whatever, and give it to my sister.’

  ‘Just … shut up.’

  The mattress shook with their laughter. As the last of it fizzled out, Miranda hummed to herself. ‘I needed that.’

  ‘Me, too,’ he said, and gave her bum a tap. ‘Feeling dopey yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she said. Their carrying on had let loose some of the tension she’d been carrying, making room for thoughts of tomorrow to creep in. ‘I think I need to call my Mom.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘No, she and my grandmother hit the hay at eight o’clock. Tomorrow.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Is it too much to expect that Juliet had a George Bailey moment, you know, from It’s a Wonderful Life? And realised the error of her ways and won’t be pissed as hell that she didn’t successfully off herself?’

  ‘Do you think it was because of the music thing?’

  ‘It’s always about the music thing,’ she whispered, starting to feel the pill taking effect. ‘She likes to think she’s a sensitive creative type, but I think she’s just wired differently.’

  Simon said nothing, and Miranda lifted her head and peered into the darkness. Had he just dropped off on her?

  Out of the darkness came the warmth of his hand on her shoulder. Relieved that she wouldn’t be alone with her thoughts until she fell asleep, Miranda sank back on her pillow.

  ‘The bar scene and a drug addiction don’t exactly walk separate paths,’ he said.

  ‘I know, and that’s where she gets tripped up. She always wanted to be a torch singer, but the money is in the pubs. It’s such a small city and there’s little opportunity to do what she loves unless it’s in a stinking bar.’

  ‘Then maybe she should go to a bigger city.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Toronto?’

  Miranda snorted. ‘Right.’

  ‘You said she was able to keep her nose clean when she was in Vancouver, supposedly, and this place is obviously toxic to her. Tell her to get the fuck out of here.’

  She’d heard a similar sentiment from Juliet countless times, moaning about how few prospects there was for her here, feeling trapped, reminiscing about how liberating it had been to be in a place that was so alive and where so much great music had been born.