“You don’t drink,” she said. “You disappear for two hours almost every night. And some of the things you’ve written into the story, some of the phrases you choose—your language is a tell. That, and the way you carry yourself. I read people, you know. That’s what I do. I pay attention.”
My mouth opened, but for a moment, no sound came out.
“So, you... you were sober?” I managed, finally.
She shrugged. Her face, now, flickering with a humanity I’d never bothered to search for. She was not just some trope, was she? Not just some unfathomably rich and, therefore, not real figure who was there for me to judge or joke about. And I had known that. I had known it the previous night—had seen what I’d seen, heard what I’d heard, finding those handprints on her stoop, watching her almost disappear into the mist. I had understood what she’d said, earlier that week, in the library. That she had suffered enough. And still, I did not completely believe her.
You have to understand, I was not a bad person—not anymore, anyway. At least, I was trying not to be. I had been rehearsing the same mantra since I was eighteen. Six simple words.I am not what I did. I am not what I did.But the truth was this: until now, Meredith Bradford had been a punch line to me. Her loopiness, her moodiness, her stratospheric success? Her weird-as-shit cat? Her clear and present seaside misery? I had chalked it all up to satire. Some kind of comical retribution for the luxuries she enjoyed and the late-stage capitalism that seemed to unfurl behind the pearly gates of her picture-perfect home.
But now, sitting here, I finally saw her for what she was. What Arthur had told me she was from the very start, but I had refusedto see. A drunk. One who could not stay sober. One who was far worse off than me.
“Meredith...” I said.
She waved off my mutter. It was almost as if she knew I needed more time—another few minutes to fuse together the newest pieces of our summer’s puzzle.
“I have been,” she said, “in and out of those rooms for decades. I could never really put more than a few months together. A year, once, but that’s it.”
I nodded. The moisture, still gone from my mouth. My next attempt at a sentence, coming out small and cracked. And despite all that, I heard Arthur’s voice guiding me forward.Be of service, kid. Remember what it felt like when you couldn’t stop.
“Do you think, maybe,” I said, “you’d want to try again?”
Her lips quivered into a sad, quiet smile. And then, so slowly, she shook her head.
I did not reply. I just let her answer linger in the air. I twirled a fallen hydrangea petal—its silken edges, browning—around the smooth white lacquer. When I glanced up, she was doing the exact same thing. An unsophisticated and tiny fidget that, an hour ago, I would not have believed. And then, finally, she spoke.
“Do you ever wish,” she said, “that you could go back in time? That you could rewrite your first drink, your first...?”
I knew the rest of her question before she finished asking it. This was that secret language we shared—a deep and thorough understanding of our own inciting incidents. Of whatever it was that rewired your heart, brain, and body to want nothing but more, then began to gut all the good in your life at an indeterminate andpersonalized pace you could not have prevented or predicted or put a stop to, which you wouldn’t have anyway, because you were born to do this. To get drunk, to get high. To disappoint people. To let them down.
“I’m an addict, mostly,” I said. “I drank plenty, though. My dad, he would sneak me sips of his whiskey when I was a kid. That’s what my mom said, anyway. He’s gone now—left when I was little. But when I first got clean, an old friend of his who had a bunch of time started taking me to meetings. I guess I’d been to a few with my dad when I was really young, when he was trying to get his shit together for a little while, and they felt safe to me. So I stayed.”
She nodded, her lips pressed together, slight and tempered. Her eyes had welled with tears.
“How long do you have?” she said.
“Nine years.”
“That means... You were...”
“Eighteen,” I said. “High school.”
“God, are you lucky. Saved yourself so much pain.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “it really feels the other way around.”
We sat there for a few more minutes. Saying nothing. Doing nothing. Meredith’s eyes were still damp—still dulled. And then, after a little while longer, she pushed away her parched ivory petal, straightened her shoulders, and rose to her feet. Her voice, at once, was calm and collected.
“I’d like to help you with your manuscript,” she said.
“Oh, I...”
“I understand that it failed to sell a few years back. That it needs a bit of...revising?”
“Selma told you? About my book? About why I’m here?”
At that, Meredith smirked. “You didn’t think I thought you accepted this job just so you could stare at Katie all day long, did you?”
I laughed. Sort of. It was more a yelp, but whatever.
