“I know.” I have several cases of bottled water on the floor, and I take three, open one and hand it to him.

  He drinks it all, crumples the plastic and twists the top on to seal it and opens another. “I drank a lot.”

  “I bet.”

  He shakes his head. “No. You don’t even know. My tolerance is dumb. The guys on my football team called me The Beer God.”

  “How much did you drink, James?”

  He holds up his hand, tries to count his fingers, only managing to touch three out of five. “One, two, three…ten. I drank ten.”

  “Ten bottles?”

  He shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe. Lotta lotta lotta beer.” He blinks at his hand. “I walked from there. I was gonna drive, but I couldn’t find the keyhole, so I said fuckit, let’s drink more. So I walked to the liquor store. I bought a whiskey.”

  “How much whiskey did you drink?”

  He stares at his hand again, as if the answer is written there. “A big guy. Really big guy. My ol’ buddy Evan. Big, big, big guy. A glallon.”

  “A gallon?” I repeat.

  He nods. “Uh-huh. I drank it all. Every last drop.”

  “Oh shit. I think we need to take you to the hospital, James.”

  He blows a raspberry. “Nahhhh. Not me. Not good ol Jamie. I stopped trying to get drunk, you know. I don’t drink all that much mostly, because it takes too much to get me drunk. Too esspensive. Takes too many drinks to make me not feel nothing.” He blinks at me. “You’re so pretty, Nova.”

  I close my eyes briefly—it’s painful to see him like this. “Where are the girls, James?”

  He rolls his head on his neck, as if trying to figure out where it’s supposed to go. “Disney World!”

  “James. Where are Ella and Nina?”

  “Tol’ you. Disney World.” He holds up his left hand, and my eyes widen: on his ring finger is his wedding band. “Every year I send Mom and Pop O’Neill with the girls to Disney World.”

  “Every year?”

  He nods, staring at his ring finger. “Every year. This weekend, every year.”

  I’m starting to suspect what’s going on. “This weekend, huh?”

  He twists the ring on his finger. “This weekend.” He glances at me—or, at least, toward me. “Don’t tell Jesse. He’ll be pissy. He wanted to drink with me tonight, but I dodged him. I esssss-caped him. He wanted to be a babysitter, because he knows. He knows, Nova. I mean, of course he knows. But…he knows.”

  “What does he know, James?” I ask, grabbing a bucket that has dried drywall mud crusted at the bottom and set it next to James, just in case, and then I sit on the floor next to him.

  He pokes the bucket with a huge forefinger. “You’re silly. I won’t puke. I never puke. I—I can hold my liquor. All the liquor. I licked the liquor, and then the liquor licked me. It licked me tonight, Nova. It got me.”

  “Yeah, it did.” I rest my head against the cabinet and stare at him. “What does Jesse know, James?”

  “He knows. It’s this weekend. It’s tonight.”

  “What is, James?”

  He stares at the ceiling, now. “Six years ago. Exactly six years ago today.” He looks around. “What time is it?”

  I shrug. “No clue.”

  He rummages his pants pockets until he finds his phone, peers at it. “Four? Does that say four?” He shoves the phone toward me. “I’m too drunk to read it.”

  I glance at it. “Four twenty-three a.m.”

  He nods, drops the phone on the floor between us. “Six years, eight hours, and five minutes.” He pauses. “Renée died six years ago at eight eighteen p.m.”

  I flinch. “I see.”

  His eyes go to me, lucid and sharp, despite his inebriation. “You see.”

  I nod. “I see.”

  He shakes his head. “No, you don’t see. You don’t see a goddamm fucking thing.” He sounds…angry.

  “What don’t I see?”

  He drinks more water. “Doc Rich said I have to let her go. I don’t want to let her go. She was my fucking wife. My best friend. How do I let her go? Doc Rich—stupid Doc Rich. He said letting go of her doesn’t mean forget her. Just let go. Stop holding on to her memory. But then what? Then what? He doesn’t fucking know, the dumbfuck. Let her go, he says. But how? Doesn’t fucking know that either.” He twists his head to look at me. “It’s your fucking fault.”

  I flinch. “What? What’s my fault?”

  “I was content being miserable, damn you. I was happily miserable. Lonely old fuck, and fine with it, that was me. And then you. Then you came along, with your fucking beautiful hair and your fucking beautiful face.” His eyes fix on me, on said hair, said face…and then rake downward, and I remember I went to bed like usual: T-shirt and underwear, and nothing else. “You, and your fucking hair like fire, like the sunlight on brand new copper. Like the flame from a welding torch reflected off a piece of copper. Your eyes like…fuck, I don’t know. Like the sky, like sapphires. You, and your…your fucking body. Those big perfect tits, and that big round tight perfect ass. Fucking…fucking abs, and fucking hips like a church bell. You’re fucking perfect, goddammit, and you made me just miserable. You made me realize that I wasn’t happily miserable or fucking—fucking content, or any of that bullshit. I was just lonely and I’d accepted it as my life. And then you. Goddamn you. You made me want you. You made me fucking need you.”

  I’ve never heard him talk like this—or this much, or with this much vulgarity. It’s shocking, scary, and painful.

  “James, I—” My throat is tight.

  I know he’s drunk, but he’s not incoherent; he’s talking the kind of truth that often only come out when the filters have been washed away like they are right now.

  He cuts in as if I hadn’t spoken. “She’s dead, goddammit.”

  “I know, James,” I whisper.

  “I loved her so fucking much.”

  “I know that, too.”

  He swallows hard, and I see moonlight glinting off the tears I don’t think he’s aware he’s shedding. “She made me promise I wouldn’t be alone. ‘Swear to me, James,’ she said. ‘You’re not built to be alone. Find someone.’” Tears flow. He doesn’t wipe them away. “Find someone. And I promised her.” He tips his head backward. “I found someone, but now I don’t know how to—how to do it.”

  “James—”

  “I’ve been seeing a therapist. Dr. Richard. He makes me talk about things. Talk, talk, talk. How I felt inadequate, sometimes. Like I wasn’t a good enough husband or father. How I loved Renée, but sometimes—sometimes I did think about what she would look like with…more. You know? I wouldn’t have ever wanted her to change. I loved her as she was—I fucking loved her. Loved her—loved the actual shit out of that woman. And I felt guilty about that—about sometimes thinking about what she would look like with bigger tits, more of an ass. And I’d be like, I’m such a fucking asshole. Because I didn’t care. I really didn’t. Not just didn’t care—I loved the way she was built. I loved her tiny tits and boy hips and her bony little butt. And then you came along. And you’re like, a wet dream come true, and all that guilt, plus so much more guilt on top. All the guilt. And Doc Rich says I have to forgive me—I have to forgive myself. I loved her, he said. I loved her, and I lost her and I’m here and she’s not, and I’m allowed to love again. Loving again doesn’t mean I never loved her. It doesn’t mean I’m replacing her. Forgetting her. But it feels like it.”

  My throat is so tight. Hot and thick, filled with a lump I can’t swallow. I don’t know what I’d say even if I could talk right now.

  He shakes his head, scrubs at his face with the back of his wrist. “Dammit. Crying like a little bitch. But I don’t care.” He looks at me with a tear-tracked face. “Do you care?”

  “That you’re crying?” I wipe at his face with my fingertips, so gently, so carefully. “No, James. I don’t care.”

  He nods, captures my wrist and peers at my fingertips, glistening with his tears. “Weeks of therapy. Months. Three times a week, talking it all out. Hoping for some…some…” He shakes his head. “What’s the word, for when you suddenly realize something life-changing?”

  “Epiphany,” I say.

  He nods. “That. Ephi-f…epip—fuck. Epiphany. There you go.” He sighs. “I thought I’d have one of those. But I haven’t.”

  “No?”

  He shakes his head. Holds up his left hand again and stares at the ring on his finger. “That ring. She put it on my finger more than twenty years ago.” He swallows hard. “She died on our anniversary.”

  I choke. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  He shakes his head sloppily. “Nope.”

  “Holy hell, James. No wonder this weekend is hard for you.”

  “She was gonna have our baby on our anniversary. I was excited about that. Thought of all the presents I’d buy every year, a birthday and our anniversary on the same day? So many presents. And then she died, and our little baby boy died with her, and our anniversary became the anniversary of the day she died and the day our baby died. Too much on one day. And usually I spend it alone with Jesse. We drink a little and talk about Renée and get sad and that’s it. Today? I couldn’t do that. There’s more than sad inside me, and I’ve been keeping it bottled up, Doc Rich says. I’ve got to let it out, he says.”

  “He’s right, you do.”

  “You’re the punching bag,” he murmurs. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m strong. I’m tough. I can take it.”

  “Shouldn’t have to.”

  “Let it out, James.”

  He shakes his head again, and a weird look crosses his face. “Whoa. Maybe—oh god. I haven’t puked from drinking since I was fourteen.” He grabs the bucket, gags, and then pukes into it, again and again and again, and I rub his back until he’s done. “Jesus.”

  “Feel better?” I ask.

  He nods, wiping his mouth. “Yeah. A bit.” He shakes his head. “God, that fucking sucks.”

  I hand him another bottle of water. “Drink. Rinse and spit and then drink.”

  He does so, and then sighs. “I’m still really drunk.”

  “Puking it up will help, but you’re gonna be hammered for a long time.”

  “Benny.” He mutters this, his eyes closed, head resting back against the cabinet. “Our boy. We were gonna name him Benny. After Benny Goodman. Renée was a big band freak. Loved that shit.”

  “It’s not just about her, is it?” I say.

  He shakes his head. “It’s about him, too.” He squeezes his eyes closed. “I held him. He was stillborn. So tiny.” He holds out his cupped hands. “This big.”

  I crack. “God, James. I’m so, so sorry.”

  He’s quiet a long, long time. “I think about you constantly,” he says, eventually.

  “I think about you, too,” I whisper.

  “I didn’t know I was going to end up here.” He’s tilting sideways, sliding toward me.

  “James?”

  He slumps. His head hits my shoulder, and his weight drags him further downward. His face scrapes down my chest, smashes against my breast, and then he lands in my lap on my bare thighs.

  “James?”

  He groans. “Sleepy.”

  “Should I be worried about you?”

  He grunts a negative. “I’m indestructible. Wish I wasn’t. I’ll wake up and remember everything.”

  “Let’s get you up.”

  He grunts a negative, but then makes a valiant effort to get upright. I scramble to get my feet under me, crouching with my shoulders under him, and use all the power in my thighs and core to leverage him up to his feet.

  “You’re a fucking beast, Nova,” he says.

  “Well, I’ve been powerlifting since college,” I say. “Gotta be good for something.”

  “It’s fuckin’ hot,” he mumbles. “Everything about you is hot.”

  I laugh. “You’re just drunk.”

  “Yeah. But that doesn’t make you not drunk. I mean, hot. It doesn’t make you not hot.” He opens one eye and peers at me. “I mean it. You’re so fucking beautiful.”

  I half carry him out of the kitchen—a single glance at my couch tells me he’ll never fit there. The only option is my bed—I have the extra bedroom, but I use it as storage. So that’s where I take him—to my room, staggering under his weight. I get him onto my bed. Untie his muddy boots and haul them off. And holy shit, his socks stink—those go too, and both socks and boots get tossed out into the hallway. I undo his jeans and tug them off, trying to avoid getting dried mud on my bed. He’s a deadweight, but he’s mumbling under his breath, so I know he’s not passed out yet. Once his jeans and boots are off, I take them out of my room and toss the boots outside and the socks and jeans into the washer with a load of my clothes that have been sitting there since last night. When I go back into my room, James is more fully on the bed, on his back, his left hand across his chest. He’s still mumbling.

  I get his legs under the blanket, and then realize he will probably need the bucket again. I dump the contents of the bucket—straight booze, it smells like—down the toilet, then go outside and rinse the bucket with the garden hose. I bring it back inside and set it on the floor next to him. Then I give him a couple of extra-strength Tylenol with more water which he swallows clumsily, half asleep.

  I’m trying to be nurse-like about this—he’s in nothing but a pair of tight black boxer-briefs, which do nothing to hide how massive he is, even limp. His chest is so big—his arms, his shoulders…he’s just a powerhouse of virile, masculine strength, and I’m valiantly searching for a nurse’s objectivity, but it eludes me. This is too personal, too real—taking care of a drunk James caught up in the grip of his tragedy.

  I think for maybe ten seconds about sleeping on the couch. Then I climb into my bed, on the right side. My side. He’s on the left. Still mumbling incoherently.

  I watch him, wondering if I should try to get him on his back. He blinks his eyes open. His left hand lifts, hovers in the air over his face.

  He touches his ring, the golden wedding band on his ring finger. Wiggles it. Twists it.

  His head flops to one side, and he looks at me. Drunk, but lucid.

  A heavy sigh. “Renée…”

  Hot, sharp agony slices through me. “James, it’s me. It’s Nova.”

  He shakes his head. “No—I…I know.” He twists his head to stare at his hand again. Then, in a slow, careful, deliberate movement, he removes the ring from his hand. “I’m saying goodbye.”

  “Goodbye?” I whisper.

  He nods. “Goodbye.” His hand flops out in a sudden motion, and then he sets the ring down, very, very carefully, on the bedside table. “I’m saying goodbye to Renée.”

  The hot sharp pain increases, then, rather than decreasing. “James…”

  “The epiphany.” He sucks in a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “I had the epiphany.”

  “You did? When?”

  “Just now.” He wipes at his cheeks again. “I can’t keep holding on. It’ll kill me. And I…I have to survive, for Nina and Ella.”

  “Yeah, you do.”

  “I’m not letting go for you, Nova.” His voice is faint, fading, but lucid and coherent. “I’m letting go for me. For them.”

  The hot sharp pain in my chest, in my belly goes hotter and sharper. “I know, James.”

  “I want to live.”

  “Good, James. I’m glad.”

  He looks at me. “I didn’t always.”

  “I know. I’ve been there.” I lift my wrist: I’ve worn the plastic hospital bracelet for so long I’ve all but forgotten about it.

  Until now.

  I stare at it. Tears swim in my eyes as I reach up, hook a finger in the plastic where it’s fastened together and tug, once, sharply. The plastic snaps, and I feel a tear on my cheek as I set the bracelet on the bedside table next to James’s wedding ring.

  “I want to…” His eyes fix on mine, sharper than ever—sharper even than when he’s sober. “I want to do more than just live, Nova.”

  I try to breathe and fail. “James, I—I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s not all better. It’s not magic like that. I just…” He fades, momentarily passing out, and then jerking awake again. “I promised her. The girls…for them. I have to…for them. They need me to be more than just making it. Holding on to fading memories.”

  “You’ll always remember her, James.”

  He nods, a mushy, sleepy movement. “I know.”

  “It can’t be about me.”

  “It’s not.” He fades again, for longer. “But it is. It is about you. Not for you, not because of you. But you’re part of it.”

  A long, long, long pause.

  “Goodbye, Renée. I love you.”

  Another, longer pause.

  “Nova?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just…” A quiet breath.

  Nothing—silence.

  His breathing evening out, slowing, deepening.

  It took me a lot longer to fall asleep.

  Chapter 12

  No matter what time I go to bed, or how little sleep I get, I wake up around five in the morning. But tonight, I’d been woken up half an hour before I usually get up, so when I finally did get back to sleep, I fell into a deep, hard sleep.

  I don’t wake up again until many hours later. And when I do wake up, I’m disoriented, which is typical. But this morning it’s a new type of disorientation.

  Something is off. Different. But what?

  I’m not ready to open my eyes yet. I try to go back to sleep, but I know it’s futile.

  I groan, stretch, and that’s when awareness jolts through me like a lightning bolt to the skull. I’m not alone in my bed.

  James.

  We’re not just platonically sharing a bed.

  My head is on his bare chest. My hand is wrapped around his shoulder and neck. His arm is curled around me, sheltering me, enveloping me in a warm cocoon of strength and safety. His hand rests with casual possessiveness on my hip. His breath huffs hot on me.