Finally, he wiped his eyes and picked up the paper. Still sobbing, he read the note:
Dear Marc,
I’m so very sorry. I just can’t take the
pain anymore. I can’t. I know you’ll
understand because you love me. I
love you so much. And I’m sorry.
With all my heart and soul,
Her signature was shaky and unclear, but it was hers. Her last words, written in a wobbly cursive on a page stained with her blood and something else – maybe tears.
He had tried to help her. He’d taken her to his doctor, who had diagnosed her as suffering from severe clinical depression. He’d tried several different medications out on her, but she’d had bad reactions to all of them and couldn’t take them. She refused to see a therapist. There were days when the sadness lifted and she was able to smile a little bigger smile than usual, even laugh a little. But most of the time, that sadness started in her eyes and spread over her whole face.
Reznick had met her in a movie theater, where she’d worked the ticket booth. She’d kept her sadness to herself, even when it showed on her face. She managed to smile in spite of it, but it was a muted smile. It was still a beautiful smile, though. Everything about her had been beautiful – her ears, her nose, her hands, her breasts, her legs, even her feet.
And even her perfume, the perfume he’d given her.
Ice.
Three months after Victoria’s suicide, Reznick’s parents had gone into the Tower Mart off of Highway 273 in Anderson on their way to see Reznick’s sister, her husband, and their children in Anderson Heights. They’d stopped at the convenience store to get some candy for their grandchildren, and a couple cold drinks for themselves. A robbery had taken place while they were standing in line at the register. The robber had panicked and started shooting. He’d shot and killed four people, Reznick’s parents included.
Seeing Victoria kill herself had damaged Reznick. It had driven a spike deep into his brain. The loss of his parents only did more damage. That was when he’d fallen into the bottle and his whole life had fallen apart. His sister didn’t care. She was his foster sister, actually, and they had never gotten along. She’d always resented Reznick for being, unlike her, their parents’ blood. So he’d fallen into the bottle alone.
A bottle. A bottle of vodka, that was what he needed. It was a short drive to the Handi-Spot Market on North Street. They sold liquor there.
He pulled his lips inward and ran his tongue around them. He could taste it. On ice, nice and cold.
Conan hopped into his lap and curled up. Reznick absently stroked the little dog for a while, then he put Conan on the floor and stood. He went to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. He took two Xanax with a drink of water from the glass he kept by the sink. He also saw a bottle of NyQuil in the cabinet. He took it out, took the small cup off the bottle’s top, filled it, and drank it down. He repeated the process, then exhaled hard between puffed cheeks. He replaced the NyQuil and closed the cabinet.
The cough syrup created a spreading warmth in his belly not unlike the warmth created by a swig of vodka. He thought it would help, but it just made him crave the vodka even more.
He looked at his face in the cabinet mirror. He wondered if he’d lost weight lately – his face seemed thinner. He had short, wavy brown hair, a rectangular forehead and a straight patrician nose. His jaw was square, his shoulders broad. There was really nothing special about him. He wasn’t homely, but neither was he especially handsome, he thought. He wondered what Victoria had seen in him. What had attracted her to him at first? He’d never asked her. There were so many things he’d never asked her, never told her. His eyes crinkled on the corners as they narrowed and the corners of his mouth pulled back and his shoulders hitched as more tears spilled down his glistening-wet cheeks. He put his hands on the counter, elbows locked, and let his head fall forward between his shoulders.
“Victoria,” he whispered hoarsely as he sobbed. “Victoria.”
Later, the two Xanax kicked in. Reznick stretched out in his recliner, and turned on the television. With Conan curled up on his belly, he fell asleep as silent tears continued to spill from his eyes.
Five
The trailer was dark, but it was always dark, even during the day. During the daylight hours, the darkness in the trailer seemed almost malignant to Sherry Manning – harsh halos of pale sunlight glowed around the edges of the blankets and towels hanging in all the windows – except for the one living room window where the swamp cooler was – and the glow made the smoke from a cigarette someone was smoking look like something sinister as it oozed through the air, then was swept away suddenly by the current of the cooler.
She lay on the couch with a couple throw pillows under her head. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been lying there, nor did she care. The television was on – The Price is Right had been on for a while, then she’d closed her eyes and opened them to Jerry Springer, closed them again and opened them to Oprah, and now it was a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond. Sherry liked that show and watched it a lot. She squinted at the television and wondered if it was an episode she’d seen.
Sherry sat up on the couch and yawned. She smacked her lips and rubbed her eyes. Her mouth was dry and she felt… gummy. Gummy in her mouth, and gummy all over.
Andy came in from the kitchen and said, “Hi, babe.” He sat down on the couch beside her, put an arm around her, and kissed her cheek. “I gotta go.” He held a cigarette between the first two fingers of his right hand, and it trailed ribbons of smoke that got caught up and swept away by the swamp cooler.
“Where you goin’?” she said. Her tongue felt thick and she slurred her words. She sat back a little, reached up, and stroked his smooth face, brushed a strand of his long hair out of his eyes. She loved his hair. It was long and thick and luxurious, a rich brown, like chocolate, and she loved stroking it, running her fingers through it.
“I gotta pick up David,” he said. “Him and me’re gonna score some weed. Pays the bills, y’know.”
“Yeah, okay. Gonna be long?”
“Shouldn’t be. Don’t worry, you got plenty a company.” He looked down at the floor where four bodies formed sprawling lumps under a tangle of blankets.
“Who’s here?” she said as she squinted down at them.
Andy frowned for a moment and shrugged. “I’m not even sure anymore. People’ve been in and out today.”
“Do me a favor before you go?”
“Sure, what?”
She reached over and took her black vinyl kit from the end table and handed it to him.
Andy looked at the kit disapprovingly and sighed. He only smoked weed, he didn’t do the hard stuff. He didn’t like it when Sherry did, either. She didn’t do it very often. Sometimes she got an itch for it, like she’d had the day before. At least she thought it had been the day before. She frowned.
“What day is it?” she said as he took the kit and opened the zipper.
“Tuesday.” He opened the kit and went to work. “You know I don’t like you doing this shit. You do it much longer, you’re gonna have trouble getting off it.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
Sherry liked to watch him as he held the lighter under the spoon, as he loaded the spike. As he put the tourniquet – a length of surgical tubing – on her arm. Then he tenderly felt for a vein, gently inserted the needle, and -
All the gumminess went away. In seconds, Sherry felt pristine and shiny, like the surface of a mirror, like the sharp, glinting, polished-steel blade of a knife.