The look he gave her was sad and hopeless. “I can’t take care of her, Annie. Haven’t you figured that out? Christ, I can’t take care of anyone. ” In an awkward, jerking motion, he pushed to his feet. “But I’ll go home and pretend. It’s what I’ve been doing for the past eight months. ” Without looking at her, he tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the table and walked out of the bar.
She rushed after him, trying all the way through the crowded bar to figure out what to say to him. At the curb outside, he finally stopped and looked at her. “Will you do me one more favor?”
“Anything. ”
A quick frown darted across his face, made Annie wonder why he’d expected to be let down. Why was it so hard for him to believe that she wanted to help him?
“Drive me home?”
She smiled. “Of course. ”
The next morning, Annie arrived at Nick’s house an hour early. She slipped through the unlocked door and crept up the stairs. She checked on Izzy, found her sleeping peacefully, then went to Nick’s bedroom. It was empty. She went down the hall to a guest room and pushed the door open.
The curtains were drawn, and no sunlight came through the heavy Navajo-print drapes. Against one wall was an old-fashioned four-poster bed. She could just make out Nick’s form beneath a mound of red wool blankets.
She should have known that he didn’t sleep in the master bedroom anymore.
Annie knew it was dangerous to enter his room, a place where she didn’t belong, but she couldn’t help herself. She went to his bed and stood beside him. In sleep, he looked young and innocent; more like the boy she’d known so long ago than the man she’d recently met.
It came to her softly, whispering on the even, quiet sound of his breathing, how much she had once loved him. . . .
Until the night she saw him kiss Kathy.
She needs me, Annie, don’t you see that? he’d said afterward. We fit.
I can fit with you, Nicky, she’d pleaded softly.
No. He’d touched her cheek, and the gentleness of his touch had made her cry. You don’t need someone like me, Annie Bourne. You’re off to Stanford in the fall. You’re going to set the world on fire.
“What are you doing here so early?”
With a start, Annie realized that he was awake, and that he was looking at her. “I . . . I thought you might need me. ”
Frowning, he sat up. The covers fell away from his body, revealing a chest that was covered with coarse black hair.
She waited for him to say something, but he just sat there, his eyes closed. His skin had a waxy, yellow cast, made even more noticeable by the tangle of silvery-white hair and the blackness of his eyelashes. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead and upper lip.
She pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed. “Nick, we’ve got to talk. ”
“Not now. ”
“You’ve got to make a better effort with Izzy. ”
He looked at her finally. “I don’t know how to help her, Annie. She scares me. ” The words were spoken softly, and they were steeped in pain. “I mean to have one drink with the boys after work, but then I start thinking about coming home . . . to my empty bedroom and my disappearing daughter, and one drink turns into two. . . . ”
“You’d be fine if you’d stop drinking. ”
“No. I’ve always been shitty at taking care of the women I love. Ask Kathy about it. ”
Annie fought an unexpected urge to brush the hair away from his face—anything to let him know that he wasn’t as alone as he felt. “You couldn’t make her well, Nick. ”
He seemed to deflate. A low, tired sigh slipped from his lips. “I’d rather not talk about this now. I don’t feel good. I need—”
“Izzy loves you, Nick. I understand your broken heart— at least to the extent anyone can understand such a thing— but nursing it is a luxury. You’re her father. You simply don’t have the right to fall apart. She needs you to be strong. But mostly, she needs you to be here . ”
“I know that,” he said softly, and she could hear the heartache in his voice, the hushed admission of his own failure. “I’ll be home for a family dinner on Friday night. It’ll be a beginning. Okay? Is that what you want from me?”
Annie knew that it was another lie, a promise that would be broken. Nick had lost faith in himself, and without it, he was in a turbulent sea without any sense of direction, waiting to be sucked under the current once again.