Aftershock

by K. G. MacGregor

  Anna grabbed the bottle and began pouring its contents down the sink.

  “Goddamn it, that’s mine!” Lily screamed, lunging across the counter.

  The next few moments second to pass in slow motion. Anna jerked back, sloshing the vodka over herself and the floor as Lily grabbed for the bottle. A nervous Chester had positioned himself behind Anna’s feet, and she tumbled backward and hit the floor. The bottled shattered on the tile and she cried out as blood spurted instantly from a deep gash across her palm.

  “Oh, my God, Anna!” Lily hurried to the drawer for a clean dish towel.

  Anna looked in shock at her injured hand, suddenly pulling it away from Lily’s view as she snatched the towel and began to wrap the wound.

  “You need stitches. We have to go to the hospital.” Lily tugged at her arm to see the wound.

  “No! I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re drunk.”

  “Anna?” Lily was wide-eyed, clearly panicked. “At least let me ride with you. I’ll keep the pressure on it.” She reached out to hold the bandaged hand.

  “I’ll do it myself!”

  “Please let me help,” she whimpered, tears now pouring from eyes.

  “Just . . . just see if you can manage to clean up this mess before Chester gets hurt.” Pushing past her, Anna grabbed her keys again and stormed out.

  Chapter 11

  Anna flinched as the doctor efficiently tied off another stitch. It wasn’t the pain—her right hand was loaded with a local anesthetic—but the sight of the open wound that unnerved her. More than two inches long, the gash had split the meaty part of her palm below the thumb. They were up to twenty-one now, not including the dissolvable stitches she had gotten deep inside to reconnect the tissue near the bone. Glass cuts were particularly nasty, the doctor said, leaving jagged tears in the skin that were tedious to close.

  Her hand had throbbed all the way to the UCLA Medical Center, more so when she used it to change the gears on her Z8. She was certain it would throb tomorrow as well, and probably for several days after. The scarlet towel had drawn quick attention when she entered the emergency room, where a nurse immediately applied pressure to the wound to stop the profuse bleeding.

  That nurse appeared again with bandages as the doctor was finishing. Tall and lanky with graying hair, she reminded Anna of Suzanne, who worked as an ER nurse at St. George. “Ms. Kaklis, are you sure there isn’t someone we could call to come pick you up?”

  “No, I can manage, thank you.” Anna had no choice but to manage. She couldn’t call Lily, and she wouldn’t call anyone else. As far as she was concerned, the fewer people who knew about this night, the better.

  The doctor spoke up. “If there’s no one to call, I’m going to recommend that you rest here for a couple of hours. Your blood pressure dropped a bit from the loss of blood, so I don’t think it would be wise for you to drive just yet.”

  “Whatever you think,” Anna muttered. She hated not having choices.

  “Just for a couple of hours,” he assured. Before leaving, he prescribed a mild painkiller, but cautioned her to wait until she arrived home before taking it.

  Anna sat alone in the curtained room, not wanting to believe that things had gone so bad. What misery Lily must feel to have all that anger and need for escape. Anna was running out of ideas for how she might fix it.

  “I need to bandage that.” The nurse said, taking a seat across from her.

  Anna held out her hand.

  “You were lucky this time, you know,” the nurse said. Her tone was sympathetic, not accusatory.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You got some stitches in your hand. What’ll it be next time? Broken teeth? A ruptured spleen?”

  Anna was genuinely confused. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Ms. Kaklis, I’m not trying to intrude. I know people like to keep things like this private. But we see this all the time in here, women coming in here after fights with their boyfriends and husbands.” She wrapped neat figure eights around Anna’s thumb and wrist. “If that’s what’s going on here, you should know that there’s help available.”

  “It isn’t what’s going on.” It horrified her that people might think such a thing.

  The nurse sighed and nodded, as if accustomed to the denial. “Look, I can smell the alcohol on your clothes, but you don’t seem like the one who’s drunk. I figure there’s a drinker in the house, and you’re the punching bag.”

  “No, I’m not a punching bag. We were having a . . . disagreement and I tripped over the dog.” She met the nurse’s skeptical eye. It was important to defend Lily. “Really. It wasn’t a fight. More like tug of war . . . over a vodka bottle,” she conceded. “She’d . . .” Anna caught herself, wondering how much she should say. “She’d never hurt me.”

  If the nurse was surprised that the other party was a woman, she didn’t let on. “Are you really sure of that? These things have a way of escalating.”

  “Yes, of course.” Things already had escalated, Anna thought, but what had happened was an accident. Lily already felt awful about it, maybe enough to convince her once and for all that she shouldn’t drink anymore. “She’s been under a lot of stress lately.”

  “Have you talked to her about her drinking and how it hurts you?”

  “We’ve talked. But it’s hard for her right now. She lost her mother recently, and I’ve been too busy at work to be with her.” The nurse’s manner was disarming, and Anna loosened up a bit.

  The woman finished wrapping the bandage, taping the ends securely around Anna’s wrist. “You’re going to need to change this bandage every couple of days, and keep it dry until the stitches come out.” Placing her bandaging materials back in the plastic container, she added, “You know, there’s somebody here at the hospital you could talk with, somebody who might be able to help.”

  “I . . . I don’t know. I think we’ll be able to work this out.”

  “I’m sure you’re both trying very hard. But whatever it is you’re doing right now isn’t working. Not for you, and apparently not for her either.” She patted Anna’s forearm. “It happens this way sometimes. People lose control and they need a little help getting back on the right path. It’s nothing to be ashamed about. But not doing everything you can to fix it would be a shame.”

  Something about the nurse’s words brought tears to her eyes. The idea that Lily might be suffering with a problem she couldn’t help was almost more than Anna could bear. “What can I do to help her?”

  “Let me make a call. The doctor said you should stay here a couple of hours. I can have somebody here before then.”

  Her gentle smile was encouraging. Talking to someone was a very big step. “Okay.”

  Forty-five minutes passed before the hospital’s on-call substance abuse counselor joined her in the examining room. Reluctantly, Anna told him all she could remember about Lily’s drinking behavior and the things that had been going on in her life. She also related the things she had done to help ease Lily’s sorrow, like trying to be with her more. She even mentioned the trip to Maui they now had planned for Labor Day weekend.

  The counselor took a long look at his notes before leaning back and folding his arms across his chest. “I’m pretty sure you won’t like what I’m about to tell you. It sounds as if your—may I call her your partner?”

  Anna nodded.

  “From what you tell me, I’d say your partner is showing the classic signs of alcoholism.”

  “But she’s never had a problem with drinking before. This is all because her mom died, and . . . because of me. She just feels so lonely. It’s like the bottle is her companion because no one else is there for her.”

  He nodded and sighed. “I’m sure it must seem like that, Anna. But alcoholics don’t drink because they’re sad or lonely. They drink because they’re alcoholics.”

  “That sounds like a circular argument.”

  “Not really. Do you get drunk whenever you’re
sad and lonely? Do you drive? Do you sneak around and try to do it behind people’s back? No. Lily does these things because she’s an alcoholic. She understands that her drinking has detrimental effects, but she can’t resist the urge. There are millions of people like her, but lots of success stories.”

  “So all I have to do is convince her to get help. Right?”

  “It’s probably not going to be that simple, especially since you’ve already established an enabling pattern.”

  “A what?”

  “You’ve been an enabler, Anna. You shoulder part of the blame for Lily’s behavior. You try to adjust your life to accommodate hers, and you accept what happened to her mother as a valid excuse for getting drunk.”

  “But what happened tonight was an accident. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Lily needs to stop drinking. But she isn’t going to do that until she truly has to face the consequences of her actions. And you have the hardest job of all, which is to sit back and do nothing while someone you love falls all the way to the bottom. Only then will Lily realize that she has to be the one to pick herself up.”

  “I can’t do that. Lily already feels abandoned by everyone who ever mattered—her birth mother, her adoptive mother.” She stopped short of mentioning the lovers that had broken things off.

  “That’s why yours is the hardest job,” he explained. “It’s painful to see loved ones struggle, especially when we think we can help. But she doesn’t need your help right now. She needs your support, but only to help her fight this, not to help her keep it up.”

  Anna couldn’t believe what he was asking of her. Tears filled her eyes as she thought of how hurt Lily would be to face yet another abandonment in her life. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “Anna, I don’t mean to trivialize your relationship with Lily. I’m sure you both love each other very much. But it isn’t what’s important here. Lily’s in a battle for her soul. Stepping back may very well cost you her love. Not stepping back may cost you both everything.”

  The crimson blood on the white tile floor stunned Lily into sobriety. What had she done? Shaking uncontrollably, she scrubbed the floor as best she could, shooing away a clearly confused Chester to protect him from the broken glass. The blood had stained the grout, leaving the awful image for all to see.

  Over an hour had gone by since Anna left for the hospital. Lily had wanted to follow in her car, but knew Anna would be furious with her for driving.

  Anna had every right to be angry. Lily could only hope she hadn’t gone too far this time. She had been nothing but a pain in the ass for weeks—always depressed, losing her driver’s license, and making digs about how much time Anna spent at the dealership. And now this.

  But Anna wouldn’t stay angry long. She was far too kind, far too generous, far too forgiving. In fact, she had already taken much of the blame for being gone so much. But Lily knew there was more to it that was under the surface, things Anna didn’t even know. Lily hadn’t told her about the trouble at work, or about seeing Beverly the other day. Or about getting smashed at Colleen’s bridal shower, or the two bottles of vodka hidden in the garage, behind their camping gear on the second shelf.

  Anna would just come home and not say anything. She would be angry for a day or two, and then everything would be back to normal. She would probably try harder not to work late, and even try to smooth everything over. Then in a few weeks, they would go to Maui and spend three days together acting as if nothing had happened. Anna might still have her stitches.

  And when they got home, Lily knew she would screw up again.

  Adamant that she was no longer under the alcohol’s influence, her reasoning seemed perfect. She needed to leave. Anna wouldn’t want her to, and would ask her to stay. That’s why she needed to be gone when Anna got back. She couldn’t risk another incident like this. What if it got worse?

  She retrieved the suitcases from the hall closet and hurriedly packed. Underwear, shoes, belts, jeans, shorts, T-shirts and nightshirts, all were crammed haphazardly into the roller bag. Cosmetics went in the smaller bag, and all of her essential papers and books were stuffed into her briefcase. Once these were loaded in the X3, she made three trips to her closet, collecting several suits and tops for work over the next few days while Anna cooled off. These she laid across the back of the SUV. Finally, she jammed as much of her hiking gear as would fit in her backpack and threw it onto the backseat.

  “Chester!” She couldn’t take him. She had no idea yet where she was going. “You be a good boy, you hear? Anna needs you to be a good boy.”

  As she turned on her headlights to pull out of the garage, she remembered the vodka behind the camping gear. She hastily stowed it under the seat and backed out of the driveway, vowing to herself that she would never hurt Anna again.

  “Here are the invoices you asked for, Anna.” Marco Gonzalez, her VW sales manager, startled her as he dropped the papers on the conference table. “You know, we’ll find you an office if you want. You don’t have to work in here every time you come.”

  “If you really want to make me happy, find out where these six cars went,” Anna snapped.

  Marco sheepishly took the list and stepped back. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Marco, wait.” She sighed and looked away, ashamed of her behavior. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. You’re doing a great job, and I really appreciate it.”

  “Thanks, Anna. I’ll get on this now.”

  Anna pressed her fingers against her brow, nursing a small headache that had loomed for the last two days and threatened to become a full-blown migraine. Since Wednesday night. Since Lily left. She hadn’t heard from her at all, and had no idea where she had gone.

  The intercom beeped, and a voice followed. “Anna, there’s a call for you on three.”

  “This is Anna Kaklis.” Her stomach knotted as the silence told her that Lily was on the other end of the line.

  “Hi.”

  “Hello.” Anna was so relieved to hear her voice that she was tempted just to forgive her immediately. Surely they could work through this. But the counselor’s warning stopped her. Lily’s soul was at stake, he said. She needed to step back and let Lily be responsible for herself. And as he said, it was hard, but it was the only way.

  “Anna, I’m so sorry about the other night. Is . . . is your hand okay?”

  “It’s fine,” Anna lied. It hurt like hell. She had bumped or strained her sore appendage repeatedly. It was amazing to her to realize how many times a day she used her dominant hand.

  “I thought maybe we should talk. You know, sort of clear the air about the other night.” Lily sounded so sad. “Anna, I can’t believe I acted like that. I feel awful about it, especially you getting hurt because of me. I’d give anything if I could take it all back.”

  “It’s okay, Lily. It was an accident.”

  Lily sniffed, a sure sign she was crying. “I’m sorry I left. I just thought it would be easier if you didn’t have to put up with me for a couple of days.”

  “I understand.” Anna fought her own tears and the crack in her voice. “It probably helped us both to have a little space.”

  After a long silence, Lily said, “Is it all right for me to come back, or do you need a few more days?”

  Anna took a moment to compose herself, afraid she might dissolve in tears. Lily didn’t need that, and neither did she. They needed reason to guide them, not emotion. Her instructions had been clear: Give no support for anything other than getting Lily help. “We can’t go back to the way things were, Lily. You have to get some help for your drinking problem. I’ll do anything I can to help you, but you have to be the one to do it.”

  “It’s not that bad, Anna. I’ve just been having a hard time lately and I let it get out of hand. I have a grip on it now, and it won’t be a problem anymore.”

  Anna had practically memorized the pamphlet the counselor had given her, and she knew she had to stick to her message in the face of Li
ly’s promises. “Sweetheart, your drinking has become a problem for me. We argue. We hurt each other’s feelings. We never used to do that. When I can’t be home, I feel guilty. And I worry about you and whether or not you’re out driving drunk.”

  “Anna, if you feel guilty about not being home, maybe you should—” Whatever she had intended to say, she swallowed it. “It’s not like I drink every day.”

  Determined to get her message through, Anna spoke in a calm, even tone. “Honey, there are all kinds of programs and services out there for alcoholism. Even if it’s just going to AA meetings. I’ll help you in any way I can to find whatever works, but you have to do something.”

  “So now I’m an alcoholic, am I?” Anna could hear her getting worked up. “Fine. If you want me to stop, say the word. I won’t ever drink again. I swear it.”

  Anna desperately wanted to believe her, but there was too much at stake. She simply couldn’t risk a broken promise, and another incident like the last one might rip them apart forever. Lily needed to make this decision for herself, not as a promise to Anna. “A promise to me isn’t enough. You have to get some help.

  I’ll support you to get help, but not to keep drinking.”

  “Support me? Oh, I like that. Where would I ever be without you?” she asked, her voice thick with sarcasm.

  “You know that’s not what I—”

  “I’m perfectly capable of quitting on my own, Anna. I don’t need some goddamned treatment program!” Lily’s pleas had turned to anger. “Do you really think I belong in a roomful of people with the shakes, guys who come home drunk and beat the hell out of their wives and kids? Is that the kind of person you think I am?”

  Anna had known Lily would resist, especially if it meant having to talk with strangers about things that bothered her. Her style was to work through things on her own, but this clearly was too big for her. “Sweetheart, I’ll help you look for the right kind of program, something for people like you.”

  “And just what kind of people are people like me, Anna?” She was shouting now. “God, am I some kind of monster?”