Fix You

by Beck Anderson

  “Kelly! Kelly, turn on the computer!”

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  She is a woman on a mission. She opens the laptop herself, types. “You’re going to want to see this.”

  “Is it something bad? Oh, Tessa, my God—”

  She spins the laptop around. “Look for yourself.”

  Suddenly I feel the tears in my throat. “Rehab. Finally.” It’s rehab. He’s safe in rehab. For now, he’s somewhere I don’t have to worry about him. I get up to get a glass of water, blow my nose, and regroup.

  Tessa pushes me back into the chair. “There’s more.”

  “Did he get arrested?”

  “No, Kelly Jo, oh no, it’s not that. Look. Look at the pictures.”

  He’s got his usual hoodie on. He’s shaved. That might be a good sign. It’s night, and he’s walking with Sandy, his publicist. I read the caption—says it was taken as he entered rehab in Malibu for an indefinite stay for indefinite reasons.

  “Look. Look at the last picture. The one with his other hand out in front of him.”

  “What am I looking at?” I scroll through more pictures. Each is pretty much the same: Andrew with his head down, walking next to Sandy, who often has her hand up to keep the person taking the pictures at bay.

  The last picture, though, makes me freeze.

  He’s holding a book. In Our Time. It’s my Hemingway book.

  I snap the laptop shut.

  Tessa grabs me by the shoulders. “You’ve got to go to him.”

  “I can’t.” My heart pounds.

  “Kelly, come on. He’s got your book. He’s getting help.”

  “I don’t have the strength for this.”

  “Yes, you do. I’m not saying go back to him. I’m saying go see him. I’ll watch the boys for you. Take the time you need. Do what you need to do.”

  I try to fill my lungs, but my chest feels crushed. “Let me think. Just give me some time to think about what to do.”

  Tessa rubs my back, comforting me. How many times is she going to have to help piece me back together? “I love you. You do what you need. When you’re ready, I’ll take the boys.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Maybe he’ll reach out to you. If you talk to him, maybe then you can decide what to do.” She gives me a good squeeze, reassuring and warm.

  Then she walks out and leaves me to my nervous breakdown.

  I spend the next seven days in absolute, abject terror of the phone. My poor children—they watch me jump about ten feet each time it rings. They do their normal routine, since, you know, they’re still normal, and let it ring a couple times before walking over and checking the caller ID to see who it is. Then they call out the identity, and whoever it’s for takes it.

  This has happened a million times in our house. Now, however, I have the mental fragility of a cat in a dog kennel, and every little thing sends me into arched-back mode.

  For seven days, Beau and Hunter get calls from friends, and assorted unaware people call me—bill collectors, the firefighters’ association, the lady from the PTO—and each of them has to talk to a crazy, breathless, agitated madwoman.

  I’m beginning to wonder if the boys will commit me when the phone rings for the thousandth time.

  Beau walks over. “Unavailable. I’ll just let it go to voice mail, Mom. It’s probably a salesman.”

  I launch myself over the kitchen table to answer it. “Hello?”

  There’s a long pause on the other end of the phone.

  “I know you told me not to call, but I need to talk to you.”

  My chest goes numb.

  “Hang on. I’m going into the bedroom.”

  I take the phone and look at Hunter. Beau will probably figure it out, but Hunter already has. He knows enough to realize Andrew and I have been having troubles. He might know more. He’s a bright boy. He nods as I disappear into the bedroom.

  I sit on the bed and put the phone back to my ear. “I’m here.”

  There’s breathing on the other side. I wait.

  “Kelly, I’m getting help.”

  “I know. I saw.” I try to hold the phone still, but my hands are shaking badly.

  “You and everybody, I guess.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I think I will be.” He coughs. I hope he’s not too sick.

  I wait. I don’t know what to say. I’m afraid to talk, actually.

  “Are you still there?” He sounds concerned.

  “Yes. I won’t hang up.”

  “I need to see you. I mean, I’d really like to see you.”

  “I don’t know.” Despite everything, I immediately think about how I could get down there, if the boys would be all right with Tessa, but I don’t know how to make my brain slow down to process any of it. This is not a good idea.

  “Please. I can fly you down. Please.” His voice cracks a little, and my eyes fill with tears.

  “Oh, Andrew, I just don’t know.”

  “Please.”

  I try not to cry. “Okay, yes. I’ll come.”

  I almost tell him to stay where he is, but then I remember he’s safe. It might be the only reason I can keep it together while we make the arrangements.

  It’s a little unusual to tell your sons you’re making an impromptu trip to LA at six thirty the next morning, but the boys seem to roll with it. I tell them Andrew needs my help. They seem to get it, and they go get ready for Tessa’s. Then I call Mom.

  “Hello?” She’s in her cocoon of normal life. I’m calling from the land of insanity, but I try to remember what her world is like so I don’t scare her.

  “Mom, it’s Kelly.”

  “Hi, hon. Are you okay? You sound upset. Are the boys all right?” So much for not scaring her. I’ve put her in a panic.

  “Mom, I’m coming down there in the morning.”

  “What on earth for?” Her voice goes up a register. Not a good sign.

  I don’t even want to say. “Andrew.” There. I brace for the reply. She doesn’t know the details of the last trip. I didn’t let her and Dad know I was there when I came to help Andrew last time. I didn’t want them to know about his struggles, but I suppose now they know, along with the rest of the world.

  “Oh, honey.” It’s quiet for a second. “We’ll be at home. Will there be a car for you, or should we come pick you up?”

  I’m shocked. I was ready for the lecture. She sounds sympathetic. “There’s a car coming. You’re not mad at me?”

  “Kelly Jo, I think you probably need to come. We’ll see you in the morning. Now try to get some sleep.”

  And just like that, the call’s ended. For some reason, this gives me a little peace.

  The next morning, after brief sleep, I board a plane for California.

  When I get off the plane and walk out to the arrivals area, Tucker’s there. I could cry.

  “Hi, Kelly.” He smiles at me. He’s a good friend.

  He takes my bag and leads me to the car. There’s not much conversation between us. We go to my parents’ to drop my stuff. Mom gives me a wonderful hug. I tell her I’ll be home as soon as I can, and that’s about all I can muster.

  “Honey, you go. We’ll be fine. We’ll see you tonight.” She pats me on the back and sends me out to the car.

  I can see Tucker drop the composed face he’d apparently been wearing. Now he looks very tired, and possibly worried too.

  “When are you going back?” He’s gotten right to it.

  I’m worried about my answer. “Tomorrow morning. I need to get back to the boys as soon as I can.” I hear the excuse in the words. It feels like a cop-out even as I’m justifying it.

  Tucker’s very kind and lets me off the hook. “You were great to come. Andrew appreciates it, I know. He needs friends like you right now.”

  I know the un-stated thing there is, as opposed to friends like the ones he’s been with lately. Or maybe the un-stated thing is, as opposed to absent friends like t
he one you’ve been lately. The guilt grabs a little corner of my gut and starts to gnaw.

  “So it’s too early to visit yet, but I figured we could get some breakfast while we wait. The visit will feel a little weird, because it’s a lot of spy versus spy. They’ll sneak him off campus, and we’ll go to where they are. He’s concerned that no one finds out you’re here.”

  I’m almost one hundred percent sure this is what my heart breaking feels like. It’s interesting because, you know, I’ve been here before, but the circumstances were not quite the same. I guess I’m surprised to find myself in this spot again. I wonder if I’ll just go under and drown in all of it.

  But I have to kick to the surface. My life is more than me. It has been for a long time now. Giving up is not an option.

  “Tucker.” I think he knows what I’m trying to say. If he doesn’t, he can probably read it in the sick look I know I have on my face.

  “It’s enough that you’re here, Kelly. I think he knows that too. Just be the friend you can for him right now. You have yourself and your boys to think about. I know that. He knows that.”

  I nod and follow him into a coffee shop. Tucker’s about to order for us, but he turns around in line to look at me.

  “But you know he’s going to try, right? You can’t fault him for trying.”

  “Tucker, I love him. It’s not that. It’s everything else. Lots of reasons.”

  “I know.” The barista is waiting for our order now. Tucker looks at me for one more second, then turns around. The conversation is over, and he and I won’t speak of it again.

  After breakfast I find myself in the car again with Tucker, headed to an undisclosed location. We enter another underground parking garage. I try not to read too much symbolism into the descent.

  Tucker and I ride the elevator up to a very generic office suite. Lord knows what kinds of strings were pulled and logistics required to make this happen. The place is very California beige and still has new-carpet smell. Tucker leads the way down a hall of empty offices and stops at a door.

  “Thanks for coming, Kelly.” He opens the door for me to walk through.

  Andrew stands up from a couch. He’s clean-shaven. He’s wearing a white dress shirt and black dress pants with a skinny blue tie. I wonder for a second if he has a court appearance tied up with the rehab, but maybe he’s just making an effort—maybe an effort for me, I don’t know.

  His hands are stuffed in his pockets. This is his awkward sign. “Hi.”

  I have to fight not to cry. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  We stand there for a long time, still not speaking. Then he steps back and offers me the chair next to him. I sit. I should have an enormous handbag or something to prop on my lap, pull tissues from, but I don’t. For once I wish I was a purse person. I don’t know what to do with my hands.

  He takes a huge, deep breath and exhales. “I don’t know how to start. I guess I’ll just jump in.” He sits on the edge of the couch and leans forward. He’s trying to close the distance, but I feel like I need to scoot back to maintain some sort of control over myself. I resist the urge and stay still.

  “Okay.” I manage to squeak out.

  “I want to make amends and apologize before I say anything else.”

  “I’m not okay with the way you’ve been behaving. I’m fine, but you’re pissing me off, treating yourself the way you have been.”

  He’s still. He looks me straight in the eye. “I hurt you. I am sorry.”

  I look at him for a moment. He’s steady. So I go on. “I know about the girl, Emily. About the first time. Don’t destroy yourself. When you said you have no switch—I get that now.”

  “There’s no moderation with me. If I start, I get swallowed up by it, consumed. I thought for a long time if I just kept a lid on things, I could stay in control. But lately everything is just too much and I lose myself again and again. I guess I thought I’d handled the Emily thing a long time ago. And I thought I could just stay busy when everything started getting crazy. But I didn’t think I had a problem. Now I know I do.”

  “I should’ve figured it out. You tried to tell me, and the smoking, and the rumors.”

  “Thanks for giving me the chance to tell you how sorry I am.”

  I nod. I’m fighting a nauseated knot in my stomach, but it feels so good to be here. To be talking to him, close to him. I want to crawl onto the couch next to him and curl up in his arms. I’m startled by that. This is why being near to him is dangerous. I can’t lose my head about him, about this. I can’t afford to.

  He reaches forward. He takes my arm gently, pulls up the sleeve to reveal the scar where the stitches were. “The sight of you running away on the beach was a low point.”

  “That woman, she would’ve eaten you alive if she’d seen me. And I couldn’t reason with you. I had to get out of there. The paparazzi would’ve had a field day.”

  He lets go of my arm. “I hope you might forgive me someday.”

  I nod again. The words just aren’t coming.

  He looks at me, waits for my permission to continue. I don’t say anything, so he goes on. “I’ve been thinking a lot. Things got really bad, obviously, but when I was done, totally done, one night I left whatever pointless house party I was at and just started walking. I kept walking and walking, and the sun came up, and the ocean and the sky turned this shade of pink.”

  He stops for a second, gathering his thoughts maybe.

  “Anyway, for whatever reason, I finally got why you like that story.”

  I’m lost for a second, and then I realize. “The Hemingway?”

  He nods. “Yeah, ‘Big Two-Hearted River.’ It was pretty basic, at first. Then I read the whole book of short stories, and I liked them, so then I read it again. And I appreciated it more for the way Hemingway writes. It’s simple and spare. I like that.”

  Tears stream down my face, but my strategy is to ignore them. They land in little plops on my clothes.

  He goes on. “I liked it, but I still don’t think I got it. And then, walking on the beach as the sun rose, it struck me.”

  “What?”

  “So the soldier fishes, and he doesn’t do it for a reason except that it’s quiet, it’s a good routine. He’s so wrecked by the war that it’s the only thing that holds him together. He can’t think about what’s happened to him, what he’s seen, what the trauma is.”

  He threads his fingers together, stares at them intently while he thinks. I try to continue to breathe.

  “And then when he thinks about fishing the swamp—you know, when I first read it, it just struck me as, okay, don’t fish there, fine. But then I realized: that’s his memories, his mess. He can’t delve into it that day. He chooses to hold to his routine, not go there, and that’s how he copes. That’s how he’s keeping it together, keeping himself in one piece after all the shit he’s been through.”

  He’s quiet as he looks up into my eyes. “Kelly, the thing I realized? That guy is you. You’re holding it all together, you run—but those dreams you have, the nightmares? You can’t think about Peter, what happened, because you’re afraid. You stick with the routine because you need to keep it together. You can’t fish the swamp.”

  I suck in a breath between my teeth. I never thought he’d figure it out from my perspective. I thought he’d see the symbolism, but not how I applied it to myself.

  He’s up on his feet. His hands go back to his pockets, and he walks to the other side of the room before he turns around to face me.

  I’m suddenly mad. “Why are we talking about me? I’m not the one who’s been trying to kill myself.”

  His eyes go wide. “No, there’s a point to this, I swear. Damn it, I don’t want to hurt you more. The point is, I figured out that story, what it meant to you, and all I wanted to do was get to a place where I could help you instead of hurt you. I knew I wanted to help you, and I needed to be whole for you if I wanted to be part of your life. So I called Tucker the next day, and we st
arted all of this.”

  He smiles now. It’s all clear to him. He thinks he’s figured everything out.

  “I can’t. I can’t do this, Andrew.” I get up and walk out the door.

  I resist the urge to run down the hall, but I do duck through the next door, into a conference room, and cover my eyes. This may be a throwback to my toddler days when if I covered my eyes, I believed I was invisible.

  The door swings open. “Kelly, please.”

  Well, that didn’t work. He sees me.

  He takes me by the shoulders. “Kelly.”

  I’m sobbing now. Who knows if he can even understand what tumbles out of my mouth. “You’re right, but you don’t even know, Andrew. You don’t even know.”

  He searches my face for a clue. “What? What don’t I know?”

  “Andrew, I am so beyond fixing. I can’t fix you, and you can’t fix me.”

  He still holds my shoulders. “Kelly, we don’t have to be fixed. We can help each other. I finally wanted to get better. Me, no one else. I was the one who wanted to change. I want this.”

  I close my eyes again. Maybe I can will it all go away. I feel faint.

  “Sit down. Tell me.” He steers me to a chair around the conference table.

  It comes out as half-crying, half-yelling. “Peter was an alcoholic. I left him for a year when the boys were little. He sobered up, and things were good, but then he got sick…” I can’t even finish. I bury my face in my hands, double over in my seat.

  I hear his chair push away. “Jesus.” He’s silent for a minute. “Oh, Kelly.”

  “After everything, he promised me we were through the worst of it. And then I was alone again.”

  “I wouldn’t leave you.”

  “You can’t promise me that, not really. I’m a broken person. I barely survived the last time. I can’t go any more to pieces than I already am. I’m not strong enough for this.” I inhale as deeply as I can, sit up, and wipe my face with the sleeve of my shirt. I’ve got to get out of here.

  He stands, looks out the conference room window, but he turns to look at me before I walk out the door. I don’t know what the expression on his face means, and I don’t give him a chance to say anything else. This time, I do run—all the way to the car. Tucker is waiting for me. I suspect he heard some of what transpired, because he offers a Kleenex and wordlessly drives me to my mom’s house.