The Far End of Happy (10 page)

One of the volunteer firemen entered the hall with a case of water bottles, which he distributed to the women at the table. “I’ll just leave the rest over here,” he said. “Let me know if there’s anything else we can do to help, Mrs. Farnham. Me and some of the other guys are right downstairs.”

“Thank you,” Janet said.

The boys, along with Mr. Eshbach, made their way to the water like sojourners from the desert. Janet would have too, if it were vodka or gin. Not that she liked the hard stuff, but she could resort to it if her supply of Amaretto ran low.

She looked over Ronnie’s head to the soundless lip-flapping of the women of
The
View
—she actually liked them better this way—and let her gaze drop to the bar below it. She bet she could find a bottle of Amaretto back there. Not that she’d be the sort to steal any, with people watching, but she could see how it could happen. And she could also see how someone who felt lonely and misunderstood might resort to spirits to feel better.

Spirits, ha. Her own mother had been full of them. A real holy roller, Amelia Hoyer. Like Jeff, Janet preferred spirits from the known and the seen, and her rewards earthly and countable.

She heard Will asking, “What can we do?”

“I still need to talk to the corporal,” Ronnie said. “Why don’t you take your water bottles over to the next table?”

“And then what?” Will said.

“Why don’t you pray for Dad?”

Dear
god
, Janet thought. Then she wondered if she had just inadvertently offered up a prayer.

“But will it help?” Will said.

The
boy
will
be
a
scientist—he won’t take his mother’s word on anything
. A smile made its way to Janet’s lips.

“It sure won’t hurt,” Ronnie said.

Once Mr. Eshbach followed the boys to the next table, Corporal McNichol asked Ronnie to tell her how Jeff had acted in the psych ward.

Psych
ward
, Janet thought.
It
was
more
like
an
activities
room
at
an
old
folks’ home.

She didn’t give a damn what this psychiatrist had to say about her son. He’d met with Jeff for all of what, an hour or two? If Ronnie couldn’t handle him, she should have called Janet.

Janet had grown up believing that if you had a problem, you dealt with it. You didn’t pay good money to go whine to someone you’d never even met, then leave with a primer on how to lead a better life. With an expensive prescription as a bookmark. To take the edge off, so life hurt less. For crying out loud, that’s what the drinking is for.

Jeff had been struggling with a financial burden. And she’d be the first to admit he was melodramatic. But he’d always been that way. Janet’s mother, who’d watched little Jeff while Janet was at work, would tell her that after disciplining him—enforcing a good pout by shutting him in his room for an hour—he’d come back downstairs with his six-shooters stuffed in his pockets. And yes, he’d threatened his grandmother with those too, Janet had seen it, but with that cute little face pinched into a snarl, it was really pretty funny.

Of course Janet had been raised by the same Bible-quoting, teeth-gnashing disciplinarian, so she could relate to Jeff’s desire to arm himself with whatever he could find. Amelia Hoyer did not like to be tested.

Then there was the knee injury in high school football that “ended his career” and “ruined his life.” As if football was a career. He was a better athlete on the back of a horse anyway.

Somehow they got through such dramas without calling the cops, that time or any other. Which was the right thing, because when Ronnie committed Jeff to that locked “behavioral health” unit against his will, she opened up a whole stinky sack of trouble. That kind of betrayal creates battle lines, and now he had truly armed himself.

The situation left Janet yearning for a taste of her mother’s absolute faith in the unseen. Or if not that, a nip from a bottle.

Janet grabbed her purse and excused herself to use the restroom.

“Go on, Ronnie, I’m listening. I may scratch a few notes.”

Ronnie had never shared this story with anyone. Some parts were embarrassing, other parts were shameful to a bar manager with Jeff’s sense of professionalism, and all of it was just plain challenging to revisit. But Jeff’s torment felt private—at least until today, when he took it onto a public stage.

She looked at her mother and mother-in-law. Beverly sat perched at the edge of her seat. Janet had returned from the restroom and joined them.

“I met with the doctor first, before Jeff came in. Told him about the night’s events, answered questions.” Ronnie stopped and shook her head. “I could tell right away Jeff wouldn’t take the guy seriously. Even I struggled with it. He seemed typecast: portly, long beard and mustache, wire-rimmed glasses, tinny voice. Of course maybe he didn’t take Jeff seriously either. An alcoholic bartender—cliché, right?”

Corporal McNichol offered a rueful smile.

“He suspected Jeff was a closet alcoholic, the kind of drinker who will quietly numb his pain at night, in the privacy of his home, while his wife and kids are sleeping.”

“What pain? That’s what I’d like to know,” Janet said.

Beverly put her hand on Janet’s arm. “We’d all like to know that, I’m sure, but how can we, if he won’t tell us?”

Ronnie continued. “The psychiatrist said he probably remained functional for so long because he drank at night and then slept for nine or ten hours.”

Janet nodded—or was she nodding off?

“So the doctor thought alcoholism was the main problem?” Corporal McNichol said.

“From what I gathered, it’s hard to tell. Depression can cause alcoholism, alcohol is a depressant, and financial, personal, and professional problems can result from or cause either. Or both.”

Corporal McNichol nodded knowingly.

“Then Jeff joined us.”

He’d taken a seat in the far corner of the little conference room, Ronnie recalled, creating an unfortunate “us” against “him” configuration.

Ronnie relived that meeting for Corporal McNichol, keeping in reserve parts that felt too private.

The
psychiatrist
had
begun, “Your wife is worried about you. Does that mean anything to you?”

Jeff
looked
at
Ronnie. “Of course it does.” For one brief moment, he looked at the doctor with what seemed to be sincere humility. “I know I haven’t been good at maintaining our sex life. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. How could I not want to touch her?” He turned to Ronnie, who could only look at the floor. She was mortified that he’d brought up their sex life, or lack of it, in answer to the doctor’s very first question. With emotion thickening his voice, he’d said, “She’s beautiful.”

The
psychiatrist
sat
back
and
crossed
his
arms. “Jeff, there are a lot of women homelier than your wife who are having sex with great regularity. Intimacy has nothing to do with beauty and everything to do with relationship. Sex reinforces a connection that already exists. That connection is what you’re not capable of right now.”

“What do you mean, I’m not capable?”

“Ronnie?” Corporal McNichol prompted.

She cleared her throat. “Sorry. The psychiatrist said Jeff wasn’t in touch with his feelings, and that the only way to remedy that was to stop drinking.”

Janet stage-whispered to Beverly, “I wonder how many doctors she had to take him to for that diagnosis?”

Ronnie paused, noted her anger, and let it go. Without meeting her mother-in-law’s eyes, she said, “I know this is painful to listen to, Janet. I won’t be hurt if you get up and leave. But before you try to scratch me with more of your barbed commentary”—she raised her gaze to Janet’s—“I want you to think long and hard about which one of us is sitting here speaking with you, trying to solve problems, and which one has locked himself in a room.”

After a long pause, Janet said, “I’m listening.”

“Jeff said he could give up drinking without a problem. That he had already done so, going without a cigarette or drink the whole four days he’d been in the hospital. The doctor told him that was because he hadn’t had to deal with the pressures of home and work. That’s when the tug of wills started.”

Corporal McNichol looked up from her notes. “How so?”

“Without skipping a beat, Jeff started making exceptions. He said he’d only have wine if he and I were having a nice dinner, like for my upcoming birthday. The doctor said no, he’d have to stop entirely and also complete thirty days of in-patient rehab. Jeff said he couldn’t do that, he had to work. The doctor said not around alcohol. Jeff said, ‘I can’t do rehab. I’d lose my job.’”

“Well, that much is true, in this job market,” Beverly said. “And they could hire someone else at a much lower wage.”

“But I’d already spoken with Norris and arranged for time off. I told Jeff that, and he looked at me as if I’d betrayed him. I explained that I hadn’t told Norris why he was in the hospital. For all he knew, Jeff was having bypass surgery. Norris had told me Jeff had been a good and faithful employee, he should take whatever time he needed. He just wanted him well. And Jeff said, ‘Ronnie, you know me, I’d go insane in rehab. I’ve got to be working.’ I said maybe that’s exactly what he needed: to stop running from whatever this is and sit still with it. And when he got out, he could quit at the hotel and work full-time at the farm store. He said we couldn’t afford rehab, and I said I’d already confirmed payment with his insurance company. All he had to do was say yes.”

All the women’s eyes were on Ronnie.

“What did he say?” Corporal McNichol said.

“He said, ‘I can’t do it.’ And while I was wondering what we were supposed to do next, the psychiatrist started gathering his papers and said Jeff was ready for discharge.”

“That’s it? He sent you home with nothing resolved?” her mother said.

“Just handed me a prescription for outpatient counseling, with the warning that it probably wouldn’t work because Jeff needed more support than that. All I got in return for hauling my boys down there in the middle of the night and making the gut-wrenching decision to commit him? A four-day reprieve. He was coming home.”

“But how could they do that when they knew the stakes?” Beverly said.

“The Patient’s Bill of Rights Jeff received said they can’t keep him beyond five days unless he repeats the threat of suicide or tries it while he’s there—and he got out in four days because of obstinate behavior. ‘We won’t be able to accomplish anything else here,’ the doctor said. ‘Our words hang in the air all around him, but they can’t sink in.’ I was in a panic. I needed Jeff to get help.
I
needed help. I didn’t know how we could carry on. Once Jeff left the room, I asked the doctor what we were supposed to do.” Ronnie could feel the panic rise within her again. She couldn’t speak for a moment.

Beverly finally said, “And?”

“He said, ‘You want to know whether or not your husband is going to kill himself.’ I said, ‘Yes, I guess that’s what I want to know.’ And he said, ‘We already know that he’s lied to you about the finances. But the real problem is that he lies to himself. That will be the source of his undoing.’”

“I hate to say how well this supports my opinion of psychiatry,” Janet said.

“So did he think you should maybe back off on the divorce?” Beverly said.

Ronnie relived what else the psychiatrist had said.

“At this point you need to protect yourself and your children,” he had said.
“I understand his mother is paying off the debt. His decision-making ability has been severely compromised, so make sure the divorce papers are served right after Jeff cashes the check from his mother. This will freeze his account and prevent him from spending it. When you move out, take everything that’s yours. I don’t suspect he’ll be alone for long.”

Ronnie looked up at the disco ball, too distant and fractured to mirror her lie. “No, he didn’t mention the divorce.”

“And nothing about the potential for suicide?” Corporal McNichol said.

Did the corporal really need her to say this? She knew how these things turned out better than any of them.

Her mother’s and mother-in-law’s foreheads were creased with worry, each looking to her for hope.

She found the strength to lie once more. “Not specifically.”

The
doctor’s hand was on the door, and Ronnie’s panic was rising. “Wait. What do you mean, ‘the source of his undoing’? Could Jeff really commit suicide?”

And
the
psychiatrist
had
answered, “He just might.”

• • •

The trip home from the hospital was almost unbearable. Ronnie did not feel equal to being Jeff’s guardian or whatever you’d call the duties expected of her now that he had been released from the psych unit. The air in the car was supercharged with every feeling Jeff would never be able to discuss. How close was he to coming unhinged? How angry was he that she had committed him? And what would he do when he saw what she’d done to the credit cards? She draped her arm over the center compartment in a way that she hoped looked casual.

Jeff punctuated the silence with occasional questions about what had been going on in his absence, as if she had just picked him up at the airport after a business trip. After she parked the car, her entire rib cage clamped down on her lungs as she watched Jeff’s hand move to the center compartment to withdraw his wallet.

He didn’t open it until they got into the kitchen. That’s when he erupted.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he shouted, holding up the worthless scraps of plastic.

Ronnie kept her voice as calm as she could, but she had never before encountered the full force of Jeff’s wrath. The thrill worming its way through her chest was inappropriate, she knew. “You told me that you were keeping only the Visa and American Express active. If you aren’t charging anything on the others, it doesn’t matter if they’re cut up.”

Jeff shook with rage. He let rip a selection of profanities she’d never before witnessed, from him or anyone.

Following his example, Ronnie did him the honor of waiting out his tirade before leaving the room.

Her whole life long she’d admired Jeff’s easygoing nature. He was curiously difficult to provoke. He’d once told her that his ex-wife had thrown a knife at him to try to get a rise out of him. After that, he’d thought it wise to hide the cleaver from the knife set; it was tucked away still, in a high cupboard beneath a seldom-used fondue pot, safe from the boys. Hidden, like his emotions.

Ronnie had laughed when Jeff first told her this particular Crazy Fay story. Now, her own similarity to Fay frightened her. Ronnie had taken a blade to Jeff’s most vulnerable spot—his wallet—instigating an arterial pulse of passion that years of pleas and tears could not.

It turned out Jeff wasn’t the unflappable man Ronnie had always depended upon to balance out her more emotional nature.

He was untouchable, except through the tender fold of his wallet.