I sipped my tea. Malcolm reached for a cookie, chewing in silence for a time.
“But you know it’s going to take more than that, right?”
“Sorry?” I looked up. For a moment, I’d forgotten he was sitting there.
“You know it’s going to take more than a shower, a good night’s sleep, and a bit of a weight gain to put her back to rights, don’t you?”
“I know,” I said, trying to keep the tension from my voice.
Malcolm was just trying to watch out for me, keep me from getting hurt. I appreciated that, but I’d been handling this situation on my own for a long time. If Malcolm hadn’t happened to be in the car at just that moment, he would never have known about Dani’s addiction and I’d still have been handling it by myself.
“I called some of the rehabs I’d been in contact with before. There’s a bed available in Newberg starting tomorrow. I’ll drive Dani out first thing in the morning.”
I closed my eyes, took in a deep breath, then exhaled in a long, slow whoosh, feeling the tension drain from my body.
“This is an answer to prayer, Malcolm. An answer to prayer. All those nights I’ve lain awake, wondering where she was, worrying that she was freezing, or starving, or had overdosed. You have no idea. . . .”
A tear of relief rolled down my face. I pressed my hand to my cheek and wiped it away, then opened my eyes. Malcolm was watching me.
“I’m sorry I never told you, Malcolm. You were always so good to Dani. Every time you asked about her, I wanted to tell you—”
He shook his head and lifted his hand, stopping my explanation.
“It’s all right, Nan. I understand. It was a private matter. You and I haven’t known each other very well for very long.”
“It’s not just you. I haven’t told anyone outside of the family.”
“Not even Grace and Monica?”
I shook my head.
“I think about Dani all the time, day and night, but talking about it is just too painful. That’s why, until I met Monica and Grace that night in the parking lot and asked them home for tea and turnovers, I had no real friends. I cut off contact with almost everyone who knew Dani before. I felt like, if they knew what had happened to her, they’d think it was my fault.”
“Nan,” Malcolm said, his voice chiding. “You were a wonderful mother and Dani is a wonderful girl. If she made a mistake, a bad choice along the way . . .” Malcolm reached across the table and took my hand.
“Don’t cry. Don’t. The drugs that are out there today are so powerful,” he said. “No matter how much you try to warn them, kids do all kinds of foolish things. It doesn’t take long to go from experimentation to full-blown addiction.”
“It wasn’t just that,” I said, my voice catching as I tried to stem the tears. “Dani was only five when Jim died. It was terrible for all the kids, but Dani took it harder than the others. She was the baby and I’d had two miscarriages before she was born. At that point, we realized we probably wouldn’t have more children. I babied her, we all did. But she and Jim were so, so close. Everybody kept saying, ‘Oh, kids that age are so resilient, she’ll get over it,’ but she didn’t. Not ever.
“She’d always been such a sweet little girl, so sunny and eager to please. But after Jim died, she changed. Looking back, I really think she was depressed. You don’t think of a child that age suffering from depression, but . . .” I placed my hand over my mouth and looked away, collected myself so I could continue with the story.
“And, the thing is, sometimes there were glimpses of the old Dani, especially when she was interacting with people outside the family. Sometimes I felt like there were two different Danis—the person she was and the person she wanted people to think she was. That’s the side you saw.”
Malcolm nodded. “She was always capable and responsible around me, upbeat. And so good with the animals.”
“That part was real,” I said. “Dani adored animals, related to them better than she did people, I think. That was the reason I started keeping chickens and then got the goats. Taking care of them seemed to calm her. But the part you didn’t see was the moody, manipulative Dani. She used to lie about”—I shrugged—“well, everything.
“When she was twelve, I noticed that the door of the liquor cabinet was open. When I checked, the key was hidden in my great-grandmother’s copper kettle, where I always kept it. The bottles were at the same level they had been when I put them away after the holidays, once I’d finished baking fruitcake and had the neighbors over for New Year’s Eve. But when I opened the brandy bottle, I realized that somebody had watered it down and added food coloring so I wouldn’t suspect anything. I blamed the boys. They swore up and down that it wasn’t them, but I grounded them for two weeks. Back then, I just couldn’t make myself believe that a twelve-year-old girl would be sneaking liquor.”
“Self-medicating,” Malcolm said, nodding.
“That was the beginning. When Dani was sixteen, Kyle got injured playing soccer, damaged the knee ligaments. The doctor prescribed Percocet. Kyle didn’t like the way it made him feel, so he didn’t finish the prescription. Dani took the bottle from the medicine cabinet and . . .”
Nelson and Lovey were asleep, but Blixen, who had been watching us the whole time, got up from the floor and passed across the room to rest her muzzle on my lap. I stroked his head, took in big, slow breaths. Malcolm picked up the teapot and added more tea to my cup.
“My mother always said a cup of tea makes everything better.”
“Wouldn’t it be great if that were true?” I tried to smile. “Anyway,
