It’s not until he’s safe in his car that he really stops to think of them: the people who would have taken these pills. Some of them are recovering from surgeries or injuries, sure. But he knows most of them are like him, trying to dull a pain that will last the rest of their lives. Trying to quiet the voices inside as their bodies grow tolerant and it takes more, more, more to do the same job.
He knows these people, knows their pain. But he also knows that he isn’t taking anything from them. When the missing pills are discovered, the pharmacy will have to file some paperwork, but the insurance company will cover the cost. And before the day’s even out, a new batch will be on its way from the wholesaler. No one will go hungry for long.
That’s the thing about painkillers. There are always plenty more, if you’re willing to do what it takes to get them.
The system has made sure of that.
Voices murmur above, but they’re no match for the screaming in Jake’s head.
The police are here. If he yells, if he finds a way to remove the bars and break the window, he can get out of here. It will all be over.
And then he realizes: if he gets out of here, it will all be over.
Everybody he loves, the whole town that looked up to him—they must know who he has become. By now they must have figured out all the terrible things he has done, and not one of them will look at him the same.
He can’t go back there.
He can’t.
The cuffs lie on the bed, hungry jaws still open. And Jake realizes something else: the police will have cuffs of their own, and until he knows what happened in that missing chapter, he can’t be sure those cuffs won’t be for him.
He sinks to the bed, knowing Phoenix is right. He isn’t ready to face his past or his future; he isn’t strong enough. It’s better to stay down here. And Phoenix was right about another thing: down here it’s getting better. There’s a growing feeling inside that maybe Phoenix is here to protect him. To save him.
Stockholm syndrome. He hears the words in Daphne’s voice. They were watching Beauty and the Beast, and she was trying to talk herself out of liking it. “Imagine being so stressed and desperate that you get attached to your captor like that. It’s not healthy.”
Jake wrestles against the idea. This isn’t Stockholm syndrome. Phoenix is trying to help.
Which is exactly what you’d think if you had Stockholm syndrome.
There are footsteps on the front porch. The police are getting ready to leave.
Jake folds his lips between his teeth and bites down, blood seeping between his lips, eyes closed against the tears.
A few minutes later, Phoenix comes back. He stops when he sees Jake there, broken and bleeding from wounds he inflicted on himself.
“Talk to me,” he says again.
Jake struggles against it, but he’s been so lonely for so long that in the end, Phoenix wins. He always does.
Jake talks.
Dad and I stuck it out in the city for years after my mom left, but eventually his caseload wore him down enough that he took a smaller job in this small town to escape from the heavy and hard.
But it turns out those things are in small towns too.
Over the years, I’ve watched the light in him grow dim as he confronts the shadowed side of society: armed robbery, domestic violence, every sort of assault. Every day, he sits at the front of that courtroom and tries to hold his head up as he bears witness to all the ways people can hurt each other.
I used to think I could change things for him. Whenever I brought home a perfect report card or showed how fierce I could be on the basketball court, he’d smile and escape from it all, even if just for a little while. Every night, he tries to shed that sadness with his robe before he comes home to me. But it still shows through. And he’s been getting lost in his thoughts more lately. Getting more protective of me all the time.
But tonight, he turns on an SNL clip show from back in the day. He kicks his feet up on the coffee table and laughs, real and deep, right from his belly, as the Spartan cheerleaders chant on the screen.
I watch him for a minute: his body relaxed, his mind released.
“How was your day?” I ask. It’s a normal question, one that millions of people are probably asking each other tonight. I realize too late that it’s the wrong one. In only four words, I’ve taken him from SNL slapstick to the real-life troubles of this town and the weight of the role he plays in them.
“Custody hearings,” he says. “It got ugly.”
I know these are his least favorite days: deciding the fate of kids caught in a storm they didn’t cause and can’t control. Worrying he’ll get it wrong. We don’t talk about the gratitude he feels that he never had to go through it, and the guilt he feels over that. But it’s not his fault my mom walked away.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I’m sure you did what was best.”
“I wish I were sure,” he says. The scene’s getting funnier, but Dad only stares, glassy-eyed, looking like real laughter is something that belongs only on the screen.
Maybe a different question will bring him back to the present. I search the room for anything to talk about and notice his shoes by the back door, the bottoms caked in mud.
“Did you go to the cabin?” Our cabin is old and junky and barely up the mountain, but it’s his favorite place in the world.
“Yup,” he says, without looking away from the TV. “Water’s on already, and I took some lumber to replace the boards in the deck.”
“Did it help?” I ask.
“Not
