Author's Note: Welcome back again, everyone, and Happy Belated Thanksgiving! Once again, please note that the legal proceedings and other law enforcement related points in this chapter are based on research and some personal experience, but as I am no expert in law, law enforcement (police-work), and the like, let me know if I am mistaken in anything and I will be happy to correct the issue! The title for this chapter comes from lyrics to the song "The Interview" by AFI. Please let me know what you think, and enjoy!

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Chapter 31 - Forever Waiting for Disaster

Erik

During my shift the weekend after Thanksgiving - the holiday itself spent at home for the first time since Josie was a baby, each of us navigating what new traditions or sense of celebration could be found in the wake of Gene's loss - I had called Christine late in the evening to let her know that I would be "staying on-call" at the hospital until the morning; and while she had accepted the lie readily enough, as she had during the preceding weeks of the same such excuses, that was one particular occasion that the lie had hurt more than the others, largely because Thanksgiving had been so difficult on all of us. For myself, I knew that I was certainly reeling from it. So when I went down to the waterfront in Chicago to blend in with the crowds there instead of staying at work as I had told her - whiskey in hand hidden with soda in a bottle - I'd pounded the liquor harder and faster than I had for quite some time, more so than I was used to even with months of tolerance-building behind me, and the result was a state of intoxication that was as close to a full blackout as I had been in years. Honestly, it had to have been nothing short of divine intervention that kept me alive that night. It was, at any rate, an unsettling enough experience that I'd retired to my car earlier than I would have most other nights, waiting to sober up completely to be able to drive again, before I made my way back to the hospital to get my shit together and attempt to leave the city again entirely.

Predawn was taking over when I got back to Schaumburg. The neighborhood was still shaded in that distinct and hazy gray that exists only before the sun rises, before its golden light blinds beyond the horizon, beyond the carefully planned treelines and suburban properties, and under any other circumstances, that environment would have served as something comforting - it had done exactly that for the years that I'd lived there, a long-established reminder that another difficult shift was behind me, and that my home and the people I loved waited for me at the end of the drive. Now, though, such a morning was simply a reminder of everything that was wrong, an overwhelming disquiet within my mind that the rest of the world seemed to reflect tenfold.

It was surrounded by that ethereal state that I found myself moving carefully from the front door into the house so that I wouldn't make any sudden noises and wake up my wife and daughter, or startle the dog and cause him to start barking and abruptly informing the household of my presence. Even though I was expected home by then, I didn't want to disturb anyone. I was still extremely on edge in spite of the bender that I'd treated myself to before midnight - or, perhaps, because of it. Although I was stone sober then, and although I had rounded back to the hospital once lucidity had returned to me in order to take an unreasonably hot shower in the locker room of the surgical department - to wash away any and all physical evidence of how I had spent the hours between officially leaving work and the time I'd told Christine I would be leaving - I felt the weight of shame fall heavily on my shoulders just the same. As such, I had half-seriously convinced myself that the shame clutching at me could be found in plain sight. It was ridiculous, and obviously impossible; short of me actually dropping my act and confessing altogether, there continued to be no reason for me to believe that Christine or Nadir or anyone else even relatively close to me had suspected that I was doing anything I shouldn't - but still, the whole situation left me uneasy nonetheless.

So I parked in the driveway to avoid the sound of the garage door echoing throughout the otherwise silent house, I whistled softly for Rex to be on alert as my service dog and not the self-appointed protector of the family, doing so long before I walked through the front entrance to signal to him to behave and keep calm - I did everything that I possibly could to stay all but invisible within the walls of my home. I needed to be able to use those initial moments there to settle down, to do so before I would be expected to function in the space normally once more. I would face Christine again much later in the morning, but I intended to approach that instant with a clear mind all the while, in stark contrast to the battered conscience I possessed now, just as I had every other morning that I'd executed this overnight shift ruse. Because whenever I spoke to her again after the fact, I could bring myself to believe, in the daylight hours at the very least, that everything was as it should have been, that our lives were led presently as they were before Gene died, before Nick intruded upon my family and I dove head-first off the deep-end in turn. That was how it had been lately - day and night existed in a startling dichotomy in my mind, and I was determined that never the two shall meet. Against all logic and responsibility, remaining within that strict framework kept me going from one day to the next ever since I'd relapsed.

Yet what I hadn't anticipated, in my shortsightedness, was that Christine would eventually blur the lines between light and dark, between day and night, which meant that alcoholism seeking justification and the desperate grasp of the will to maintain sobriety had clashed as a result; and something in me was incredibly close to breaking that morning when it happened. Where before I had always considered her to be the moon to my sun, the sweeping peace to my own intensity, this latest relapse had witnessed those roles and meanings shifting dramatically; now, I found myself as the one lost in the darkness while she thrived in the light. Because, for all that I was living in denial, I was simultaneously and painfully aware of everything that I was doing wrong - again. Encountering Christine so soon upon arriving home, seeing her when she should have been asleep and I should have been composing myself, was nearly enough to bring my downward spiral to a crashing halt, and in the face of that sudden mingling of worlds, I'd wanted nothing more than to go backward in time and stay put forever, as long as doing so meant escaping this prison I had erected around myself.

She was awake when I walked into our bedroom and locked the door behind me, intending to keep it locked only long enough to change and attempt to go to sleep myself; sitting up in bed, her face was cast in shadows from the low light of the bedside lamp, painting her features in sharp and theatrical lines that felt somehow unreachable. Music was coming from her phone, I'd noticed quickly, and as the playlist droned on at almost nothing, she was leaning in a careful and deliberate manner into the lamplight from behind her to more easily read one of the thick books that she usually kept over on the dresser, always at hand whenever sleep evaded her - which, this morning, seemed to be exactly the case. My heart seized when I saw her like that - when it registered how beautiful she still was to me after so many years together - and in the wake of that observation, it occurred to me just how comfortable she was in her ignorance, how happy and content she appeared despite an apparent bout of insomnia. And I could have easily shattered that illusion for her at any single moment - in being perfectly honest, I knew that I should. As her husband, I owed her the truth and absolutely nothing less than that. But admission was too painful, too daunting to consider then, and so instead I tamped down every last thought and inclination toward explaining anything at all. Transparency means nothing in the face of cowardice, and I sure as hell had taken on the role of the coward by that point.

Wholly unaware of what I was thinking then, she looked up from her book and set it aside when my presence caught her attention - it was just seconds after I had walked through the bedroom door, but it felt like an eternity in my turmoil - and she rose quickly to greet me.

There was no physical contact between us then, not initially. Rather, I moved to take off my work clothes, facing away from her as I asked in a low voice, "Why're you still awake?"

"I couldn't fall asleep. After you called earlier...I hate when you have to work overnight, and I guess this time it really got to me."

"I hate having to leave you here alone," I responded, echoing her words and meaning my own in so many more ways than she knew. Remaining turned away from her, I pulled my shirt off first, the action made nearly in a haste - even though I had taken that shower earlier that night, enough time spent under the water to wash away the stench of liquor from my body, some part of me had still worried about whether or not she could tell that it had been there only hours before, if it was branded on me like the mark of Cain and impossible to erase entirely. But rather than seeing past my illusion and finally accusing me of hiding the drinking and lying to her about my activities and whereabouts, I felt more than heard Christine walk up behind me. And in the next instant, she had wrapped her arms firmly around me, leaning her head against my back and sighing warmly as she did so.

"I don't mind having to be left alone," she said, her statement somewhat muted by her position, "I understand it, you have to work. It's just hard when your schedule changes out of nowhere and doesn't change back. You've been on the night shifts for so long now, plus you have to go down to Memphis so often...I feel like I barely get to see you anymore."

Another fierce pang of guilt, but I bit it back and held fast to her arms where they met across my chest, absently wondering if I was holding on too tight, wondering if she had even noticed. Once again, that desperate, half-sane feeling of wanting to go backward crossed my mind, and before I could think better of it, I found myself trying to put the notion to words, trying to conceptualize something that was so abstract all at once. After a pause, a thoughtful silence passing between us, I murmured, "Do you remember, when you were still living out in the city with Meg, and you and I would meet and hole up in your bedroom after overnight shifts?"

"How could I forget?"

"I miss that...I miss how simple it was back then."

By the beat of tension that she'd responded with - one that I couldn't directly see, but felt just as strongly as if she'd given voice to it - she had almost seemed hurt by my phrasing, and knowing her as well as I did, I strongly suspected that her reaction had to do with the unspoken comparison between our shared then-and-now; because so much had changed for us over the years, and the majority of those changes had been for the better. We'd come so far together, considering our rocky start. It was, after all, relatively recently that everything had gotten so complicated, but we'd been genuinely happy before that, and Christine had no way of knowing or understanding why I would want to go back, even if only briefly. Confirming my suspicions, she went on to ask, "What about now, though? What about the way we are now?"

"I wouldn't trade now for anything," I said sincerely, resolutely, hoping to reassure her as I turned to face her, twirling her around with an extended arm as I did so, as if we were dancing in a setting far more formal than our bedroom. She laughed lightly at the unexpected gesture, but to emphasize my next point, and to keep her from questioning me further in a direction I truly didn't want to go, I took both of her hands and spoke deliberately, "But I think we could both stand for that kind of simplicity again. Especially lately."

There was a flash in her eyes that I almost didn't catch as she said, as if making up her mind then and there about what she wanted to do, "I agree. And since you seem to want to reminisce this morning, do you remember how we used to occupy our time when I lived in Chicago?" she asked, her tone becoming sensuous in an instant as she loosened one of her hands from mine and moved it to rest low on my stomach, only for a second at most, before slowly bringing it downward, her intention clear and decisive as she crossed the barrier of my waistband and skin met heated skin all at once. Suddenly, at the contact, my weariness and stress had vanished, replaced by a want for her and everything that she was offering then that was as intense and nearly as painful as my underlying guilt. But in those moments, I realized that I didn't want to think about the bad any longer - not then; I just didn't want to remain lost in my own damn thoughts for the span of this interaction, not if wandering through that suffocating frame of mind meant losing sight of her there with me, because I needed her so much more than I'd realized before she'd taken us down this path. And so, when she went on to murmur the question, her words a challenge that I recognized as lighthearted, Unless you're too tired, my response to her was immediate and insistent.

"I'm never too tired...not for you," I said as I took her hands in mine again, then led her the short distance to the bed and brought her to sit with me, laying us both down among the blankets that she had only just left herself, "Even when I'm exhausted," I went on in a whisper, my voice steadier than my nerves as I positioned myself above her, when she wound her arms over my shoulders, coming to rest them around my neck as she pulled me closer, and I continued, "It doesn't matter. I just want to feel all of you again this morning."

In return, she said nothing. Rather, she simply smiled, letting her acceptance be known of my thinly-veiled plea to lose ourselves in one another, and when she kissed me, it was with a crushing intensity that instantly shattered and healed me all at once - at least as much as she was capable of healing someone so damaged. Yet, while initially I thought that it was enough for what I believed I'd needed, in a rush, all of the shame and the anger that I was carrying collapsed around me, and there was an insane point after our lips had parted for each other that I'd almost given up and confessed everything - I was ready to forfeit the power struggle raging in myself, because I knew that she would help, she would make me fight to live again and put an end to my decline. But then, not knowing even a fragment of how her every move would impact me, she deepened the kiss and brought me flush against her, spurring my desire and fracturing my notion of confession in turn. All I wanted, all I could think of without pain or guilt or regret was forgetting everything beyond the feeling of her, of the simplicity that I was so desperate to recapture and which I felt was now within my reach. So I focused on that, on her body, on the music playing with a tinny sound from the speakers in her phone, Lord Huron's haunting melody that, even though the song was close to finishing, I recognized immediately.

"When the night is done you'll vanish in the sun

Will I hold you when the night is over?"

Sighing, I knew that I couldn't tell her anything.

Beneath me, she threaded her fingers through my hair and slid her tongue against mine, and determined to maintain my focus, I responded with as much force as she lent; every sweep of lips and tongue, the mingled love and fear and frustration, seared me to the moment and only that moment, the perfect distraction from my sins that she was entirely unaware of presenting to me, and I took that distraction like air to a man drowning.

Wordlessly, to ensure that the kiss was never broken for longer than it took to catch a breath, I let one hand explore her body as my other arm held tightly around her waist - anchoring her to me that much more securely, and with an unnamed urgency all the while. She gasped into my mouth when I moved to her center, feeling my way to her slowly before brushing one finger into her, then another, concentrating on a cadence that I knew would arouse her further. As I carried her away from her senses, she bucked against me, and then my length was in her hand again, my flesh now rock-hard to the point of pain in her familiar grasp. And all at once, barely cognizant of what I was doing, I shifted to disentangle our hands, maneuvered us to do away with the last of our clothing, and finally entered her completely, steadily drawing into her and intent on keeping with that pace. But then her knees drew up to my sides, pulling me deeper and inviting me to move with her, the rhythm growing faster until I was lost, kissing her with renewed energy as I made love to her; it was a heady experience, and it took everything within me not to find my release from that alone. I wanted to draw this out for us both - I needed to. And so I tightened my grip on her, reveling in joining our bodies and moving consciously to heighten her satisfaction over mine for the time being. Before I knew it, I felt her convulsing around me, and I had to stop altogether to keep myself from plummeting over that edge after her.

"I love you," I whispered as she returned to the world, repeating the endearment to her as I began to thrust into her again - as she kissed my neck and spoke my name and moved her hips to bring my length as deep into her as possible - and we continued on that way long after her first climax.

Increasing my pace once more in response to her persistent attention and my own mounting need, I lost track of time and reason. All thoughts mercifully fled my mind, and suddenly I was left with nothing but the feeling of her skin, of her heat, of her voice, and when I met the limits of what I could take from her, I found myself fighting to keep from shouting into the room. Closing my eyes tightly as I released myself into her, I leaned down to kiss her once again, almost dazed from it all as I felt her return the kiss soundly. Whether it was from the buildup of tension from life outside of this intimacy, or simply for the fact that I had been away from her for too long, this particular experience was incredibly intense, and it wasn't until we'd moved to lie beside one another when it was done that I realized how hard I was breathing, how immersed in every second I had been; under any other circumstances, I might have laughed, but I couldn't find that kind of amusement in the situation then - only the looming guilt that had been cast off, but still waiting in the wings for my weakness to come around again and remind me exactly why the contrast was so drastic.

Shaking my head, I pulled Christine closer to me, deciding then to simply find comfort in existing alongside her for as long as I could manage before my self-imposed reality inevitably came crashing down around me; I had to take these instances of relative calmness whenever they were presented, because God only knew how rare they were anymore. Still unaware of what I was thinking and why, Christine settled in my arms, and for a time we were silent before we had to get up and get dressed again, and unlock the door in case Josie needed us.

But when that was all taken care of, finally giving in to my exhaustion, I fell into an uneasy sleep, barely noting the morning sun shining at the edges of the curtains as I did so.

~~oOo~~

When I woke up again, it was to the sound of Josephine's voice from where she stood by my side of the bed, and opening my eyes, a quick glance at the alarm clock told me that only an hour or so had passed since I'd fallen into that shallow and restless sleep. Sighing, I saw Josie standing there with a sock monkey cradled in one arm, and Willow held in the other as she was set precariously on her shoulder, the cat grudgingly staying in place all the while. She was a relatively small animal, likely some kind of a mutt version of the munchkins that were so popular, but even so, she appeared to be a somewhat difficult companion for my daughter to carry then, and for the second time that morning, I could almost bring myself to laugh at the situation - in this case, at the cat's endless patience. Josie was never rough with Willow, she knew better, but ever since she could walk, she had always insisted on carting her all over the house, and this morning was clearly no exception.

Not yet entirely awake, I murmured, "What's up, babydoll?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"You couldn't sleep?"

"Yeah."

"Why couldn't you sleep?"

"It got too cold," she responded, and I recognized the familiar excuse immediately. Her bedroom wasn't cold, it never was whenever she came into our room looking to tuck herself between us - she had simply determined that she was too old to admit that she'd had a nightmare and came to her parents seeking solace. And on that point, Christine and I had never denied that solace to her. Going to sleep with us every now and again wasn't bad for her - better that she trusted that we would always catch her before she fell rather than having to face off with her childhood fears alone. I'd had to live like that outside of the safety of Marie's care, and I refused to let that happen to my own daughter. So, without needing to say anything more, I held out my arm, and after Josie had carefully deposited Willow to curl up just above my head, she used my arm to hoist herself onto the bed, significantly higher than hers and difficult for her to clamber onto by herself. Once she had settled down under the mess of blankets between me and Christine, she was perfectly content, falling asleep against her mother's arm without any further need for discussion or reassurance. She knew that her nightmares couldn't hurt her, and anyway, to confess one now would ruin her illusion, and she was too stubborn to allow that.

Smiling inwardly at my daughter's quirks as she and my wife continued to sleep soundly beside me, for a handful of moments I felt at peace again. But then, all at once the feeling was washed away by the knowledge that it was only temporary - reality, after all, would circle back to swallow me whole again soon enough. Too soon. The day hadn't actually started yet, and it was still the weekend at that. Come Monday, though, I was scheduled to fly to Memphis to work on the estate, and then come straight back to work at the hospital upon my return, without even having a chance to check in at home in-person, and each of those circumstances automatically meant that much more stress, more drinking - nevermind waiting to hear back from our family law advocate about setting an official mediation date that, even though now we knew it would take place in Schaumburg, was the absolute last thing that Christine and I wanted to participate in, let alone the likelihood that our daughter would have to be involved with the proceedings in the coming weeks. What should have been the kickoff to Christine and Josie's favorite holiday traditions, ones that for years had always painted the season from November through January, now had the stain of grief for Gene's passing, and resentment toward Nick and his wife forced in like a goddamned curse.

Considering that when combined with everything else, any ease that I had been granted at the veil of normalcy of a quiet morning with my wife and daughter fled as soon as those thoughts had taken shape. It was with that discouraging notion beating inside of my mind that I fell asleep for the second time that morning.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful, for which I was grateful, but then Monday morning found me unwillingly saying goodbye to Christine and Josie again before I left with Nadir to head out to the Chicago Midway Airport. Since driving all the way to Memphis and back as often as I'd needed to be there was impractical, I'd long since resigned myself to having to rent a car at the airport in Tennessee at that end of every trip, and on that vein of thought, it also made more sense to me to be dropped off at the airport in Chicago to make each flight rather than add parking fees to the other travel expenses that were piling up. Ordinarily, I would go to the airport with Christine, each of us buying as much time together as possible before we'd have to part once more for days on end, but that morning, she was already pressed for time as it stood, so riding with Nadir was the next most reasonable option. And honestly, I hadn't minded the alternative beyond losing those stolen moments with my wife; as little time as I could recently spend with my family, I'd been able to dedicate even less to Nadir and Sahra, and as my closest friends, that distance had bothered us all, necessary though it had been with my responsibilities and travel schedule being what they were. Therefore, if nothing else, it was a welcome change to share the confined space in Nadir's car and talk, or just coexist, although I was well aware that I would need to be careful with my words all the same.

We smoked while he drove, a rare indulgence for each of us. Nadir generally preferred to leave the space smoke-free - we both did, keeping in mind that our children rode with us daily - but every now and again he would make exceptions, more often than not stemming from the need to decompress from any recent upset. This day was one such occasion, as he'd been informed of everything that Christine and I were dealing with - one scathing detail on my part notwithstanding - each step of the way, and had offered us encouragement and guidance when he could. But the ride was silent for the moment, the only sound coming first from the twin flicks of lighters, and then the rush of the road and traffic whipping through the half-opened windows. The sun was too bright, and the noise was bothering me immensely, but I forced myself to focus on my cigarette, and initially that was enough, though just barely. The tension coming from me was almost palpable, I was sure, because I was already homesick, already distracted by what lie ahead; sighing, I took a long drag from the cigarette, holding my breath as one would after a hit from a spliff, and when I finally exhaled, there was only a trace of smoke left, meeting the air like a ghost for an instant before disappearing entirely. Nadir wanted to check on me - when I was ready, he'd said - but I had no idea where to start without inadvertently divulging something that would reveal everything, and I certainly wasn't willing to do that.

But as we drew closer to the airport in that prolonged silence, it seemed that his concern outweighed his consideration, and he began abruptly, his tone straightforward and unwavering even while approaching the uncomfortable subject, "You're depressed again."

"No shit," I responded with a humorless laugh.

Still, he took no offense to my bluntness, unsurprisingly, continuing instead as if I hadn't spoken at all, "You're keeping up on your meds, right?"

"Right," I said, which I knew damn well was an outright lie, but one that I couldn't dodge without opening the door to follow-up questions that would lead straight back to the issue that I was avoiding in the first place - the fact was, I was not keeping up on my medication, because I still held the vivid memories of when I'd learned the hard way years ago that combining my antidepressants with alcohol came with several side-effects, that I was especially prone to the more aggressive of them, and I really didn't need to throw seizures or any other problems onto my long list of concerns. So I'd just stopped taking them altogether when I'd understood that I was losing control of the drinking again, that it was escalating beyond what I could manage, even at the cost of another severe blow to my already taxed mental health.

I never had been one to make good choices.

Nadir only nodded, appeased and unaware of the lie as he asked, "How much longer until the estate settles, anyway?"

I smiled sardonically, "You're not enjoying our time together?"

"I love it, thoughts of it sustain me between trips," he shot back, and I actually laughed at that, "I don't mind going out to the airport with you, I'm just worried about how much it's adding to all of the other shit you're dealing with."

Instantly losing hold of the levity we'd just exchanged, I sighed, "Not until the summer at the earliest, according to the attorney."

"That's ridiculous."

"That's why I'm glad I'm not a lawyer."

A pause, then, "Speaking of, has your idiot lawyer father had his idiot lawyer friends give you any updates about when mediation is supposed to happen?"

"Just to expect it after New Year's."

"They're dragging it out."

"No kidding."

He shook his head, "How are you handling all of this?"

"You already figured that out. I'm depressed as hell."

"Right, but is that all?"

No, of course that's not all…

"What do you mean?" I asked, hoping that my feigned ignorance wasn't obvious.

"I mean, you're not drinking again, are you? Or thinking about it?"

"If I was, don't you think you'd know?" I asked, more or less evading the truth. It was almost a relief that he had been so direct - that he'd had the instinct to even ask about drinking specifically to begin with - if for no other reason than the fact that his doing so made it easier for me to skirt around honesty in turn. But still, just because it was easier didn't make me proud of what I was doing whatsoever.

"Just...promise me that if something goes wrong, you'll reach out."

Another sigh, "I promise."

By then, we'd reached the gate for the airline that I was using, and so any potential for further questions or attempts on Nadir's part to unravel my words was abruptly cut short, replaced by the necessity of me getting out of the car quickly, with the excuse that my doing so would free him of the cluster-fuck of traffic at the airport departures as soon as he could weave his way out of there; after wishing me a safe flight and reminding me that he was available if I needed him - for anything, he'd added pointedly - I watched him drive away, and the unease that I'd felt in the wake of our conversation was instant and overwhelming. He had only wanted to help - he was reaching out to me once again, and as always, I had denied him the chance, had denied myself a known source of counsel and support. Had I admitted to everything that I was doing, he might have been upset, at least initially, that I'd hidden it all for so long, but he would have done something, would have made me stay in the car and driven us right back to Schaumburg to get me into some kind of recovery. Yet I couldn't take the step that would have brought that much needed scenario into reality - I was disgusted with myself for that, for all of it.

And after one last cigarette in the designated smoking area outside before my flight - after I'd put my surgical mask back on and slung my bag over my shoulder - as I went through TSA and beyond, all I could think about was my shame, and the lies mounting on lies.

~~oOo~~

Mediation was a legal formality, as Christine and I had absolutely no intention of allowing Nick and his wife any semblance of visitation with Josie, but officially, we had to go on-record as being cooperative with the process in order to move forward. Still, every moment of the mediation meeting was unbelievably aggravating, even with our end-goal in mind. And although I had expected as much at the outset, all things considered, what I hadn't expected was exactly how terrible the experience would be. It took place the second week of January, just as the lawyers on both sides had earlier indicated, and so at least there wasn't another delay on that front, but the winter holidays had been stressful enough without mediation following so closely behind them - between Gene's stark absence, and work schedules keeping Christine and Josie and I apart increasingly more often, plus my drinking and my continued travel obligations to Memphis, it had honestly seemed as though we hadn't gotten any real breaks from the stress of it all for weeks on end; by New Year's I was half-tempted to abandon the estate entirely just to have one reprieve to count on. That, however, wasn't even a remote possibility, nevermind everything else that continued piling up, and so when mediation in-person with Nick and his wife and the family law advocates finally happened, I wasn't sure how much more strain my temper or my nerves could take.

Nick, of course, had picked up on my demeanor as soon as we were settled in the same room together the appointed day of the meeting, each party and respective legal representatives taking opposite ends of a conference table in one of the county buildings dedicated to those matters, with a trained third-party mediator seated at the head of the table. But even though such meetings were routinely meant to serve as neutral ground on which to come to some form of a reasonable agreement or another - something to appease both sides while acknowledging the best interest of the child in question - nothing about this encounter struck me as neutral in the slightest. For all his personal flaws, Nick had been a distinguished lawyer himself in his time, and was highly regarded among his colleagues and students at the university where he now worked; and moreover, he was well-read in family law in a way that I could never achieve. He had years under his belt of active practice, while Christine and I had only months of preparation and research on the subject, and thus we were left to trust our own lawyer to bring us through this custody case and the inevitable hearing successfully - namely, we needed to ensure that Nick and his wife did not, under any circumstances, get what they wanted. As it stood, everything unfolding at present left us anxious, and Nick knew precisely how to use our concern and uneasiness against us.

The meeting itself ultimately got us nowhere. While ordinary child custody mediation that occurs between separated spouses involves identifying and resolving contested issues before drafting proposed solutions to those issues, our case had surrounded extenuating circumstances from the start; when grandparents sue for custody, it is generally because their children have gone through a divorce or lost custody themselves, and the grandparents want to ensure that their rights to see their grandchildren remain in place long after the adults have separated, among other instances outlining the same elements. This was obviously not so for us at all, as our family dynamics were drastically different from the majority of precedent cases, complicating matters that much more as a result. Therefore, rather than being able to defer directly to state and county procedures, the bulk of the meeting was spent arguing in circles, voices raised and interruptions made upon interruptions, with no real resolution to be found among the disorder. Neither side would concede whatsoever to the other's suggestions, neither legal representative could find a middle-ground that was acceptable, and the mediator was at a loss for what to do. And worse, Nick and his wife had announced that they wanted more time with Josie than initially proposed, and they wanted that time unsupervised, which Christine and I absolutely refused, and which piqued our apprehension immensely.

On that, Christine was especially vocal, nearly shouting her response before Nick's lawyer could even finish speaking, "These people are literal strangers to my daughter, and you're asking for us to send her off alone with them? There's no way I'm agreeing to that, are you kidding?"

"They just want to make up for lost time with their granddaughter - "

" - Like hell they do. And she's not their granddaughter, they haven't given a damn about her since the day she was born. This is all just to get back at my husband for them falling out with Gene. I'm not agreeing to it."

I'd taken her hand in mine at that point, the gesture subtle and unseen beneath the table; but even so, I held on tightly, in part to help her stay calm, but more so as a sign of approval. I had to admit that I was proud of her then - we were each fiercely protective of our child, but when pushed too far, I believed that Christine could scare off a grown man if confronted. I knew that she would need to remain level-headed for the duration of the meeting, we both would, but if Nick wanted to press his luck, I wouldn't pity him for having to face the consequences of his persistence against my wife. So I simply held fast to Christine as she rounded out another brief exchange with Nick and the mediator, letting go only when I'd realized that I was being addressed directly once more, when I heard Nick's voice wind its way through the haze of distress in my mind that made concentration difficult.

"You could spend more time in Pittsburgh, it would be easier for us to pick her up that way," he said, almost casually - his tone long-rehearsed - as if that statement was the most accessible solution to this case as a whole.

Shaking my head, I clasped my hands in front of me slowly, distantly aware that my doing so served as a means of maintaining self-control as much as it was to have a visual focal point to rein in my thoughts, "That isn't possible - "

" - Why not? You went to Memphis two or three times a year for Gene - "

" - Right, for holidays. But you've already said you want more frequent visits than that, considerably more, and it isn't possible. We have lives here, everything is here. Josie has school, piano lessons and friends, she's starting t-ball in the spring. And Christine and I have work, she has patients that need her, she's running research trials. We can't just uproot everything for you, Nick."

"You could make the effort."

"What about a few days in the summer, supervised," I offered, ignoring his thinly veiled criticism and knowing that it was only a move to make himself appear as the victim of a negligent and vindictive son, likely to rally sympathy from the mediator. At any rate, I was sure even before I spoke that he wouldn't actually take that offer, but I still needed to have something outwardly substantial to give to the mediator myself - feigned proof that we were at least willing to participate, if nothing else. Glancing at Christine, I silently acknowledged her unspoken understanding that my words were essentially meaningless, before continuing my so-called allowance to Nick, "We'll fly to Pittsburgh and go with you if you want to take Jo to Schenley Park, or one of the museums. But we're not having you throw off her life just to go back and forth to Pennsylvania whenever it suits you, and if you agree to the summer, you're not going to spend time alone with her."

His response was with a raised voice, "That's not what we asked for, Erik."

And the meeting went on in much the same fashion, until the mediator and the lawyers eventually determined that our time had come to a close - that it had run over, in fact - and that what we were battling went well beyond what was within the power of those leading this custody mediation to solve. The only positive aspect of that decision was that Josie would be spared of having to be involved in any further meetings, because they were now rendered useless and wouldn't be held again. But otherwise, putting a permanent halt to mediation meant that a full and legitimate custody hearing was the next step; and although this certainly wasn't new information, facing off with that reality was admittedly alarming. What was merely a hypothetical before this mediation-gone-wrong was now very much a guarantee waiting for us in the near-future, and the prospect of going to court, of fighting for our daughter before a judge and everything else that the hearing would entail, was as disheartening as it was intimidating. Christine and I were on edge about all of it when we got home, reeling from the meeting and already dreading what was still to come; Nick and his wife had gone directly from the meeting to the airport to return to Pittsburgh, but even being aware that their distance from us was growing by the minute had done little to mollify us after that decidedly heated discussion, nor had the repeated reassurances from our lawyer before we parted ways had the intended effect.

Rather, Christine and I drove back to the house in a tense silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts, and that silence was only broken a handful of hours later. It was well past sunset by then, and she had begun pacing the living room in the semidarkness - the space lit by a small standing lamp near the piano and nothing else - as she recounted the day halfway to herself, trying to make sense of it all while I sat at the instrument in a lackluster attempt to regain my composure. In the end, however, neither of us were successful in our efforts, and so we just went on with our shared distress with no end in sight. Josie was staying overnight with Nadir and Sahra, so we were at least free to speak openly about the day's events without upsetting her, but that hadn't eased our minds to any significant degree either. We were struggling with every factor at play; Christine was furious at Nick and his wife for what they were doing, and I certainly shared in that anger as I continued to work on the music with no real choice of a specific song in mind. Yet after hitting one sour chord after another, I began to consider whether or not I should bother continuing at all, but it was in that state of distraction that I'd apparently missed something that Christine had tried to ask me, because her voice brought me back to the present with more than a little annoyance lacing her words at my absentmindedness.

"Did you hear anything I said?" she asked with obviously fleeting patience.

And that was so out of character for her as a whole, so different from our interactions even weeks before tonight. Like any other couple, we'd engaged in our fair share of arguments over the time we'd been together - it's impossible to live with someone throughout the course of nearly a decade without stumbling upon conflicts - but we were consistently quick to apologize and to try to put everything into the proper perspective just the same. Yet the events taking place over the last several months with the custody case and the estate, paired with the dramatically shortened fuse that resulted from my relapse, hadn't done us any favors in terms of the communication and problem-solving necessary to our relationship, and I sensed then that we were on our way to another needless fight, one of far too many lately for either of our liking. I hadn't wanted or intended for any of it to put so much strain on our marriage, and I didn't want to consider the outcome if the pieces didn't start to fall into place sooner rather than later. As it stood, this night saw me feeling more temperamental toward my wife than was appropriate in our situation, but I wasn't thinking clearly to begin with, wasn't paying close enough attention to my words before they met the air, and Christine's ire was raised in turn. The anger we held was directed solely at Nick and his wife, but for the time being, it seemed that we had misplaced it on one another's shoulders, and this conversation was clearly reflecting that burden.

In answer to her question, I just shook my head, saying flatly, "Sorry, I didn't."

"You need to take this seriously - "

" - I am taking this seriously. I just don't know what else to say right now."

As I spoke, still seated at the piano, my dismissiveness was followed by another mistake on the keys. But instead of letting go of that mistake and attempting to continue where I'd left off, I abruptly gave up entirely and slammed the fallboard closed, doing so with enough force to be distantly concerned that I'd damaged something in the process. Yet even that unexpected outburst and Rex promptly appearing at my side, sensing my rising anxiety and ready to act on it, hadn't pulled me back into the moment long enough to mindfully do something about that anxiety first, before moving on to more important issues - regardless of the fact that my doing so would be necessary to actually talk to Christine about the custody case in any comprehensive manner. Even if we were unable to solve anything in that regard - which was more than likely then - I still needed to be present for her, needed to allay her fears as much as I was able. But I was actively failing her on both accounts; it was with a delay that I realized that the sound of the fallboard crashing down had startled her badly. But she recovered in the next beat, and in an instant she was approaching the piano, glancing at Rex and then back at me, and meeting her eyes, I knew that it registered to her that I was close to having a panic attack.

With deep concern painting her voice, she asked, "Are you alright?"

"Do I look alright?" I snapped, in spite of my better judgment; even though I'd purposely kept my tone low, I immediately regretted my words, because they were unnecessary, and they were cruel, and Christine hadn't deserved that.

She didn't deserve any of this.

And suddenly, something in me broke. The gravity of everything that we'd had to contend with for so long by then - that stark reality of our position combined with my grief and my lies and every night that I'd all but abandoned my family to get drunk, alone and pathetic - was so overwhelming that I had sincerely believed that I might truly suffocate then and there under its weight. Logically, a far-off part of me remembered that this very distinct sensation had everything to do with the panic attack that I had only just recognized as oncoming, but even so, I couldn't bring myself to take a breath and just connect that logic to these moments; it felt impossible, unthinkable, because they honestly seemed to stretch and warp all around me. Instead, I simply felt defeat, felt the absolute and undeniable urge to escape. I knew that Christine needed me then, that she needed me to comfort her and to talk her through her fears and to reassure her that everything would work out. She needed to hear from someone that she trusted that we would put Nick's attempts to do harm to our family behind us once and for all - I knew what I had to do for her, and I wanted to follow through with that knowledge and be a husband to my wife. But rather than adhere to my responsibilities, rather than do the right thing, I chose to run.

Standing up from the piano quickly, I moved past Christine with barely contained force as I spoke, "I'm leaving."

"What?" she cried, and I would have been either insane or heartless not to notice the hurt in her voice then, "Erik, what are you talking about? You can't just leave - "

" - It'll only be for a little while."

"Please don't. You're upset, too, I need to talk to you about this..." she murmured. She didn't know it then, but she was drawing dangerously close to uncovering everything that I wasn't ready or willing to talk about.

"I can't - "

" - Erik - "

" - I don't want to talk right now - "

" - Erik - "

"Goddamnit, just leave it alone!" I yelled, completely out of nowhere, as far as Christine knew, but I couldn't stop, "I said I don't want to talk to you, just fucking leave it alone!"

This was utterly, unquestionably inexcusable, all of it; even in my stress-addled mind, it didn't escape my notice that she had frozen where she stood, shock and more than a little fear plainly written in her features. But by that point, I only wanted out, and so I gathered my car keys and my phone, assuming that anything else I might need was already in the car, my sole objective then being to break away instantly. And if Christine had made any attempts to respond to me, or had continued to try to convince me to stay home, I hadn't heard her, hadn't caught a single word. In that frame of mind, I was entirely unreachable. Slamming the front door as I left her behind, I headed out to the driveway in a rush, every sensible instinct remaining within me absolutely screaming at me all the while to turn around, beg for forgiveness, and do everything in my power to take back what I'd just done.

As the night progressed, I sincerely wished that I hadn't ignored those instincts.

~~oOo~~

My hands were shaking - barely ceasing when I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white - as I drove out to Chicago, deciding early on to buy my liquor there and just stay put for a while. That was my habit, as wasn't probable that I would run into anyone I knew at the waterfront - everyone that might have seen me was either working or home where they belonged, as I should have been, but at any rate, that factor lessened my chances of being recognized, of being caught drunk and exceedingly upset and thus inviting questions that I didn't want to answer. During the trip, Christine had attempted to call several times, more than likely concerned for my safety in the wake of my unusual behavior at my departure, but I ignored every call that came through, sending her a brief message instead when I was able to stop to tell her that I was fine, that I'd be home soon enough and not to worry. But it wasn't until I was already out in the city, already drinking as I walked the path alongside the water, that I realized that the drive from Schaumburg, plus the time it would take to get drunk enough to find some semblance of calmness and sober up again, and then drive home combined would mean that I'd be gone all night. But by that point, I no longer had the energy to care. Christine was incredibly hurt when I'd left, justifiably so, but even the pain I'd inflicted wasn't enough to compel me to take back what I'd done, to turn around and make amends before it was too late.

Instead, I continued walking, and tried as I did so to remember anything besides what was going wrong, focusing almost desperately on what good I could still clutch at - until I found myself going past the point at the shoreline where I'd proposed, where Christine and I had spent so much time after dates in the beginning, time walking with Josie later on, before she could even talk yet and then long after she'd said her first words. There were so many memories there, and so many more that could have been. Gene had never come up to Chicago - his health had deteriorated too much by the time I'd relocated permanently - but moments like these, I couldn't help but wonder if he would've enjoyed Lake Michigan as well, if he might have told his stories to Josie surrounded by the iconic lake and the city skyline, rather than the garden walls of his assisted living facility. But the fact that I would never know was too painful to dwell on. So I just kept moving, forcing casualness into my gaite, into my entire demeanor, absently hoping that my drunken effort was actually translating into reality. I had no idea how I appeared to the rest of the world, nor did I have the presence of mind to make that determination beyond the very basic level of questioning that I'd just gone through with myself. If I was stumbling, no one seemed to notice; if I was acting strangely, or even overtly threatening, no one said a damn thing. I was grateful, if that in fact was the case. Just to be left the hell alone...it was an immense relief then.

And that would have remained true indefinitely, had my fate and the trajectory of my poor decisions not decided to act upon other plans. Because before I knew what was happening, someone had run into me, each of us throwing the other off course by our shoulders, and in a haze, I bit out a sarcastic response, realizing too late that the other party was probably as drunk as I was - and, apparently, that he had a temper to match my own. What began as yelling and exchanging insults quickly dissolved into a shoving match, unruliness and mounting aggression, before we finally stood off against one another swinging. I don't even remember that man's face, not really - but I do remember hitting him, and I remember the pain of him throwing a punch right back to me, and for as hard as the blow had landed, it was incredibly lucky that my jaw wasn't broken. But it was hurting, and for an insane moment I could only bring myself to think about how the hell I could possibly explain the injury - without revealing that I'd been drunk when it happened - when I got home. Yet even so, none of that made me stop and put an end to everything that was unfolding - months of pent up rage had exploded in as many minutes, and honestly, the poor bastard at the other side of my anger was simply a victim of circumstance. It wasn't him that I was lashing out against, it was Nick - it was Nicholas Riley and his lawyers and the mediator and everyone else that had contributed to everything that had gone wrong since the summer.

Police officers arrived fairly quickly after the argument had turned physical, but that in itself came as no shock. Patrols were always moving through the area, and in terms of crossing from one location to another on their beat, short of a major incident occurring elsewhere, they wouldn't have much to delay them once an emergency call was put through - though whether that call was made by the onlookers I'd noticed at the fringe of the fight, or one of the other people from the group accompanying the man that I was fighting with, I couldn't say. It didn't matter; the order of events and many of their details are a blur to me now. I was aware, though, of being detained, then of being ID'd and handcuffed and searched for weapons, before eventually having my possessions taken from my person, and all the while I was trying to explain my side or respond clearly to the questions being levelled at me by the officers, but I might as well have kept silent for all the help I was bringing to myself. Every other word I spoke was slurred, everything I tried to say was disjointed and rushed, and in the end, the only thing that was making any sense in my mind at all was the clipped explanation that I was being taken to the police station to be held, as was the other party in a separate unit, at the very least until I dried out - but that I needed to shut up and let them work, that I was already in enough trouble as it stood and that I needed to keep from making this situation worse on myself.

"So am I under arrest? Officially?" I asked from the back of the patrol car, hands uncomfortably cuffed behind my back; I still wasted, was well aware that I kept slurring my words, aware that I had already received that information by then, somewhere along the line, and I wouldn't have needed to repeat that question in the first place, had I been coherent enough to pay attention. And yet I continued on just the same, "Hey! Am I under arrest?"

"I've already told you what's going on," one of the officers responded from the front passenger seat, and as he spoke I dimly noted the station lights appearing just ahead, as if the trip had taken place in only a matter of seconds, "Just be quiet and relax."

An immeasurable amount of time later - because I was nowhere near sober enough to be rational by that point, and so really had no way of comprehending the passing minutes-turned-hours in any meaningful way - I was unceremoniously placed into a holding cell after going through the drawn out booking process. Upon arrival, I had been questioned further, and then photographed, and then fingerprinted, but that had been the end of everything that I'd had to participate in for the time being; and while ordinarily I would have had the chance to make my standard phone call and take the steps required to either post bail, if that necessity arose, or get my cite-and-release paperwork taken care of, that determination hadn't even been made, because I was still too drunk to do much more than sit in holding and wait it out. Otherwise, they couldn't legally have me do or sign anything. In an abstract sense, I recalled all of those arrest proceedings from my long-ago brush with the law in Tennessee, but that had been when I was a teenager, and hadn't been drinking during the incident with the car at that, and so for the moment the only thing that could be done for me was to keep me inside and away from others, to keep me from hurting myself or someone else once again.

"I need to call my wife," I spoke loudly from behind the pane of glass in the door that separated me from the rest of the area that I was told I would be staying in for the night.

"What you need is to stop talking and go to sleep," the deputy in charge of monitoring the drunk tank, as they'd labeled it, responded from the other side.

"I get one phone call."

That's not a guarantee, dipshit, I reminded myself heatedly, They already said that.

The deputy appeared directly at the window then, speaking impatiently through the thick glass, "I'm not going to tell you again. Go to sleep, and we'll get this sorted out in the morning."

Sighing, I finally accepted, albeit grudgingly, that I needed to just shut the hell up and do as I was told. Nothing was going to free me from the holding cell that night, certainly not in the state that I was in, and even though I was sure that Christine was probably at home in an absolute panic now - because on top of yelling at her and leaving her in so much distress to begin with, she also hadn't gotten a texted response from me since I'd arrived in Chicago, and had likely believed that I was lying dead in a ditch by then - I still had the common sense left somewhere within me to understand that it was in my best interest to settle down, to give in to my exhaustion for this overnight stay and try to figure out how to move forward from there.

Consumed by regret as I sat down heavily on the metal bench lining the cinder block wall, holding my head in my hands as my jaw throbbed painfully, I knew that I would have to face the consequences of my mistakes soon enough, and in ways that I hadn't even begun to imagine.