How exactly had I gone overboard? I twined my leg around the chair. "I just wanted to help. Aren't you worried about Ca.s.sandra?"

Lulu slammed her spoon into the bowl. "What exactly did you not understand about let it go?"

"How am I supposed to let go of the things you said? Get your own life, Merry; get your own husband, Merry; get your own children, Merry. Is that what you really want?" Ancient cigarette cravings overwhelmed me. I grabbed the family-size Cheerios box and began stuffing my mouth with handfuls of dry cereal.

Lulu closed her eyes. "This is why I didn't want to start."

I finished chewing a mound of mush and asked, "Don't you think I'd like to have a Drew of my own?"

"You've certainly auditioned enough candidates."

Lulu smiled, and I decided she was trying to be funny, not mean, at least not deliberately. "I haven't exactly had a terrific pot from which to draw," I said.

"Bars aren't the best places for finding husbands."

"You were drunk when you met Drew," I pointed out, reaching in for another handful of cereal.

"But we weren't at a bar. And he wasn't drunk." Saint Lulu rinsed her bowl before putting it in the dishwasher. "What about Michael? Didn't he like you?"

"I blew that one." I hadn't told her what a b.i.t.c.h I'd been to Michael during our weekend in New York. He must have had some self-respect, because he never called again.

"Maybe you should call him. Apologize for whatever you did."

"It's too complicated." What possible reason could I give him for my Jekyll-Hyde routine? Besides, Michael was too nice for me.

Lulu sprayed organic cleanser over the countertop. She hated dirt in the house. She hated having chemicals near the children. She'd wrap her girls in plastic if she could. No, she'd have Drew do the wrapping. Lulu worried me. Not being able to control everything around the kids' environment could drive her crazy someday.

"You have to let the Dad thing go." Lulu had her back to me when she said this. Then she wiped her hands on a blue checked towel and turned around. "He's going to tear us apart. And I don't want to hear it from Drew either, so do me a favor and stop talking to him about it."

"Do you think I should call Michael?" I asked Valerie at lunch. She and I rotated our lunches out between the least horrible courthouse-accessible restaurants. Today was Dumpy's Sandwich Shoppe. A slight sheen of grease coated the plastic tables; nevertheless, the place represented the best of bad choices.

"Do you want to call him?" she asked, picking at the crust on her uneaten roll. Valerie was in overdrive. I'd have bet anything a diet pill rattled around her empty stomach. She'd blown her hair straight despite the October rain ready to frizz it back up again. Yesterday she'd worn a pilled sweater and crumpled khakis; today she'd ironed knife-sharp pleats into her skirt.

"Who are you, my shrink?"

"Do you need a shrink?"

"Very funny." I picked up my egg salad sandwich and took a huge bite. Overmayonnaised egg spilled on my chin.

I wiped my mouth with a scratchy brown napkin and watched Valerie make little fork roads though her bright orange macaroni and cheese.

"Do you like him? Want him?" Valerie asked.

I held my palms up, indicating my total lack of opinion.

"How can you not know what you want?"

"I think I usually want whoever wants me."

"Jesus, how pitiful. No wonder you work with losers."

"You work with the same losers."

"Uh-uh." She shook her hair, obviously enjoying feeling it fly around. "Only juveniles for me. They still have a chance."

"Right. You're the G.o.dd.a.m.ned Mother Teresa of the courthouse, and I'm neurotic. So, do you think I should call him?"

"I think you should call him."

Before I could ask why, my client Jesse walked in. I'd be seeing him after lunch, but now he only raised two fingers in greeting, cool, barely acknowledging me.

"Who's that?" Valerie asked.

"Jesse. The one who got his GED. Now he's enrolled in Bunker Hill Community College." I lifted my chin as a h.e.l.lo to Jesse. "So I guess it's not only the juveniles who can change."

"We'll see." She crumpled her napkin and threw it on her plate, despite having taken perhaps two bites. I shoved the last of my rapidly eaten sandwich in my mouth.

"Call Michael," Valerie ordered as we left Dumpy's.

Jesse was waiting for me when we got back to the courthouse, following me from the lobby to my office, shuffling his sneakers as a coming attraction to his nasty scowl.

"Listen, Ms. Zachariah, I have other things on my mind than studying s.h.i.t like the history of Ronald Reagan." Jesse caught my glare from where he slumped in the chair. "Stuff, I mean."

We weren't having our best meeting. He was irritable and in a make-fun-of-the-white-lady mood. Reading him was easy, but out of kindness, I let him think he was getting something over on me.

"Jesse, the thing about school is you don't get to pick and choose what you study. College is not a Chinese restaurant."

"Bunker Hill is a place for r.e.t.a.r.ds to go to college."

"That can't be true because you're enrolled, and you're pretty darn smart when you're not being an idiot."

"Says you." Jesse scowled at his feet. His sneakers gleamed white. I didn't want to think where he had gotten the money to buy them.

"Says me, and I'm your PO. It's not like I'm your mother."

Jesse sank down farther and gave a mean little chuckle. "I guess not, since you ain't drunk or offering to blow every guy who walks by."

"Sit up straight," I said, sick of his self-pity. "Grow up. No one's going to give you a break because your mother drinks or your father's dead. Just because someone hands you a ration of garbage doesn't mean you have to keep hold. You have to be the one to let go, Jesse. No one else will do it for you."

I'm not sure if my little tough-luck speech did any good; Jesse shuffled out as nasty-faced as he'd walked in.

Beer, wine, bourbon; thoughts of alcohol suffused me as I rode the train home. I got off the Green Line at Boston University, then trudged across the bridge connecting Boston to Cambridge. The coat I'd needed that morning now just served to hold my sweat-dampened blouse closer to my body.

I went to the nearby Whole Foods and grabbed a chicken salad sandwich, thick with mayo, a near-copy of my lunch. Anything healthier meant going to the counter, and talking to anyone was more effort than I could afford. I chose the cheapest bottle of wine Whole Foods carried and checked out.

Drew's and the girls' shrieks traveled around the corner as I reached my front door, their shouts indicating the fun, games, and all that other wonderful family s.h.i.t they had next door. I quietly searched the pit of my overstuffed purse for my keys, not interested in saying h.e.l.lo.

After throwing the sandwich in the refrigerator, I uncorked the wine and poured myself a generous gla.s.s. I looked in the mirror and toasted my supper companion.

"Happy loser day." I leaned in closer to see how much I'd aged since the morning. Dry skin flakes collected in the edges of my nose. Mean little lines grew before my eyes until my face resembled crazed porcelain. My humid-wild curls appeared too young and long for my old, wrinkled face. I made nasty eyes at the crumpled-wrinkled-dry-faced loser in the mirror. I didn't even own a fricking car.

No wonder Michael had rejected me.

I hadn't found the guts to call him. Instead, I'd sent an e-mail, which I'd written and rewritten until I captured what I'd hoped was a breezy, off-the-cuff tone.

Michael, (No "Dear." The salutation seemed too formal, too desperate.) Too late to apologize for being an absolute horror in NYC? Can I offer an act of contrition dinner? I'll cook and provide the wine, with or without legs. All best, Merry Michael had responded twenty minutes later: Dear Merry, Thanks for your kind invitation, but best we leave things where they are. You're lovely, but at this point in my life, I don't want emotional swings, nor can I build up the interpretation skills a relationship with you seems to require. Warm regards, Michael Warm regards, indeed. Desperately seeking comfort, however cold, I pa.r.s.ed "lovely." Beautiful or sweet? I supposed he meant beautiful, if not beautiful enough to override an "emotional swing." Sweet, I hadn't been.

Screw him.

I poured a third wine and picked at my sandwich, putting it down between bites to grab the remote. I drained my gla.s.s and got the phone. I knew what I needed.

The last time I'd slept with Quinn had been many months ago, when we'd gone to a motel so far up the coast we could have walked to Canada if we so desired. He'd made the trip sound romantic, but when we arrived, I saw the only atmosphere offered was anonymity. We stayed two nights, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g repeatedly in the frantic way we pretended meant pa.s.sion.

Now here he was, back in my bed. I supposed I should feel proud of myself; I had my married man thing down to maybe three times a year.

Quinn climbed on top of me, pulling down the straps of my black camisole. My b.r.e.a.s.t.s touched his chest as he banged into me. I wound my legs around him, barely feeling him through my wine-induced numbness. He ground down to a finish, coming in a hot pulse. Air washed against my cheek as he let loose with an almost inaudible groan. Emotional cripples. Both of us.

"Need anything?" he asked a few moments later, burying the words in my neck.

He meant had I come. "I'm fine."

Quinn took me at face value. He'd never worry about my so-called emotional swings. He lifted himself on his arms and fell off me so he could stare at the ceiling. He placed an arm over his eyes in his after-s.e.x-ostrich manner. If he couldn't see me, he hadn't wronged his wife. Quinn's modus operandi.

"Not bad for an old man, eh?" he asked.

"If you need compliments afterward, perhaps you should work harder." I leaned over him and took my gla.s.s from the night table.

"If you want o.r.g.a.s.ms, perhaps you shouldn't drink so much."

I drank the few remaining sips of wine. "That never used to be a barrier. Perhaps you're getting too old."

"Perhaps you are. Turn to me, let me see." He pulled me over on my side. Quinn still had his football strength. He ran a rough thumb in the hollows under my eyes. "Is this thinning skin? Are these lines?"

I pushed him away. "Is this softening?" I poked at his stomach. "Can you feel the approach of v.i.a.g.r.a in your future?"

"And Botox in yours?" He leaned back and put his arm out for me, waiting for me to conform to his body. "Am I the only one who knows the b.i.t.c.h you really are under those Kewpie doll looks?"

"Kewpie doll? Old man, old man," not wanting him to see how his words hurt.

"Face it, Merry. They say when you get older you have the face you deserve. Maybe that's not true. Look at us, still beautiful, still handsome. Maybe in the end, you have the person you deserve."

26.

Merry A week later, certain I'd let Quinn into my bed for the last time, I cleansed my apartment of even the slight traces he'd left in my life. The few photos of us, I shredded. The cheap locket he'd given me, I tossed. The gla.s.s vase in which I'd placed the flowers he'd brought, I recycled to Goodwill.

I gave up men. Married men, fat men, thin men, men of muscle, men of steel, sensitive, smart, fools, and fops; I'd finished with them all. I furthered my purification journey by cutting out alcohol and M&M's. I joined a women-only gym, ready to become physically strong and emotionally sound. I left for work looking forward to saving souls and returned high on the wise advice I'd dispensed all day.

Before heading upstairs, I checked my mail. A letter marked with the familiar words "Richmond County Prison" glowed toxic from among my cable and Visa bills. I allowed my automatic response, pouring a Jack Daniel's, to wash through me without acting on it and marched up to my refrigerator for a V8, reminding myself how much better my skin seemed since I'd replaced alcohol with vegetable juice. I considered smearing the blood-red liquid on my skin until I'd look twenty.

I crouched in front of the fridge, holding off on the letter until I had some food as a shield. On the bottom shelf, I found a bowl of tomatoes shrinking in a pool of oil, vinegar, and wilted cilantro leaves. After sniffing the sad mixture, I took a forkful, hoping vinegar acted as a natural enemy of food-borne bacteria.

Then I opened my father's letter.

Dear Merry, Too busy to visit your old man these days? Got a new boyfriend? Not only have I not seen you since you visited in October, I've only gotten that one card from you. Not even a letter, just a store-bought card. I haven't seen a picture of the girls in ages, and at their age, they grow like weeds.

My father, the expert on the stages of childhood.

Well, never mind. Here's some good news. It won't be long before I can see those girls in person. Guess what? I'm getting out in March!!!!

I know you thought it would never happen, but my years of good behavior are finally paying off. The prisons are getting too crowded, so they're moving out the old guys like me (ha ha!) to make more room for g.a.n.g.b.a.n.gers and drug dealers. This place is crawling with sc.u.m. These young kids have no respect. Well, too bad for them. Their loss, my gain, right?

I gulped another gla.s.s of V8.

So, even though my sentence isn't up for eight years, I'm getting out. I need you to come up right away. I've called you plenty of times (even though I have to wait in a line of idiots for an hour to make the calls), but you're never home and I didn't want to leave this news on your answering machine.

We need to make plans, Tootsie. I don't even know how big your apartment is. And I got to make things right with Lulu. You have to make her come up here. You come here this weekend so we can start talking about all this. Also, find out about optician places in Boston, because I need to have them transfer my parole to Ma.s.sachusetts (you can help, right?) and I need a list of where I can look for a job. Plus other stuff.

With your connections, this should go easy.

Fear overtook my body one inch at a time, moving like Novocain through my veins, paralyzing me in some merciful way.

I had no one to call and no one to tell. Lulu would need managing, and Drew, the only other person in the entire world I could tell-his loyalty had to be to Lulu. Drew would be my partner in taking care of Lulu; he couldn't help me.

I raked my finger up and down my chest. I stumbled into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, looking for rescue. Finally, behind the aspirin and Pepto-Bismol, I found half a bottle of Vicodin left from a root ca.n.a.l the previous year. I carried the bottle into the kitchen and swallowed two tablets with V8.

What in the name of G.o.d could I do?

I went to my bedroom and fell on my neatly quilted bed. I lay facedown and thought of my mother. Spectral pictures wrapped my memories. Each year, Mama's image morphed into the Virgin Mary a little more, until now my recollections of her resembled the Holy Mother oil paintings lining Duffy's hall.

Memories of my childhood rushed past the Vicodin and V8. I imagined the white pills eroding in my stomach as they soaked in the red liquid. I prayed for the drugs to decompose and numb me fast.

Mama had screamed and screamed while I'd lain frozen on her bed. I'd ripped pieces of my mother's chenille bedspread as my father tore my skin. Wetness followed searing pain. Daddy tried to hold me with his blood-soaked hands. Then darkness came and I had no other memories until Lulu came to the huge hospital where I'd lain alone forever, and gave me a tiny doll.

Lulu.

How could I tell her?

I took her to eat at Delfino restaurant on Friday, just the two of us having a sisters' night out.

Lulu tipped her head toward my winegla.s.s. "What happened to purification?"