The Achilles Heel (9 page)

“Only because you’re in a bad way. It might make you feel better to know there are
worse situations you could be in, even though it doesn’t feel like that right now,”
she said.

Leslie stayed for a few hours and made me eat some lasagna in front of her; she knew
she had done what she could to help me as far as today was concerned. Actually, I
felt better after she left, but there were so many ends to tie up-so overwhelming
to think about any of them.

ANNIE

J
une and July crept by like two long years were crammed into those sixty-one days.
The kids and I started having date night again, but I found myself watching the clock
and counting down the hours until my first drink. Even with my distractions, we did
begin to have our own kind of fun, although the three of us together certainly didn’t
feel like the old days. I tried to keep up with Liz, and we randomly had lunch together,
but the elephant in our room was two ton. Our visits were awkward, and the small talk
began to dwindle, as did our time together. She made it very clear never to mention
Jamie unless it was going to be in casual conversation; everything else was none of
my business. I respected her boundaries, choosing not to spend time with him if possible.
Besides, the further away from him I got, the clearer he became and something in him
had shifted. In passing, he looked like he had his shit together-nice car, big house,
custom suits and a beautiful family. Although, it seemed like every time I saw him,
he was off another inch; his ship was sinking, but I didn’t know why, and I was too
busy ruining my own life to find out.

After I received the inheritance, my days became more and more a waste of time. I
let the inside of my house overtake me, and Jack’s belongings were still untouched.
I was the perfect candidate for an episode of Country Club Hoarders. I drank every
evening and into the night; blaming God for not caring enough about me. People were
kept at a distance, but I pulled together a mental front to fool the circle of friends
around me. Looking back, I was the fool; the cliché Monet-lovely from afar, a straight
fucking mess up close.

Experts in mental health fields allege a person needs to hit rock bottom before they
regain the stability to begin the tedious climb back to normalcy. A trip I took to
the grocery store one afternoon qualified my bedrock status. The exuberant amount
of effort it took to free a shopping cart from the plethora of chain-ganged buggies
immensely pissed me off, and set the tone for my thirty minute downward spiral.

A blast of frigid air belted my face as the automatic double doors opened to the land
of the living. To me, a scary place where fluorescent lights illuminate excessively
loud conversations amongst nicely dressed and happily naive people. There was an immediate
and obvious separation from myself and these “high on life” dopes. If donning tragic,
gray sweats coupled with long, unwashed hair wrenched in a knot on top of my head
while wearing sunglasses inside the store did not solidify this obvious separation,
I’ll add this fun fact; I was drunk. It took every ounce of brawn or stupidity, (it’s
a toss-up) to walk inside.

I stood lost in thought among the pitiful cardboard-boxed dinners kept in the frozen
foods section, my shopping cart wedged in between the door holding it open. An attractive
woman, probably in her sixties, dressed in a lovely silk pantsuit with her face and
hair completely made up, turned the corner into my aisle. She slowly pushed her cart
towards me with a
tisk, tisk
‌—‌such a shame expression on her face, and the judgmental little nod of her head
expressed exactly what she was thinking.

I ignored her as best as I could and jammed my arm as far back into the freezer as
possible, dumping all of the Lean Cuisine boxes into my cart with one fell swoop.
Cooking for one at my house consisted of a hundred dollars in microwaveable food.
The brand wasn’t much of a concern either, because at this point, food had no taste,
and life had no joy. After I carefully replaced the vodka bottles on top, I moved
on to the toothpaste aisle, because God forbid I should neglect my gums.
Christ,
there she was again!

For a moment, I felt embarrassed and small. The realities of letting yourself go don’t
happen overnight. You have to work at the negations between your head and heart, but
blaming others for your own misfortune is a sure fire way to seal the deal.

Who the hell is she to make me feel bad? She doesn’t know me or my troubles. Fuck
her for judging me.

I worked myself into a rage over the pretend conversation I was having with this woman,
all-the-while, actually staring at the excess of toothpaste brands. She would say
that I was disgracing my family, I would tell her to mind her own business, and then
really rip her a new one. In reality, I just wanted someone to feel as bad as I felt.
I wanted revenge on someone whether they deserved it or not and this time, I just
couldn’t help myself. I mocked her snotty attitude, and as I rolled up on her, noticed
a box of Massengill sitting on top of her groceries as she compared hemorrhoid creams.

I slowly walked by, pulled my shades down to my nose, and casually said, “I guess
my cart isn’t looking so bad after all. Good luck with the rotten crotch, Grandma;
I hear it’s a real bitch to cure.”

Her hand covered her mouth, but I still heard the gasp of disbelief she let out, and
unfortunately, it made me smile. This woman would probably have never given me another
thought after she left the grocery store that day. I’m pretty sure she’s going to
remember me now.

Sadly, this was the most fun I’d had in weeks.

ANNIE

A
lot of my time was spent avoiding phone calls or lunch dates. Summer had faded, fall
had arrived, and I’d successfully built up enough walls to keep people out and my
phone from ringing. I used to love having watch parties on football Sunday and would
decorate the house for any occasion, but this year was different; I just wasn’t ready
to associate myself with anything fun.

Liz called me in mid-September and asked to borrow some decorations for the upcoming
holidays. I was more than happy to loan them out, and knew Max and Mia would have
a great time decorating their house this year. I needed some time to root around the
crawl space in the basement, find all the boxes and get them organized for her, so
I went downstairs to rummage through the holiday decorations. Thank God I’d been so
anal about putting them away the year before; I knew that would pay off at some point.
Dragging the boxes out one by one and stacking them together by label and color in
a line on the basement floor was more work than I expected. As I stepped back to survey
the most physical labor I’d done in months, I noticed all the boxes weren’t there.

I’m missing one. Where’s the Halloween box?

I squeezed myself back into the rectangular opening, and let me just say, this is
not a place you’d like to spend time. The pea gravel floor is covered with a tarp,
in an attempt to minimize the mouse droppings every foot or so. The thick and dingy
air is a scene straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, but I was doing it for the
kids and since I hadn’t been very charitable lately, it was worth it. The box was
lodged in a far corner, not with the other decorations or even where I remembered
storing it. I heaved and pulled on this damn box, but it wouldn’t budge. The corner
clung to a mass barely sticking out of the gravel. I tried to move the bouldering
stump, but it was lodged too deep into the ground. The terrible lighting offered no
assistance, so I ran upstairs and came back down armed with a light in each hand,
a headlamp, and my gardening spade. Honestly, this project released the first stirrings
of my former self since Jack died‌—‌
Jack’s dead, Jack’s dead
. Tracing the shape of this rock with my spade‌—‌trying to free this Halloween decoration
box‌—‌was the first attempt at completing a task from the beginning, through the middle,
and all the way to the end. It wasn’t the cure for cancer, but it was something positive,
and to me, it was a tiny victory‌—‌but the more I chipped away at this rock, the more
I realized it wasn’t a rock.

What the hell is this thing? It’s metal.
I banged the gardening tool on the unidentified object.
Wait, it’s got a latch.

I bore at this metal doohickey trying to free it from the ground; oblivious as to
what time it was or how long this chore was taking, but managing to continuously fling
bedrock into my face. After jimmying what looked to be an old tackle box back and
forth long enough, with one last hard pull, the box launched out of the hole and sent
me rolling in mouse shit. Being that my house was built in 1942, I was excited about
the prospects of what could be hiding in this little box. Forgetting the decorations
altogether, I took the case out of the crawlspace and into the light of the basement,
when I caught a glimpse of myself in the floor-to-ceiling hallway mirror. A dirty
and shit covered grayish transient stood in my reflection and instead of being shocked,
I found it hilarious. In fact, I laughed my ass off. It was appropriate to be rescuing
a Halloween box, because at that moment, I was decorated in my best horror costume
ready to scare the pants off some little kids.

I wiped the dirt off the top of the lockbox, but unfortunately, a key was needed to
open the latch. I took it upstairs and tried to pry it open with every household item
remotely useful, but no luck. Exhaustion began to settle in from my homespun archeological
dig. I was filthy, and a shower was mandatory, so I left the mystery box on the counter
to look at with fresh eyes the next day.

***

At 6:30 the next morning, suddenly and unannounced, my upper body shot up and out
from underneath the covers as if a running hairdryer had fallen into a bathtub with
me. Clapping my hands together, I shouted, “The key!”

I whipped the covers off my legs and started pacing the bedroom floor, poking my head
with my index finger trying to clear the mental fog.
Think, think! Where did I put it?

My nightgown was soaking in sweat, and my hands shook as I wrung them together. This
coping mechanism was something I had done since high school. The constant interaction
between my hands created a diversion for my thoughts and a portal to channel my hyperactive
energy. I was so amped up trying to think straight, I couldn’t think straight.

I must have been dreaming of Jack again. When he first died‌—‌
Jack’s dead, Jack’s dead‌—‌
I couldn’t wait to fall asleep; a place free from reality where life made sense and
we were together again. When falling asleep at night, I forced myself to picture his
face while laying in the dark, but lately his presence had become an unwelcome feeling,
especially when I woke up alone in-between the sheets of an empty bed. Anxiety consumed
the mornings following a dream about him, and it usually took a few hours‌—‌and some
denial‌—‌to shake it off.

I sat down on the foot of my bed, took in a long deep breath, and folded my hands
in my lap. I embarked on a serious conversation with myself to tap into the intellectual
part of my brain which had shut down four months earlier.

Okay, Annie, what did you do with the key Robert Graville gave you?
The investigator side of me asked.

I don’t know, maybe I put it in my purse?
The victim in me quickly replied.

No, no. You would have come across it if it was in your purse. Think back to when
you came home from the reading of the Will.
Investigator Annie pushed.

Yes, I drove Jamie’s car home and came in through the garage.
Annie the victim was now physically retracing the steps, starting at the garage.

I was furious with Jamie and wanted to have another drink, but my skirt was uncomfortable
and my heels were pinching my feet. Yes, my skirt!

It was coming back to me as I sprinted across the house, barging into my closet, pushing
pants and shirts aside, looking for that black skirt. My hands were trembling so hard,
I could barely get the skirt off the hanger when it was finally found. I jammed my
hands into the pockets and screamed, “Yes!” as I pumped my fist across my chest, giving
my best Tiger Woods impression after making a tough shot.

I ran back across the house to the kitchen and found the metal box exactly where I
had left it the night before. Carefully removing the key from the manila envelope
and softly slipping it into the lock, I whispered, “Come on, God, please, help me.”

The vacuity of space and oxygen around me suddenly dwindled, and the notion of time
collectively stopped as I gently turned the key and heard a brash metal “ping” sound
as the lock came apart and the box cracked open.

“Holy shit, it worked!” I yelled in disbelief.

When that lock snapped open, the investigator and the victim merged together, and
it was finally a break-through, instead of another break-down. After being stuck on
the road of life, senility on the left and serenity to the right, I finally made the
choice to hang a right and was rewarded with a sensation of the old me again. My twenty-year
old self would have patted me on the back.

Holding my breath, I eased the lid back and looked inside. Two small, black checkbooks
and one of those mini American flags with yellow fringe around the edges were the
only items showing. However, when accidentally knocking the box off the counter, the
false bottom popped out, revealing more.

The corner of a Ziploc bag peered out from underneath the broken box. When I opened
the bag, there were six pictures inside; one of a long pier, and the rest were underwater
pictures, five of them, taken from different angles of what looked like the same flag
I found in the box. The tattered flag was on the ocean floor, plunged into the sand
and sitting against the concrete support columns that keep the pier from caving in.
The pictures showed two long rows of columns running the length of the pier; it looked
as though the flag was sitting in front of the very first one, on the right side.