Body and Bone Read Free Page B

doctor there explained that John was bipolar, a fact that John had never mentioned to me. The doctor said the stress of getting married might have triggered a manic episode, making him delusional. And then he’d gone looking for crack to take the high even higher.
    After his stay in the hospital, John was medicated and contrite, and things settled down. John swore he was done with drugs—­the illegal kind—­for life. But then I got pregnant with Daltrey and we moved to Manhattan, Kansas, so John could take a job at the airport.
    Then just days before my due date, John disappeared again. He was gone for nine days, only reappearing after he got out of jail for a DUI, when Daltrey was two days old. John had gone off his meds, he said, because he felt too flattened out to want to go on living.
    After that episode, I felt differently about John, but I had no intention of leaving him because I knew what it was like to grow up without a dad, and it would probably be even tougher on a boy. So no matter what happened, I was determined to stick with it.
    â€œYou can’t only think about yourself anymore,” I told John. “You have a wife and child now. I’m sorry that the meds make you feel tired. But I can’t have you disappearing.”
    He took his meds faithfully for three years, and I confess I was lulled into a false sense of security. Now I know better, and I can’t believe I let myself become so complacent. I guess I thought in a little town like this, drugs would be harder to find. But that’s stupid—­it’s a university town, so of course there are drugs.
    The truth is, I thought having Daltrey and me would be enough to make him want to stay sober, but I’m pretty sure Marlon is right—­John couldn’t handle my success. Not that I actually blame my professional accomplishments for his relapse. If the radio gig and the blog had never happened, he still would have found an excuse to use.
    Would I do it all again? Yes, I would, because I got Daltrey. I just wish John could remember what the Big Book says: “Time wasted in getting even can never be used in getting ahead.”

 
    Chapter Four
    Wednesday, June 1
    N ESSA WOKE TO the sounds of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony out back. She got dressed, then went downstairs, poured herself a cup of coffee, and looked out the window above the sink. Daltrey stood on a pallet in the backyard conducting an invisible orchestra using a wooden spoon as a baton, all dressed and shiny clean. Nessa walked out the back door and found Isabeau Revie, her freshly hired nanny, playing air violin on the grass in the morning light, heedless of the heavy dew soaking her jean shorts. She wore a Firefly tank top, her long blond hair in a careless ponytail.
    Daltrey ran to Nessa and hugged her knees before returning to his conducting post, waving the spoon in the air, a look of concentration and seriousness on his face.
    â€œYou need to get him a cardigan and a pipe and a subscription to The Economist ,” Isabeau shouted over the music, which came from portable speakers connected to her phone.
    A burst of pure laughter overcame Nessa, the first natural one she’d experienced since John’s departure. Isabeau sat there grinning, looking pleased and surprised, and Nessa realized Isabeau probably thought she was a grim, humorless harridan.
    â€œMaybe a little paste-­on beard until he can grow one himself,” Isabeau added. “Which should be any day now.”
    Nessa laughed more, and Daltrey smiled. She knew he hadn’t heard her laugh much lately either. She needed to make more of an effort to lighten up for his sake.
    â€œWe already had breakfast,” Isabeau said. Always smiling and enthusiastic, Isabeau was an engineering grad student from New Mexico who was four years younger than twenty-­five-­year-­old Nessa and six inches taller.
    She hadn’t been what Nessa thought she was