Hidden in the back of the room, Annie felt comforted by the familiar give and take of sharing, acknowledgment, readings, confessions, and reassurance. The accents were different, but the stories were the same. Even the basement, with its smells of stale coffee and nicotine, wet wool and cologne, could have been copied and pasted from one of a half dozen church and community center meeting rooms she’d sat in since January. She was safe here. If this meeting was at the end of each day, she could get through whatever the hours before it held. She might even start to invest in the task before her. Might care what would happen if she succeeded in selling the mine to Ballycaróg. Or if she didn’t.
But then the sight of a head of reddish-brown hair and solid shoulders jolted her, and she shrank back in her chair. She was certain he hadn’t seen her. Fairly certain. But beyond shocking her into embarrassment, Daniel’s presence filled Annie with sadness. She had to sit for a few minutes to pick apart why. He’d seemed so solid, connected, and certain up on the mountain, and his anger at James, at the mine (at me?) righteous. Yet here he was. As fallible and flawed as she. She’d wanted him to be as magical and mysterious as this place, and now, suddenly, in this church basement that was like any church basement, he had a past like any alcoholic’s, full of mistakes and regrets. When attention was turned to a speaker at the front of the room, she slid out of her seat, tiptoed to the door, and slipped out.
Dusk was just easing down as she sat in the car with her phone to her ear, listening to it ring in late-morning Seattle.
“Annie! How’s the Emerald Isle? The old country.” Bill affected a lousy Irish accent, and his familiar, gravelly voice suffused Annie with warm relief.
“Hey there, Bill. Is this a good time?”
“It’s always a good time, kiddo. How about you? Are you having a good time?”
“A laugh a minute.”
“Better than crying, right? But you didn’t call me just to tell me about the weather, or how green it is, did you? What’s up? Are you in a safe place?”
“In a church parking lot. I’m good. Just a little lonely.” She squeezed shut her eyes. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. “A lot lonely.”
“Tell me.”
And so she did. She told Bill about feeling that a shadow of herself had come to Ireland, while the rest of her sat at the bottom of a bottle somewhere. Of her uncertainty about this project, now that she was here, seeing this place and the beauty that would be so compromised if she succeeded, and still she was terrified to lose the last piece of her shredded identity—her job—if she didn’t. Yet what a relief it would be to start over. She told him how good it had felt to laugh in Daniel’s car and how feeling good left her vulnerable. She tried to tell him what she’d felt as she stood on top of that hill overlooking Ballycaróg Bay a few hours before.
“It was so profound. I wanted to cry and shout with joy all at the same time. That much beauty just shatters my soul. I can’t comprehend how something so perfect could exist in a world with so much pain.” Her voice caught, and she swallowed back a sob. “I don’t want to be an alcoholic. I don’t want to be around other alcoholics. I want to know normal people. People who aren’t in pain.”
“Ain’t nobody I know who isn’t in pain. Non-addicts all around us, and they’re in a different world of hurt. Most of them don’t even know why. You and me, we know why. We think we know how to make it stop. A drink. Maybe a couple. It would feel so good, smooth everything out so you just can’t feel, right?”
Annie’s throat clenched with tears, but her silly gesture—nodding as though Bill could see her—made her smile. “Right,” she whispered.
“But you know that’s the road to hell. We’re the lucky ones, Annie. We’re the ones who know just what to do to keep the worst pain at bay. We don’t drink. Ever. You know what you felt today?”
She shook her head, her shoulders starting to hitch. “No.”
“You felt the exquisite pain of being alive. There you were, full of endorphins from physical exercise—that shit makes you feel great, I know, even though it would kill my fat ass—but you’re still jet-lagged, running on borrowed energy, maybe feeling vulnerable around the one guy you have to impress, the other you’re attracted to.”
Annie snorted and blew her nose into a tissue she’d scrounged from her purse, the phone clenched between her shoulder and her ear.
“Oh, yeah, I noticed the way you described your guide. Your neighbor.” She pictured Bill making air quotes. “I’m jealous already. Of him, let’s make that clear.”
She laughed aloud, but her stomach rippled. Attracted to Daniel? Her gaze was drawn to the church entrance. Why hadn’t she simply driven away?
“And then you see this vision that must look like heaven,” Bill was saying.
“I wanted to slip inside it,” she said, her voice raspy with tears. “I thought if I could stay on that hilltop forever, I’d be healed. I’d find out who I am and what I should be doing with my life.”
“Ain’t no leaving yourself behind, Annie. There’s only facing who you are. But where you are doesn’t sound like such a bad place to be at all. Who says you have to come home?”
“Ha. Wouldn’t that be nice? Just run away. Doesn’t seem like very sound advice coming from the guy who’s supposed to keep me grounded.”
“Me? Nope. That ain’t my job. I don’t do the groundwork. You do. You had a moment of feeling alive, a moment you probably felt just like the old Annie, the pre-drunk Annie—strong, hopeful, powerful—and it scared the shit out of you. But I will give you one piece of advice.”
“What’s that?” She pulled at a loose thread on the seam of her jeans.
“Go hike that mountain again.”