| |
That night, Elodie and Philippe knelt next to their bed together and prayed fervently for Meredith to come to her senses. The next morning, they packed Meredith’s suitcase while she was still sleeping it off. They called a friend from the Tough Love group, someone with years of experience supporting parents in decisions like this. They cried together.
Elodie made small waves of soapy water in the sink as they waited in the kitchen for Meredith to wake up.
When she came down at eleven, groaning and holding her head, they told her that she had to be out in one half hour. It seemed extra cruel to Philippe, to push her out when she was so hung over, but if he waited for that to end, she’d be drunk again, which was a worse state for her to be in to find a place to stay.
She made a call; a girlfriend said yes. Meredith deigned to kiss her mother goodbye at the door. Philippe muscled her suitcase into the trunk of his tiny, third-hand Peugeot, then looked back to see how Elodie was reacting. The doorway was open but empty.
He drove Meredith to her girlfriend’s in the laboring car. She was silent the entire way. Philippe guessed her head hurt too much to scream at him. But when her bag was on her friend’s top step, Meredith turned to him.
“You’re a shit, Dad.”
“It’s for your own sake,” he replied, the lump in his throat catching, and tears swimming in his eyes. How long was this girlfriend going to put up with Meredith? And then where would she go?
He was weary with grief by the time he parked again near his house in Malakoff.
Elodie had closed the door and was sitting in the living room, bleary-eyed.
“‘ow did it go?” she asked.
“As well as can be expected. She called me a shit. Maybe I am.”
“Well, I was ‘oping we could try—“
“Elodie, don’t second guess! This is it. She either straightens out or she lives in the gutter.”
Philippe thought, you’re a pastor, why can’t you think of a single comforting thing to say to this grieving person?
Because no such thing exists.
“Well, I’m so tired, I have to rest a little.” He creaked his bones up the stairs to the second floor, but instead of going to his own bedroom, he lumbered into Meredith’s.
He and Elodie had left it neat after packing for her, but she had torn through drawers looking for more stuff and had left the room a turbulent mess of socks, tights, T-shirts, thongs, and other things that made Philippe sick to see.
He left it all where it was. He sat on her bed and looked around. A short red candle in a wine bottle caught his eye. Meredith had placed it on her dresser even though, because she was so unsteady so often, they’d told her not to burn candles in the house. It had dripped so much, only a tiny nub was left. The once-tall candle had been converted by flame into drops of red wax congealed along the side of the bottle. It looked like his heart felt—like the fires of adversity had made the blood drip out and harden, and there was nothing left to burn.
