Digging Out by Katherine Leiner Read Free Book Online

It is second nature to me. And I wait for the cooking to soothe me.
    Mostly I think I am managing rather well. There are a few tricks that help—like setting the alarm but waking before it. A small thing, but it makes me feel I am in control. While brushing my teeth I tell myself to be glad I am alive. After some yoga, I pull myself together for Hannah and Dafydd. Getting Hannah off to school can be difficult. She’s afraid things will continue to fall apart in her absence: Dafydd will disappear; I will die.
    One morning the alarm beats me. Somehow it has landed across the room and under a cushion and has been ringing for over two hours. Dafydd is calling to come help him run a bath. I blur awake. The yellow numbers on the clock read eleven thirty a.m.
    “Momma!” Dafydd calls again. It is impossible to pull myself up. I am waiting for someone to help me. I will never be strong enough to pull myself out of bed.
    I lie in bed the next day, and the next, and then for the next two weeks. Hannah gets herself up in the mornings. Dafydd, struggling on his crutches, walks her to the bus stop. Later, he finds an empty bottle of pinot noir under my bed. I don’t remember how it got there.
    Dan Wolfe gives me Valium. He gives me Xanax. He gives me Prozac. I prefer a glass of wine or three.
    One evening, after Hannah has made dinner—our third night of macaroni and cheese—Dafydd says quietly, “Momma, you’re a mess. You’ve got to get some help, please.”
    Hannah is crying. “It’s not fair,” she tells Dafydd. “You have another father.”
    I am folding the laundry and eavesdropping on a conversation between them.
    “What do you mean?” Dafydd asks.
    “You know, that man Mommy lived with in Wales. The one who made you with her.” She knows Evan’s name but isn’t saying it.
    There is a long pause.
    “But, Hannah, I don’t even know him. I’ve never even met him. When I was growing up, Mom never even spoke about him. Marco was my dad.”
    “But you have someone else. You have another father.”
    “Hannah. Please listen to me. Come here.” I walk to the kitchen door and peek in. Hannah climbs on Dafydd’s lap. “Marco was my dad, just like he was your dad. It’s true. … Evan is my real father, by birth and all. But when I was young, I never even thought about him. I’ve never known anybody other than Marco. For a while now I’ve been thinking I’d like to meet Evan someday, but it’s just out of curiosity. Not to find another father. He’ll never replace Marco. No one could, ever. Never.”
    “I’d like to meet Evan, too.” Hannah’s voice is almost a whisper.
    “Well, maybe we’ll do that sometime. Maybe we’ll just bebop it over to Wales someday together and meet him.”
    “Yeah,” Hannah says. “Maybe he could be both our fathers.”
    * * *
    No matter how I try, I can’t figure out why Marc died. He had high cholesterol but he’d been on cholesterol medication for about ten years. He watched his diet—olive oil instead of butter, lean meat, oat bran, grapes. Maybe it was because he didn’t take vitamins except when he worked with his favorite director, which despite that final film had been quite a bit.
    “Joe’s into this new regimen.” Marc holds out a small cellophane packet filled with vitamins. “Folic acid, Bu, multivitamin, calcium, ginko, ginseng, CO-Q 10 , grape-seed extract. He’s sending me a subscription for Andrew Weil’s health newsletter.”
    Several years before, he started drinking red wine, specifically cabernet, because Joe said cabernet grapes inhibited blood clots or something like that.
    This past April, Marc had his annual physical exam, which included a stress test. His blood was normal. His electrocardiogram was normal. His reflexes were all normal. Marc said the doctors gave him a clean bill of health. “I’ve got the heart of a twenty-five year old,” he said, his hazel eyes beaming.
    I feel Hannah standing at the side of my bed.
    “I miss