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was the distance she felt from Andy at these times. She'd let him know
that it would not upset her if he went outside for a few minutes, smoked
a joint and come back so they could both get to sleep. Sometimes he
did and she would feel herself relaxing as he left. He'd come back half
an hour later, telling her he'd gone for a walk. As if he had to lie to her.
As if there was a chance she'd believe him. They both knew better.
But it worked. When he came back she would feel herself melting into
him and everything was good again. They could sleep together if he
was high. It wasn't bad at all, being sober with him while he was high.
It was certainly better than lying sleepless next to him feeling him try to
pretend none of this bothered him. Yes, it worked. For now.
She went to see Mountain Girl alone. She'd done this many times;
they both did. But this was one of the very few times that she had
specifically not wanted Andy to come with her. She tried to explain all
this to Mountain Girl. Half way through her confused verbal
wandering Mountain Girl interrupted her. "Don't you think I know
exactly what you're feeling?" she asked. "Remember who you're
talking to." And of course Mountain Girl knew what she felt. How
could she not? And with her friend for the next two days the fear
receded. It would be okay. Things had always worked out for the three
of them. This would be no different.
Halfway down the mountain the loneliness returned, stronger than
ever as if trying to make up for the time she had not been tormented by
it. It stayed with her all the way home and clung to her at the gig that
night. She went home with the saddest songs she had ever played
crowding every thought she had out of her head. Andy went home with
her. He loved her. It didn't change anything. She did her best to let
him comfort her and failed completely. She told him of her fears of
losing him in some way and he promised it would never happen. They
went for a long walk, miles and miles of moonlit romantic watching of
the night and she started to feel a little better. A little.
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She went to her meeting the next day. She went out for lunch with
some of the people there she liked. They really were nice people and
since they had managed to stay sober there must be something that she
could learn from them. After all, as they kept reminding her, they'd felt
all the same fear and pain. The same anger. But although at any given
moment she might feel a little better there was always that something
looming over her. Andy came to see her play again the next night. But
it was a Sunday night and he needed to go to work on Monday
morning. She told him that she'd be fine; that she was exhausted and
would go right to sleep after the gig. She didn't sleep at all. At four
a.m. she gave up and spent the next two hours looking through all her
photo albums at the life the three of them had had together. At six a.m.
she got in her car, bought several large cups of coffee, and left to see
Mountain Girl again.
There was no one in the cabin. This wasn't all that unusual. As she
usually did, Mountain Girl had left a little note in case they dropped in
unexpectedly. Andrea sat on the bed and fell sound asleep. When she
awoke it was late afternoon. She took the rifle down from where
Mountain Girl kept it, went outside, and wandered quietly around until
she shot something. She went back to the cabin, made a fire in the
stove, gutted and cleaned her catch and cooked herself some dinner.
Then she wandered around till sunset. She didn't expect Mountain Girl
to return for another day. As it grew dark she returned to the cabin.
She lit a few candles and sat on the porch reading for a while. Finally
she put the book down and thought fondly of other times she'd spent
here at the cabin alone. Half an hour later her fond memories had
turned to despair. What was going to become of the three of them?
She'd reached a turning point and there was no going back. She was a
drug addict and an alcoholic. She knew what that meant. She could
choose sobriety, choose recovery, choose life, and take a chance on
losing Andy. At least she might have Mountain Girl. Maybe. There
was that feeling again; that she couldn't be friends with one without the
other. Or she could choose something else, knowing full well what it
meant.
What she hated most of all was the feeling that she was being forced
to choose between her two friends. Andy or Mountain Girl. As if for
some reason she couldn't have both. They were a trio, or they were
three strangers, and if she had to choose one she'd lose both of them.
She went into the cabin and got one of the knives Mountain Girl used
for chores around the house. Not one of the food knives; that wouldn't
be right. She went back outside and threw it at the cabin wall. Then
she pulled it out of the wood siding, walked about twenty feet away and
151
threw it again. She did this over and over, till her arm hurt. Then she
left the knife sticking in the side of the cabin and went inside. Maybe
Mountain Girl would come home in the night, although she didn't
expect her to. If she did maybe she'd see the knife and know how
Andrea felt. Yes, she thought, Mountain Girl had to know how she felt.
She tried to imagine what it was like for Mountain Girl to wonder what
would happen to both Andrea and Andy. Imagining that amount of
pain in her friend was overwhelming. But she left the knife in the cabin
wall anyway.
She felt stupid the next day. She made herself some breakfast and
went outside to see if there was anything that needed to be done. Then
she wrote Mountain Girl a long letter and left it on the table, explaining
that she had needed to see her but she was okay, just feeling sad.
Lastly she pulled the knife out of the cabin wall and put it back where it
belonged. It was as if she had impaled her pain on the knife,
slaughtering it. She felt okay right up till the moment she reached the
bottom of the trail and got into her car and began to drive home.
Her band didn't have a gig that night so she went to her meeting.
When it was her turn to talk she shared that she was hurting in a way
that she hadn't hurt since she had been a young child. Hurting in a way
to which the only reasonable response seemed to be to hit someone or
break something. She didn't want to do that. She didn't know what she
did want to do. After the meeting people came up to her to talk to her.
They asked her if she wanted to go out for coffee with them. She was
exhausted. She told them she was just going to go home and go to
sleep.
For the rest of her life she'd wonder what happened next. She
awoke in her bed to a sun high in the morning sky, a throbbing pain in
her left hand, and a terrible feeling about something. She got out of
bed after a few minutes and by time she was halfway to the bathroom
she knew why she felt the way she did. She was hung over, or at least
she was going to be hung over in a few hours. Maybe that was a good
thing. Maybe she'd figured out a solution to her problem. She got back
into bed. There was a wet spot. There'd been a feeling between her
legs too. She must have gotten laid last night. She wondered if it was
Andy. Maybe not, she'd been upset with him. She wondered who it
was. Maybe they hadn't been able to sleep and were in another room.
She hoped she'd had fun. She hoped whoever the lucky man had been
that he'd enjoyed it too. She'd get up in a minute and see if he was still
here.
Maybe this wasn't going to be such a good thing. Her hand really
hurt and now she recognized the pain. She'd hit something or more
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likely someone too hard too many times with it. She looked around her
room more attentively. The blanket was on the floor at the foot of the
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