The first paycheck of each month went straight to Sandi for lot rent and to chip away at the late fees accrued from when he’d been away. The one he’d just deposited, the month’s second, was to be divvied up among the rest of their debts and the barest of necessities. There were still dues on court fees, a good chunk of the bondsman’s fee and its accrued interest, as well as old phone bills from the Department of Corrections, which had charged $1.86 per minute, turning Michelle’s voice scant by the start of his second year away. Winter had come early and biting, but the thermostat was off-limits. Putting food in their bellies and gas in the tank overrode the inconvenience of wearing layers indoors. They were spread so thin and shivering that any little bit would have helped, but because Michelle had walked out on her last gas station gig, she was disqualified from unemployment benefits.

Getting his head around Michelle’s addiction was arduous. His old habits paled on the depravity scale. He’d never been host to a single parasite, never at the mercy of a specific substance’s claws. His teenage weekend benders of meth and liquor and pills hadn’t been so much a way of life as they’d been a distraction, a vacation from his natural adolescent state of mourning and global disdain. Sure, he’d struggled with limits, doses, and had viewed oblivion as the weekend’s ultimate goal, but the resulting hangovers and comedowns were plenty enough to deter him from heavy, habit-forming use midweek. The truth was his own recovery had actually been sort of easy, at least once his relationship with Michelle began.

The doctors had said bulimia was rooted in a need for control, but back when they first met, their healing was a collaborative, even playful act. They upended self-pity with sarcasm, repackaged trauma in the bubble wrap of their mutual, hearse-black humor. They ran constant experiments on each other’s sexual and emotional machinery, drafting operating manuals for a fully functional and feeling human being. And through that process, qualities like Michelle’s curiosity, meticulousness, and machete wit resurfaced and crystallized, suggesting even to her that she might actually deserve tenderness, too. Oblivion lost its allure once she convinced Henry and eventually herself that they were both capable and worthy of love.

And so it was only fair that he returned the favor now. It was his job to revive her, to refill this Michelle-ish vessel with all the steamy pulp and verve that he’d fallen for in the first place.