I don’t look like a beauty queen anymore. My face is gaunt, my skin nearly translucent, stretched too thin across my bony ribs and jutting pelvis. There’s a giant green-and-yellow stain on my left side—I think Evan had pushed me down the stairs. Fresher purple bruises run up my right leg. Red welts mark my forearm. I look old and beaten, and for a moment, I want to cry.

For the beauty that faded too fast. For the youth that disappeared too quickly. For the dreams I thought I would fulfill.

There are pieces of yourself that once you give away …

But I want them back. Dear God, there are moments when I just want them back.

Two o’clock. Everything will be better at two o’clock. I turn on the shower, step in the spray, and begin to shave my legs.

I return downstairs nearly an hour later, an eternity in my world. I’ve taken the time to smooth my favorite rose-scented lotion into my skin. I’ve buffed my nails, loofahed my feet, used a special conditioner on my hair. If not prettier, at least I’m shinier than I used to be. It’s the best I can do.

Evan’s slouched into the sofa. The History Channel is blaring, the station having segued from the English tunnel to Boston’s Big Dig. The sandwich’s gone. Evan appears glassy-eyed. First the morning’s dose of Ativan, now this.

I sit next to Evan, feather back his blonde hair. He stirs enough to look at me.

“Pretty,” he says thickly, and it amazes me how I can smile and feel my heart break at the same time.

“I love you.”

“Tired,” he says.

“Would you like to rest?”

“TV!” he yells, not totally under the influence yet.

“After TV, then.”

He shifts away, his gaze riveted once more to the magic box. We sit side by side, my son sinking deeper into drugged oblivion, me fidgeting with my push-up bra.

The show breaks for a commercial. I glance at my watch. Ten minutes to go. Now or never. I pick up the remote, turn off the TV. I wait for Evan’s squawk, but it never comes. He’s slack-jawed, already two beats from unconsciousness.

He doesn’t protest as I slip an arm around his shoulders, guide him off the sofa and up the stairs. For an eight-year-old boy, he feels nearly weightless against me. The ADHD, we’re told, his constant agitation. He could follow Michael Phelps’s diet, and still lose weight.

In his room, I tuck him in bed fully clothed. It’s his second nap of the day and I will pay for it later. A long, sleepless night where my son will work off the edgy aftereffects by trashing the house.

But it will be worth it, I think. As long as I can have two o’clock.