Chapters (46)
- COVER PAGE
- PRAISE
- DEDICATION
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- SNEAK PEEK: EXIT .45
Deborah smoked some cigarette and looked away, and it took her a long moment to resume speaking. ‘In a way … in some ways I always knew this would happen. I just had this feeling I’d end up losing my family. We lost Simon, and it just felt so total.’ She fortified with some smoke and said, ‘He took LSD and hallucinated badly, and fell off a balcony. It was just … it was no one’s fault. It was just one of those stupid things. But it still felt like a whole piece of my life had been obliterated. And I just had the feeling that we couldn’t survive something that terrible. Things in life are linked. I mean, they’re integral to one another. So you lose one piece, and it puts other elements under pressure, and things just …’ She shook her head. ‘Things don’t last, do they?’
Rochelle said, ‘Always know we can retreat from this space if we need to.’
Deborah aimed the cigarette at Vincent. ‘I told you on the phone, didn’t I? About the forest fires? They’re getting worse. There was an update this morning. I remember yesterday, I felt silly saying it felt like a sign or an omen or whatever you want to call it, but now you’re here, and nothing seems any better, does it?’
Vincent didn’t know how to answer that. He smiled faintly, as if to acknowledge the decline of the world’s redeeming qualities.
Deborah said, ‘He was bringing me flowers.’
Erin said, ‘Your husband?’
‘Yes. Wayne was bringing me flowers. All this time we’d been getting more and more distant, and I could see we’d end up where we are now. Apart, I mean. When he was working for Eugene, I used to drive up and stay with him at the house in Santa Barbara. I always felt like I was the one making the effort. But then …’ She smiled. ‘He started showing up with these flowers. Even a couple of months back, when he was still working for Eugene, he’d come home for the weekend with this bouquet. Even last week he came home with one. And the flowers were one thing, because it showed he was actually making an effort, but he knew the names of them, too. He knew the names of them. I said to him, Since when do you know anything about flowers? You know, even plants. And he wouldn’t tell me. I liked to imagine him doing research, finding out all these facts online. Maybe he did. But I can’t make sense of any of it. I really can’t. Because how could he go from that—from being the man who brings me flowers—to just walking out the door with no explanation?’