Chapter 20 - Winter
Robby was adrift. Marie told the family.
Joe figured out what had happened and found Marie.
He was worried, so was she. Neither of them had ever seen Robby like this.
They kept in touch with each other. Billy found Marie through Margie and Charlie.
She knew from Robby that Billy had taken Grace to the airport and asked him where Grace had gone.
Billy didn’t know. He said she hadn’t been in good shape, and he’d been hesitant to leave her — had put his number in her phone himself.
They’d had one text exchange. He’d asked if she was okay.
She’d answered, “Alive. Hate myself as much as y’all do.
” He’d texted back, “Nobody hates you. Get help.” He hadn’t heard from her since, but he called Robby regularly.
Some of those calls lasted less than a minute.
He was closest and came by several times in the first weeks when Robby didn’t answer.
Margie knew everything from Marie and kept Jim and Nan in the loop.
So unbeknownst to Robby, there was a network of people worrying and watching over him.
But it was Marie, music, and Dog that kept Robby going.
Dog had to be cared for and never left his side.
When Robby took a shower, Dog laid on the cool bathroom floor.
When Robby played guitar with the amp turned all the way up, Dog was on the other side of the door.
And when Robby slept, in the bed or passed out in a chair, Dog was on the floor beside him, close enough for Robby to put his hand down and touch him, anytime.
The house was good, mostly because Grace had never slept with him there.
It wasn’t the brick one Grace thought they were getting.
It was the modern one with all the glass that she’d liked but thought would be too expensive.
Robby knew making that choice was risky, but he couldn’t resist. He thought about her constantly .
. . with mixed emotions . . . so much emotion.
He felt like he’d lost a vital organ. He resisted calling her till one night in October when the snow was falling through the moonlight outside the glass wall of windows overlooking Duluth.
He’d had a few scotches. As soon as he heard her voice, he knew it was a mistake.
“Robby? Oh God. What are you doing?”
She was almost whispering. Was there someone with her? What time was it? “I’m sorry. Too much scotch.” He hung up, fixed another scotch, put his arm over the side of the chair and scratched behind Dog’s ears, while they watched the snow falling on Duluth and beyond on Lake Superior.
Marie said they were coming to his house for Thanksgiving week, while the boys were out of school, and he would spend the winter holidays with them.
He agreed. It was better than being alone.
Occasionally, his parents texted and came by, Mary bringing containers of food and taking home half-full ones from the last visit.
Dan and Robby walked the neighborhood with Dog, talking about their culture’s teachings.
Everyone knew Robby was drinking like they’d never seen before.
Marie and their parents worried, but they knew Robby’d had plenty of exposure to drugs and alcohol and survived it so far.
Dan believed his son was resilient, he just needed time to heal, like a severely frostbitten plant.
He was going through a necessary dormant period but would reemerge in his own time.
John, the bass player, called Joe after an incoherent phone call with Robby, and Joe filled him in.
The drummer, Ray, was in ICU with Covid, but John called the others, and they began calling and texting Robby about needing him to listen to this or that part.
Seth wrote a song, sent it to Robby, and said he needed input.
Robby called Grace a second time the Sunday night after Thanksgiving. The house was so quiet. Empty. Lonely. Even Dog seemed depressed. Robby’d had so much to drink, later he couldn’t remember what he said . . . something about music and Covid and his life with music being over.
He didn’t call her again till January 1st. He had just driven back to Duluth after he and Dog had spent the holidays in Grand Marais, mostly at Marie’s.
The boys loved Dog, and he tolerated their crawling all over him in the house and would romp with them in the snow.
Robby’d made his own New Year’s resolution.
He didn’t even tell Marie. He called Grace and asked her if she was ever coming back.
When she said not to him, not to Duluth, maybe to Ely for her job, he basically hung up. That was what he needed to hear.
He knew he looked bad — ‘like a cancer patient,’ Tina’d said at Christmas, but he’d kept playing all these months.
He hadn’t been able to write lyrics, but he had some music.
He’d taken good care of Dog. True, he’d drunk more scotch in the last three and a half months than in the previous thirty-six years, but now he was going to get on with his life.
He’d called his old friend George several times, and he’d come over and played.
Now he’d go to the studio. He’d resume working on the projects he’d come up with at the beginning of last summer.
Surely, that’d make him feel better . . .
whole again. Right now, music was his only refuge.
There was serious talk from scientists about a vaccine.
He called Joe and told him he needed to work.
Find him a gig. He knew there wasn’t much because of Covid, but he was desperate.
Anything. Anywhere. Anytime. If Joe okayed it, he’d do it.
He called Marie and told her he was looking to work.
If Joe found something, he would close up the house and go.
Would they take Dog? She said yes. And the call came.
Joe found random gigs, and Robby took every one.
A vaccine came out. He got it. Joe said before he would even talk about a tour, Robby and Seth had to come up with more songs, a total of twelve, fifteen would be better.
Robby said find us a place far away and unfamiliar.
*******
Grace arrived home as a tropical system was passing off the coast. It was weak — planes weren’t grounded — but the rain was steady and the wind gusty as the Uber crossed bridges and neared the coast. The daylight was that sick shade of yellow.
Grace was drenched by the time she got everything in the house.
She cracked some windows and opened the door onto the screened porch.
The wind coming off the harbor chased the musty smell out of the house, but the loon doorstop was an unwelcome reminder.
Her car was a half dozen blocks up the street in a garage belonging to a man who collected vintage cars.
He’d agreed to rent her a space and drive her car from time to time to keep the battery charged.
She’d get it tomorrow. She went in the bathroom, stripped, dropped all the wet clothes in the bathtub, put on the nightgown that was hanging on the back of the door, and crawled into bed.
It was about 5:00 Wednesday afternoon. She didn’t know anything until 8:15 the next morning.
She woke up hungry and thirsty and went to the kitchen.
She turned on the faucet, filled a glass, drank it down, refilled it, and drank that down too. Then she fixed a pot of grits.
She hated herself. She’d hurt the one person in the world who cared most about her.
She needed professional help, or she was never going to trust herself to interact with people again.
She found her phone, searched for therapists, and called the number of the first male therapist she saw.
She’d seen two female therapists before the divorce.
Neither one helped. This time she’d try a man.
She got his voice mail and left a message asking for the soonest possible appointment.
She must have sounded as desperate as she felt, because he called back in a few hours between clients and said he had a cancellation that afternoon if she wanted it.
His appointments were either online or via phone because of Covid.
She accepted and said she’d try to get her internet up, if not they could do this one over the phone.
She knew she had to stay busy till then.
She called the cable company. Then she called the man who had her car, walked there, got in it, and drove to the grocery store, masked.
When she got home, the internet was up and running.
************
It took time to complete the paperwork. The therapist told her to address him by his first name, Gene. “What’s going on, Grace?” He sat back in his desk chair, an older man, slim, with a greying but neat beard.
“I’ve done a terrible thing.” She began crying but kept on. “And I don’t know why. I hate myself for it.”
Gene leaned forward, putting his forearms in front of him on the desk. “Is someone hurt?” he asked calmly.
“You mean physically?” Gene nodded. “No. I wouldn’t do that,” she said quickly. Then, “I don’t think . . .” She looked away. “I don’t know anymore . . . I don’t know myself.”
“But you know you haven’t physically hurt anyone this time?” Grace nodded. “Are you thinking of harming yourself?”
She looked out the window to the right of her desk.
She hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know.
I haven’t had time to think. I just wanted to leave.
” She looked back at Gene. “I did that — flew home, fell asleep, and called you. I ran errands till now — to keep busy. I tried not to think — not to feel — just keep busy.”
“Sometimes that’s all we can do. Sometimes it’s the best thing. Tell me more about how you’re feeling right now. Take your time.” He sat back.