All Fall Down(89)
Author: Jennifer Weiner

“Allison W.?”

I nodded, getting to my feet and breathing deeply as another wave of dizziness swept over my body.

“Come on in.”

His office was by far the nicest place I’d seen at Meadowcrest. There was a plush Oriental rug on the floor. The walls were painted a pretty celery green, the carved and polished wooden desk looked like a genuine antique, and the chair behind it was leather. The obligatory copy of the Twelve Steps hung on the wall—did they buy them in bulk?—but at least his had a pretty gold-leaf frame.

Nicholas took my hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said. Maybe it was the way he actually appeared to be seeing me when he looked my way, or maybe it was that my g*ydar was pinging, but Nicholas reminded me of Dr. McCarthy in Philadelphia. Dr. McCarthy, in whose office I’d taken that quiz, Dr. McCarthy, who’d asked me so kindly what I was doing to take care of myself. How different would things be if I’d told him then what was going on, or even if I’d just stopped it all right there, before I’d learned about ordering pills on the Internet?

I took the chair on the other side of his desk and looked at a picture in a silver frame. There was Nicholas and an older white guy, both of them in tuxedoes, each with one hand on the shoulder of a pretty dark-haired girl in what looked like a flower girl’s dress.

He saw me looking. “Our wedding,” he said.

“Is that your daughter? She’s beautiful.”

“My goddaughter, Gia,” he said. “You’ve got a little girl, right?” There was, no surprise, a folder open on his desk, with my name typed on the tab.

“Eloise,” I said, feeling my heart beating, hearing her name catch in my throat.

“From the book?”

“From the book,” I confirmed. Ellie, I thought, remembering her funny, imperious gestures, the way she would yell every fifth word, or complain that whatever I was doing was taking for HOURS, or come home crying because “everyone else in kindergarten has loosed a tooth but me.”

Nicholas sat down, flipped open the first page of my folder, and ran his finger from top to bottom.

“So, painkillers.”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He crossed his legs, folded his hands in his lap, and looked at me steadily. “Why were you taking so many painkillers? Were you in pain?”

“I guess that’s how it started. I hurt my back at the gym.”

“So you were taking them for back pain?”

I shook my head. “Just . . . pain. Pain in general. Or to unwind at the end of the day. I thought it was sort of the same as having a glass of wine at night. Except I never really liked wine. And I did love pills. I loved how they made me feel.”

He lifted one arched eyebrow. “Twenty pills,” said Nicholas, “is more than one glass of wine.”

Blushing, I said, “Well, obviously, things got a little out of hand. But not, you know, rehab-level out of hand. That’s why I asked to see you. I really don’t think I need to be here.”

Nicholas flipped to another page in the folder. Then another one. “I had a conversation with your husband while you were in Equine,” he began.

I felt as if I’d swallowed a stone, but I kept my voice calm. “Oh?”

“He was able to fill me in on a little more of what’s been going on in your life.”

My lungs expanded enough for me to take a deep breath. “So you know about my father being sick?” That was good news, I told myself. If he knew about my dad, and maybe even about Ellie, if he had any sense of my job, and what it was like to get torn apart in public, maybe he’d understand why pills were so seductive . . . and he’d know that someone who was managing that kind of life, keeping all those balls in the air, was clearly not someone who required this kind of facility.

“He told me about your father, yes. And the incident at your daughter’s school?” His voice lifted, turning the sentence into a question.

I winced, feeling my face go pale at the memory. “That was awful. I had a glass of wine with a friend after I’d taken my medication.” I congratulated myself for the use of the phrase “my medication,” even though I knew the pills I took had been bought online rather than prescribed.

“I’m sure you know that David is very concerned. About your safety, and also your daughter’s.”

“That was a terrible day. What happened—what I did—it was awful. But I would never do anything like that again.” My sinuses were burning, my eyes brimming with unshed tears. “I love my daughter. I’d never hurt her.”