Page 10 of Best of Me

“What are you doing, Nancy?”

“Erasing her.”

“Erasing who?”

“HER!” Nancy shrieks, tangling her fingers into her matted hair.

“Where’s Darryl?”

She once again lifts her gaze to me. “He left. No-good traitor. Everyone’s against me.”

I step into the room, my hands held loosely at my sides in an effort to show Nancy I’m not a threat. “Nancy, I need you to calm down—”

I know I’ve messed up the second the words pass my lips; her guttural roar only confirms it. She hauls herself up from the floor, and I take a step back. “How can I calm down whenshe’sback?” she hisses.

“Who? Who’s back?”

“Thinks she can come back and take her place. She can’t. Stupid girl should know she’s not welcome here.” Her voice grows with her anger, and before I know it, she’s all out yelling. “She should have died! HER!” She screams the last word, slamming her balled fist into the mirror on the wall, cracking the glass.

She draws back to hit it again, a crazed smile lighting her features as the cracks splinter out farther from the point of impact. The sight of blood trickling down Nancy’s arm spurs me into action. I rush her, wrapping my arms around her frail body, pinning hers to her sides. Nancy screams and howls like a caged beast, but I don’t release her. Usually when Darryl calls me out here, she’s drunk or high, wanting to re-live the past. Today though, something’s different. Today, she’s a danger to herself.

I haul her from the mess that is Mallory’s room out to the living room. Her adrenaline must be fading because she makes no move to fight me when I deposit her onto the couch. Even still, I stand guard as I dial up her husband, just in case she tries anything.

“Where are you?” I grit out, pissed he left me here to deal with this shit alone.

“I-I had to go, Duke. She was—she was in a bad way. I just…couldn’t see her like that.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and pray for patience. “You need to come home. I’ve got her calmed down, but you need to come home and someone needs to explain to me what in the hell is going on before I have to Baker Act her.”

“I’ll be there in five.”

I hang up the phone and address Nancy. “I’m gonna go get a rag. Don’t move, you hear me?”

She nods once, the movement nearly imperceptible it’s so small.

When I return to the living room, Nancy hasn’t shifted from where I left her, not even an inch. She’s nearly catatonic, with her eyes trained on her lap, save for the way she’s rocking herself back and forth, much the way you would a baby.

Crouching down before her, I gently draw her hand into mine. I wipe the blood away before pressing the towel to the gash in her hand, applying pressure. “Got yourself real good there, Nancy.”

At the sound of my voice, her gaze darts up to mine. “Duke,” she whispers my name. “What happened? When did you get here?”

“Nance?” Darryl’s voice rings out from the garage.

“Living room,” I call back, and he rushes in, gathering his emotionally frail wife into his arms. I give them a minute as he whispers encouragements and calming words into her ear, trying not to be angry that he took the coward’s way out and called me to deal with this shit.

“I’m gonna need you to tell me what happened, okay?”

Darryl grabs his wife’s hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. “I-I’d like to know, too.”

Oh, even better. He didn’t even bother to figure out what caused his wife to breakdown before bailing out and calling me.

“I…I ran into Cherrie at the Piggly Wiggly, and sh-she said that Mallory moved back.”

Darryl shifts uncomfortably at his wife’s words, and my brows knit in confusion.Why on earth would having her only living child come home be a bad thing?

After a prolonged and uncomfortable silence, Darryl speaks. “Well, you know how Cherrie is. Loves to run her mouth. I-I’m sure it wasn’ther.Maybe just someone who looks similar.”

With wide eyes and downturned lips, Nancy slowly nods. “Yes. Maybe. Yes, that’s it.” She nods several more times, as if she’s trying to convince herself to believe her husband’s words. Eventually, a calm settles over features, completely erasing all traces of her previous mania. It’s jarring, the way she went from foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog to as docile as a baby bunny.

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