Skygods (Hydraulic #2) (12 page)

The minute Samuel left the fire to take his guitar back to the car, Molly pounced.

“Okay, Kaye, you’ve obviously kept some big secrets and I’ve waited all day. Are you and Samuel officially back together?”

“I…I don’t know. We’re friends.”

Even Cassady shot me a dubious look from across the campfire.

She twisted her ginger hair into a bun. “Right. Friends don’t kiss necks and caress hands and
accidentally
brush each other’s thighs. No offense, Kaye, but if you ever tried that on me, I’d freak.”

Cassady’s face was a study. “Uh, yeah. Hold off on that convo for a sec and give me a chance to clear out.” Jumping up from his log, he gathered the gear at superhero speed and followed Samuel down the wooded trail to the car.

I grinned apologetically. “Well, perhaps Samuel and I are too affectionate to be friends. Honestly, I don’t know what we are. With our history, I don’t think there’s a label for it.”

She nodded. “That’s fine. But you need to decide soon, because if you two are going public with ‘whatever,’ there will be questions.” I knew she wasn’t just talking about our friends and family. Samuel Cabral was well-known and once our relationship became more visible, our clients would ask if I planned to leave the business and move to New York, that sort of thing.

The dark gray sky opened, and Molly grabbed my hand. We darted around the fizzling fire and half-rotted tree stumps, toward one of three red dome tents staked in the clearing.

“It’s way too early for bed. Let’s chat in Cassady’s and my tent,” she said.

I lifted an eyebrow. “Oh really? Since when has Cassady replaced me as your tent mate?”

She zipped open the tent. “Since I’ve seen how
well
you and Samuel get along. There’s no way I’m passing up a chance to have Cassady all to myself for an entire night. I moved your junk into the other tent.”

I ditched my sneaks and followed her in, an uncomfortableness settling in my gut that had everything to do with whether I could keep my hands off of my ex-husband and whether the deepest recesses of my heart recognized him as my ex in the first place. Perhaps Samuel would take the decision out of my hands and hightail it to the nearest town for his own hotel room.

For a long time, I believed Samuel’s values to be a product of Alonso and Sofia’s influence, as well as years of Sunday School—something my parents never had any interest in (except during my dad’s two-month stint as a born-again Christian). But now I questioned if those values hadn’t taken root as a way for Samuel to distance himself from a mother who seemed positively immoral. The more I paid attention to Samuel’s subtle winces and cryptic words whenever his life in Boston was brought up, the more I realized he was desperate to be the polar opposite of Rachel Cabral.

Molly tossed items out of her duffle bag until she came across a Ziploc baggie full of homemade “puppy chow”—a chocolate and peanut butter confection. I grabbed a handful and grinned at her in thanks.

“So whatever happened to Samuel’s hot-shot Manhattan publicist?”

“Caroline,” I answered through a mouthful of crunchy chocolate goodness. “As far as I know, she’s in New York City.”

“But she still works for Samuel. She’s his agent-slash-publicist?”

“Kind of. She’s his agent, and her firm collaborates with his publishing house for book publicity. But for movie publicity, I guess she outsources to some Hollywood PR machine.”

“
And
she edits his books?”

I licked powdered sugar from my fingertips and brushed the rest onto my flannel pajama bottoms. “Yeah, before they go to the publishing house. From what Samuel says, editing was her first passion.”

Molly’s brow furrowed. “She’s wearing too many hats, Kaye-bear. If she and Samuel have a serious falling out, she could really screw him over. She would, too—woman was a pain.”

I sighed. Samuel and I’d already had this conversation. “I know, Molly. But he trusts her implicitly and there’s nothing I can do about that. At least he’s not dating her anymore.”

“I guess if they had a falling out, she’d be royally screwed, too, losing her firm’s biggest client.”

Before long, Cassady and Samuel tracked us down in the tent and we had to share the puppy chow. We lit a battery-powered lantern and settled around its cold white light. Samuel dropped behind me onto a sleeping bag roll. I draped my arms over his knees and reclined against him. The rain had dampened his shirt and flannel sleep pants but he was rumpled and happy, and soon his cool chest warmed against my back. As we quietly talked with Molly and Cassady, his hand drifted across my collarbone. I knew he was only half paying attention to Cassady’s animated description of the psychedelic Iron Butterfly poster he’d won on eBay.

“Cassady, you spend enough money on junk for your campervan to feed a small African country,” Molly teased. “Ever think of doing something useful with your salary?”

Cassady scowled. “I tried, but your bone-headed brother-in-law wouldn’t let me.”

The tent fell silent as his stinging words brought reality crashing down. Molly’s face crumpled, and Cassady immediately pulled her into his embrace.

“Uff-da, I’m sorry. That was really thoughtless.”

Molly sniffed into his shoulder. “Did you just say ‘uff-da’?” I
knew
he was from Minnesota. “It’s okay. I’m just really frustrated.” She looked at me and Samuel. “Holly won’t take her antidepressants—that’s why she’s getting worse. And Derek still doesn’t want to admit how serious this is.”

“Why won’t she take them?” I asked, a little too angrily. “Doesn’t she want to get better?” Samuel squeezed my shoulder in a reminder to calm down.

“She says they make her nauseous and foggy all the time. And she’s scared of gaining weight, especially after having a baby.”

“And severe depression and suicide are preferable?”

Samuel pulled me closer. Despite his efforts to calm me, I couldn’t comprehend the mentality of someone who would risk her life and her family’s well-being, just because she hated the side effects of medication.

Molly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know.”

“Kaye,” Samuel said, “try to understand. Sometimes it’s hard for people to admit they need the meds. And there’s such a horrible stigma attached to mental illnesses, almost like it’s shameful to be diagnosed as such. She’s probably really scared, even thinking she’s a failure because she has to depend on medication to be normal.”

Yes, Samuel would see this in Holly. After all, his birth mother had been plagued by mental illness.

Molly’s eyes went wide. “You’re exactly right. I can totally see Holly thinking that. She’s always wanted a big family, to be supermom to a dozen kids. I’m sure the idea of something being out of her control is really scary.”

“So how do you convince her to stay on her meds?” Cassady asked.

Samuel scratched at the ground, in thought. “Her family, especially Derek, can go a long way in that. Her doctor too, or maybe someone who’s been in her shoes. But Holly has to understand for herself what could happen if she doesn’t take her meds, what losing her would do to the people who love her. She has to make the choice.” I felt a small shiver run through his torso, though his eyes never wavered from the spot on the ground.

No, this wasn’t just about his mother. I peered up at him again. His eyes were dark, unfathomable. “How do you know so much about this sort of thing?” I asked.

Familiar red streaks burned up his neck and in his cheeks. “Caro’s agency has a client who published an eye-opening book about his wife’s depression. Since then, I’ve taken an interest in the issue.” He shrugged and hastily rubbed circles on my shoulder with his thumb.

Hmm. I studied his face, uneasy with his blatant lie. But Cassady and Molly seemed swayed by his answer.

Cassady nodded. “I don’t think any of us really get what Holly and Derek are going through, not without it happening to us.”

“I know,” I said, letting Samuel’s eyes go. “I can’t imagine dealing with those sorts of struggles. Waking up each morning and wondering if it’s a ‘walking on eggshells’ day. Holding my breath coming home from work, always terrified of what I’d find. I don’t think I’d be strong enough.”

Samuel went rigid behind me. His hand tightened on my shoulder, almost painfully.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, his voice shaky. “Of course you’re strong, Kaye.”

Then it clicked. As soon as I felt his trembling hands and quickening breath on my neck—the same thing that happened at Danita’s wedding when he made a mad dash for the bathroom—I got it. My comments hit too close to home and I realized, too late,
why
Samuel seemed to be slipping into some sort of controlled panic. He’d been on meds at some point, maybe still was. And why would he be on meds?

I remembered the weeks before he left for New York, the death knell of our marriage. The sleeping, the seemingly apathetic laziness for most anything except his music reviews and running off what I now knew were cocaine highs. His mother had almost certainly been mentally ill. Depression? The more I thought about those months before Samuel left me, the more I realized cocaine had masked the real problem. I’d seen it seven years ago in Boulder. Then in New York, in the possessed lines of his half-naked body and that dingy, filthy room. I began to see it now.

“Go home to Colorado, and don’t you ever come back here again, Aspen Kaye. I fucking mean it. You think this is a joke?”

Smothering the terrible memories churning in the pit of me, I pulled his shaking hand between my two hands. Running my thumbs up and down his skin, I slowly traced his ligaments, veins, fingernails, dulling the edge of panic until and his shaking ceased. I admittedly knew next to nothing about depression, but his being on meds was certainly a good thing. Because it meant what happened seven years ago wouldn’t happen again as long as he took his medicine, right? Gradually, his breath slowed and he began to relax. His soft lips kissed the skin beneath my ear in a silent thank you.

Cassady and Molly exchanged a look. They’d noticed Samuel’s odd little panic attack, but said nothing.

“May I ask what, exactly, Derek is struggling with?” Samuel said after a while, his voice still shaky.

“He thinks Holly just needs a vacation away from the kids for a week or two, not therapy and meds,” Cassady answered. “He doesn’t want charity—”

“That’s not it,” Molly cut in. “I think he’s scared, too. Like he somehow failed Holly, or he’s not strong enough to cope with her scary thoughts and her tears. So he’d rather deny she needs help.”

“And he’s refusing financial assistance from you,” Samuel concluded.

Molly nodded. “And Kaye.”

“The alimony,” I answered and he smiled, albeit unsteadily.

“Well, I’m glad you’re finally spending it, guinea pigs aside.”

“I very well wasn’t going to spend that much money on myself.”

“You should have. That’s what I intended in our settlement.”

“Samuel,” I hissed, “I am
not
having this argument with you again.”

He gave me a playful shake, then turned to Molly. “Have you spoken with any mental illness centers about financial assistance? Derek might be more willing to accept help from a foundation than from people he knows.”

“Kaye and I have tossed around the idea. And I’m looking into government assistance.”

“A local charity is your best bet, because Medicaid funding is wrapped in red tape. Then there are always the NAMI fund-raiser walks.” He grabbed a piece of puppy chow from my stock pile and popped one in his mouth. “It’s tragic, the number of people who go without treatment.”

Molly hummed sadly. “That’s what one of the nurses at the hospital said while I was waiting for Holly’s appointment to finish. She called Holly one of the ‘lucky ones’ because she has family who care enough to help her. Did you know they only have a couple visitors on the floor every day? Out of all those inpatients.”

“I can’t believe that!” I was woefully unaware of what happened beyond my front door.

“And get this,” Molly continued. “There was a patient there who talked to me between his fingers because he thought he was the ruler of Saturn, and that’s how gods communicated. Do you know what that nurse told me?”

I shook my head.

“They were going to release him the next day. They couldn’t make him stay past three days since he told them he could sleep on a buddy’s couch, had fifty dollars in his checking account, and promised to fill his prescription and make a doctor appointment in a week.”

“That’s crazy,” Cassady said.

“That’s how they slip through the cracks,” Samuel explained. I felt him sigh against my neck. “So many unnecessary deaths.”

“We should just have our own fund-raiser and give the proceeds directly to local clinics for patient assistance,” I muttered. “Then we could avoid the red tape.”

“Why don’t you?” Samuel asked.

I craned my neck to look at him. “Organize a fund-raiser?”

“Sure. You have the financial resources, plus the event planning knowledge.”