Winter Storms by Elin Hilderbrand

go, what if they miss news about Bart, what if Bart comes home and neither of them is there? Irrational arguments born out of her very real pain.
    Mitzi does as he asks and reads the itinerary. When she looks up at him, her eyes are shining with tears.
    â€œYou went through all this trouble for me?” she says.
    â€œFor us,” he says.
    â€œIt looks wonderful,” she says. “I can’t wait.”
    Â 
JENNIFER
    S he goes to outpatient drug treatment at Patrick’s insistence and although Jennifer protests initially, she also feels relieved— when caught red-handed by Patrick and Kevin in Norah’s driveway, she had worried that Patrick would ship her off to Hazelden or Betty Ford. Jennifer had also been concerned about Norah. Were Patrick and Kevin going to call the police? Patrick told her not to worry about Norah, to worry only about herself and getting out of the grip of drugs.
    Yes, okay. Jennifer has excelled at everything her entire life and she decides she’s going to excel at rehab. She goes through the lectures and the therapy, but it’s harder than anyone can imagine. Jennifer feels like her body hates her. She can’t keep food down; she can’t sleep; she can’t wake up. She shakes, she sweats, she feels ugh, she feels ick.
    Patrick is a champion at the beginning. He is the person Jennifer was when Patrick first went to prison—steadfast, supportive, kind. He checks in with her every few hours; he picks up the slack with the kids. But after a few weeks, he seems to believe the problem is solved, the war won. Jennifer is off drugs; her therapy decreases from every day to twice a week to once a week. She pees in a cup; she is pronounced clean.
    Patrick is busy trying to get his hedge fund up and running. He has sixteen million dollars from investors, all of them people he has worked with in the past who continue to believe him capable of big things. He would like to double or triple that amount. It’s not easy convincing new investors that he’s legit, but he’s persistent in presenting his business plan and a list of personal references. He’s working out of his and Jennifer’s home office, and he requires absolute silence; he seems resentful that Jennifer is also running a business out of that office—a successful business, she might add—and that she has fabric samples and Pantones lying around everywhere. Jennifer is basically forced to move her operation to the formal dining room—they never use it anyway, but she resents being ousted. Patrick yells at the chil dren when they get home from school. He bans the PlayStation 4. Barrett and Pierce both complain to Jennifer. They start spending the afternoons at their friends’ houses.
    Jennifer says to Patrick, “You’re alienating your own children.”
    Patrick gives her an incredulous look. “Do you or do you not want money? I have to start from scratch here. I’d like to build something quality, and that takes both time and concentration. I can’t focus when the boys are stealing cars and killing zombies a floor above me, I’m sorry.”
    Jennifer’s drug counselor, Sable, a lovely, refined woman in her midfifties, strongly encourages Jennifer to give up all mind-altering substances, including alcohol. But Jennifer can’t, she simply
can’t
give up her wine. “I’m not an alcoholic,” she tells Sable.
    Sable gives her a steady look. Sable has shared bits and pieces of her own history. When she was a slender young woman in her twenties, she worked for a drug dealer on the Canadian border. She kept guns under her bed and had a refrigerator full of money.
    â€œThey told me I would be okay as long as I didn’t start using,” Sable said. “And they were right. Once I started using, I sank like a stone.”
    Now, Sable says, “Alcohol impairs our judgment. My main fear is you drink, you get hooked back on