Winter Storms by Elin Hilderbrand Page A

pills.”
    â€œThat won’t happen,” Jennifer assures her.
    But one Friday night after a particularly trying week, Jennifer pours herself a second glass of wine, then a third, then a fourth. The boys are out at sleepovers and Jennifer has made veal chops with blue cheese mashed potatoes and a lavish spinach salad for herself and Patrick—but at eight o’clock, Patrick is still locked in “their” office, working.
    After her fifth glass of wine, Jennifer pounds on the office door. Patrick opens it. He’s on the phone but she doesn’t care.
    â€œHang up!” she screams. “Hang! Up!”
    What follows is the worst fight of their sixteen-year union.
Everything
comes out. Jennifer
hates
what Patrick did, hates the besmirching of their family name, hates that all the parents at the kids’ schools look at her and the kids askance. People say they don’t judge, but of course they
do
judge. They think Patrick is a cheater and a fraud and that Jennifer is guilty by association. Then it’s Patrick’s turn to retaliate: He can’t believe Jennifer let herself fall prey to the allure of pharmaceuticals.
It’s so predictable!
he says. He doesn’t understand how she could lose control that way when she was
in charge of their children!
    â€œDon’t you dare,” Jennifer says. “Don’t you dare imply that my parenting was in any way compromised.”
    â€œWasn’t it?” Patrick asks. “Be truthful with me. Be truthful with yourself. Did you ever drive the children while you were high?”
    Jennifer fish-mouths. She wants to be indignant, wants to say she would never, ever have done such a thing—but she can’t lie. There
were
some moments when she parented while high. She got lost driving home from one of Pierce’s away lacrosse games and ended up in Revere. Revere, of all places! While on oxy, she lost her temper with Barrett, used some atrocious language, had an accident in the kitchen. While on Ativan, she fell asleep reading to Jaime more times than she could count, sometimes not even making it through a single page.
    She starts to cry. “I failed you,” she says.
    â€œNo,” Patrick says. “I failed you. Your addiction to oxy and Ativan is my fault.”
    As much as Jennifer would like to hand Patrick the blame, she won’t. “I’m an adult,” she says. “Taking the pills was my decision. Seeking out more—from Norah—was my decision. A decision I made again and again.”
    They are no longer angry. Now, they are sad. Patrick opens his arms; Jennifer crawls into them. They make love, possibly the fiercest, most passionate love of their marriage, and Jennifer thinks that maybe, just maybe, everything is going to be all right.
    Later, they eat the blue cheese mashed potatoes out of the pot while standing in front of the stove. Patrick gnaws on a veal chop while Jennifer attacks the spinach salad.
    He says, “I don’t want to ruin our beautiful détente, but we have to talk about my mother.”
    Jennifer closes her eyes. Margaret Quinn is now Jennifer’s least favorite subject. Jennifer has over a dozen voice-mail messages from Margaret, but she hasn’t been able to listen to a single one.
    â€œYou can’t avoid her forever,” Patrick says. “She’s my mother. She’s the boys’ grandmother.”
    â€œI know,” Jennifer whispers.
    â€œShe doesn’t think any less of you,” Patrick says. “She isn’t like that.”
    Jennifer spears a cherry tomato, then a slice of white button mushroom. There’s no way to make Patrick understand how mortified Jennifer is that Margaret knows about her addiction. Telling her own mother and Mitzi and Kelley wasn’t great, but it was better than admitting her addiction to Margaret Quinn. The shame of what she’s done and how she’s done it has frozen the