The Far End of Happy by Kathryn Craft Page A

problem.
    Ronnie’s mind raced. It was past midnight; she wouldn’t be able to get anyone to come over now to stay with the boys.
    The officer shifted his weight. Jeff watched her through the door.
    “I’ll go wake them.”
    The officers called an ambulance from the squad car and gave Ronnie directions to the hospital. She shivered; the night had cooled, the fog had thickened, and she had never put on a sweater. Within a few minutes, she saw flashing lights refracting through millions of water droplets hanging in the air down by the road.
    “We’ll walk him down so the driver doesn’t have to turn around up here,” an officer said.
    Ronnie then took in an image so incongruous she could only stare: Jeff, in handcuffs. He didn’t look at her as they led him away.
    In the attic Ronnie dressed the boys, explaining that their dad was sick. The ambulance had taken him to the hospital, and they had to go make sure he’d be okay.
    The boys quickly fell back asleep in the car. Ronnie’s thoughts flitted back to when Andrew was in first grade and had learned that some of the kids in his class were in a club called Banana Splits, which Ronnie knew to be a support group for kids from broken families. When at the end of the school year they got to have a banana split party with all the fixings, Andrew was jealous. He was a big lover of ice cream. One night, at a rare family dinner in which both Ronnie and Jeff were present, he said, “I think that next year I’d like to join Banana Splits.”
    Jeff had laughed along with Ronnie, who believed that those circumstances would never arise within their loving family. Ronnie had told Andrew, “You wouldn’t want to pay the cost of membership.”
    The fog wasn’t as prevalent closer to Reading, and Ronnie found the hospital. It was going on two a.m. and the emergency room was empty. The boys sprawled out on plastic seats in the waiting room, CNN droning on the television above them. She’d hoped they’d fall asleep, but they couldn’t get comfortable. They wanted to know what was wrong with their dad. It only occurred to Ronnie then that despite Jeff’s consumption of filterless cigarettes and alcohol, the boys had never seen him sick. Maybe the farm store vegetables helped, although he ate that way for frugality more than health, so he could eat in maturation what he paid for in seed.
    Time dragged while Jeff was assessed. The boys whined and wanted to know when they could go home. Ronnie told them the doctors were trying to figure that out.
    At long last, the social worker called her into a small office.
    “Your husband’s feeling pretty good right now.” Feeling good? Was Jeff putting on some kind of act? And was the act for Ronnie’s benefit or theirs? “His blood alcohol is 0.20. We can’t do a psych evaluation until that comes down.”
    This wasn’t drinking to numb—this was drinking toward coma. How on earth could he have consumed so much?
    “I understand he threatened suicide and that you want to commit him, so I’ve drawn up the paperwork.”
    The social worker slid the papers toward her. Handed her a pen. Ronnie’s stomach quivered.
    She tried to hold her voice steady when she asked what would happen to him if she committed him.
    “Tomorrow they’ll want to reassess him. Until then, we’ll make him comfortable so he can sleep it off.”
    Ronnie remembered the words Jeff had hissed at her: I will never forgive you for this. Saw again the disgust on his face as he was led away in handcuffs. The signature line on the commitment paper undulated. The consequences of this decision seemed too massive to pin down.
    Then she thought of Andrew and Will, out in the lobby, held hostage by CNN in bucket chairs when they needed to be sleeping in their beds.
    The line solidified, bold and clear.
    Ronnie took a deep breath and signed.

ronnie
    A police officer strode into the fire hall and handed Corporal McNichol a piece of paper. She took some time to look it