The Ranch

“She was very sneaky, and she wanted to die,” Zoe said simply. Her practice had taught her a great deal in the past two decades. “You couldn't have stopped her.”

“I wish I believed that,” Mary Stuart said sadly, confused suddenly if they were talking about her son, or their roommate,

“I know,” Zoe persisted, as firm in this position as she had once been in the other. “She didn't want you to know what she was doing. If she had, you could have stopped her, but you couldn't.”

“I wish I had,” Mary Stuart said, staring at her hands folded in her lap, as the other two watched her. And Tanya was worried. “I wish I had known, about both of them.” She raised her eyes to her friends’, and they could both see the agony she held here.

“Both of whom?” Zoe was confused now, and Mary Stuart didn't answer, but the others just waited. “Mary Stuart?” She looked at her, and then she understood as Mary Stuart looked at her, and she wished she could have died for her, for both of them. She could only begin to imagine the agony she'd been through. Even more so after the distant memory of Ellie. It must have been like reliving it all again, but it had been so much worse for her. It made Zoe sob to realize what had happened. “Oh my God,” she said, as she clutched her old friend and they both cried. “Oh, God… Stu… I'm so sorry…”

“It was so awful,” Mary Stuart cried, “it was so terrible… and Bill said all the same things you did, and more.” She went on sobbing as though her heart would break. But Mary Stuart knew it couldn't, it had broken long before that. “And Bill still blames me,” she explained. “He hates me. He's in London now, without me, because he can't bear the sight of me, and I don't blame him. He thinks I killed our son, or let him die, at the very least… just as you thought about Ellie.”

“I was a fool,” Zoe said, still holding Mary Stuart in her arms, but it was small comfort in the face of what had happened. “I was twenty-two years old and an inexperienced moron. Bill should know better.”

“He's convinced I could have stopped him.”

“Then someone needs to tell him the truth about suicides. Stu, if he really wanted to, wild horses couldn't have stopped him. If he really wanted to, he would never have given you any warning.”

“He didn't,” she said sadly, blowing her nose in the tissue Tanya handed her, as Zoe sat back and put an arm around Mary Stuart's shoulders.

“You can't blame yourself. You have to try and accept what happened. As awful as it is, you can't change it, you can't stop it. You couldn't have stopped it then. All you can do now is go on, or you'll destroy yourself and everything around you.”

“Actually, we've done a fairly good job of that.” She blew her nose again and smiled at both her friends through the tears she was still crying. “There's nothing left of our marriage. Absolutely nothing.”

“Well, not if he blames you. Somebody needs to talk to him.”

“Probably my lawyer,” Mary Stuart said, laughing grimly, and the other two smiled at her. She sounded a little more herself, and Tanya held one hand, and Zoe the other. “I've kind of decided to give it up. I'm going to tell him when he comes back from London.”

“What's he doing there?” Zoe was curious. She didn't think they lived there.

“He has a big case there for the next two or three months, but he wouldn't let me come with him.”

Zoe raised an eyebrow, and looked like her old cynical self as the other two watched her. She had mellowed a lot over the last twenty years, but there was still quite a lot of spice there. “Is he involved with someone else?”

“Actually, I don't think so. We haven't made love in a year, not since the night before Todd died. He's never touched me since. It's like the ultimate silent punishment. I think I so revolt him he can't touch me. But anyway, I really don't think there is someone else. That might be easier to understand than what's happened.”

“Not really,” Zoe looked clinical more than sympathetic.

“Some people just freeze up after traumas like that. It's pretty typical. I've heard it before. It's not exactly therapeutic, however, for a marriage.”

“Not really.” Mary Stuart smiled briefly. “Anyway, I think I've finally figured out what I need for myself. He's never going to forgive me anyway, and I might as well get it over with. Living with him is like living with my guilt every day, and I just can't do it.”

“You shouldn't,” Zoe said quietly. “He either has to deal with it honestly, or you need to get out. I think you're doing the right thing,” she said matter-of-factly. “What about your daughter?”