LITMIR.BIZ

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Center for Missing & Exploited Children, faces on milk cartons, countless websites on the Internet. All too often, she recognized images of strangers who had vanished without a trace.

      Her visions came to her before the victims disappeared, in every case. Cam was seeing their future.

      Yet she never found a way to identify any of the victims in advance, or figure out exactly when or where any of her premonitions would come to pass.

      Powerless to warn them and prevent the horrific events, all she could do was watch the prophetic dramas unfold.

      She made painstaking notes, writing down every detail in a series of Marble notebooks she kept hidden away in her closet.

      And, filled with dread, she simply waited…

      Wondering if perhaps the cruelest fate of all was her own: helpless, hopeless witness to the inevitable.

      Chapter Two

      Rain started falling an hour ago, pattering into the metal gutters beneath the roof of the brick Colonial. It cools the damp breeze that ruffles the white curtains at the window above the sink and lightly mists Cam’s skin as she stands beside it.

      Dinner finished, Tess is upstairs doing her homework.

      Cam stares out the window as she drinks a glass of milk, Dr. Advani’s orders. She never could stomach the stuff, not even in cereal. She’d pour just enough into the bowl to moisten the flakes, then she’d drain it off the spoon before every bite.

      Just another of my charming little quirks, she thinks wryly, trying not to gag as she drains the last few drops.

      She drank a glass every day of her first pregnancy, too. Back then, though, it was chocolate milk.

      This time around, she seems to have developed an aversion to chocolate, of all things. Usually, she needs a daily fix—preferably of her favorite: Godiva. Now she can’t even stand the smell of anything cocoa-related.

      Last time, it was coffee she couldn’t stomach. And red meat. And garlic. But only for the first three months; then it all passed, along with the morning sickness.

      Hopefully that will happen this time as well.

      Right now, it’s been pure torture getting up and moving in the mornings, and has been ever since St. Patrick’s Day, when she discovered her pregnancy. The morning after, Cam did her best to muffle the sound of being sick in the master bathroom. She forced down some crackers before dropping an unsuspecting Tess at school.

      Then she drove straight over to the musty basement of an Elks Club, where she uttered the stunning words for the first time.

      My name is Cam, and I’m an alcoholic.

      The moment she said it aloud, she felt an enormous flood of relief sweep through her.

      Yet with that came a trickle of doubt and disbelief as well.

      An alcoholic? How could she be an alcoholic?

      It wasn’t as though she were a barfly with a string of DUIs and cirrhosis of the liver.

      She never even drank in public, for God’s sake.

      And she never once got behind the wheel after a drink.

      She never drank herself blind drunk, vomited, blacked out.

      Never did any of the uncivilized, abhorrent, illegal things so many people associate with alcoholism.

      She was just…comfortably numb. That was it. That was all.

      Like the old Pink Floyd song her father frequently listened to when she was growing up.

      Obviously, the lyrics spoke to him.

      It wasn’t until Cam was an adult facing demons of her own that the lyrics spoke to her as well.

      “I hear you’re feeling down.

      Well I can ease your pain…”

      It took her a long time, though, to figure out how it worked.

      To realize, as her father had, that booze was a guaranteed escape chute.

      When she drank, she could block out not just the painful memories of her past, but the frightening visions that tormented her for all those years.

      The premonitions were fewer and farther between. Whenever one did strike, it would be more fragmented than before. A muffled voice, a blurred face, perhaps a snatch of scenery. Wrapped in a liquor-induced security blanket no chilling premonition could possibly penetrate, Cam grew more and more detached from the imperiled strangers in her head.

      Finally, the visions subsided altogether. She hasn’t had one since Tess was a toddler.

      Now that she’s shed the security blanket, though, she’s been holding her breath, waiting.

      Praying that if—when—the premonitions start up again, she’ll be strong enough to stay sober.

      How many times has she tried to get to this point before, and fallen off the wagon? She’d never made it to an actual AA meeting before March, let alone admitted to anyone, least of all herself, that she has a problem.

      No, but she did attempt to cut way back on the booze whenever Mike made her feel self-conscious about it; when he warned her that it was coming between them.

      Only now that she’s stopped can she see that drinking didn’t just protect her from the visions; it insulated her emotions—all her emotions. Fear and sorrow, yes, but pleasure and joy as well. Eventually, she was going through the motions of marriage—and, yes, occasionally even motherhood. But it was the marriage that suffered most, because she mostly drank at night, when Mike was around and her time with Tess had wound down.

      She never went cold turkey until now but she did manage, more than once, to limit herself to a single glass of wine with dinner—not the hard stuff, and she’d stop sipping right after they ate. When she got to that point, she’d have hope. And sometimes, hope would last for weeks at a time.

      But never more than that.

      Something would eventually trigger her to have an extra glass of wine one night, or to chase it with vodka, and the next thing she knew, she was back to her old habits.

      She won’t let it happen this time, though.

      Cold turkey.

      That’s what it takes.

      Cold turkey. Twelve steps. One day at a time, with her sponsor, a woman named Kathy, promising to guide her along.

      Now the stakes are higher than ever before.

      Now she has to stay sober, for her baby’s sake, and for Tess’s, because Cam is on her own. Mike is no longer here to pick up the slack, to pick up the pieces…to pick her up—quite literally, at times.

      That’s okay. I don’t need him. I’m strong enough now. I can do it, Cam thinks resolutely, setting the empty milk glass in the sink beside the two bowls from their meal. She’ll load the dishwasher later. Or tomorrow.

      She puts the milk carton back into the fridge, noticing the World’s Best Mom shopping list pad stuck to the door. Tess gave it to her on Mother’s Day, apologetically saying it came from the dollar store—along with a box of drugstore chocolates Cam pretended she couldn’t wait to eat when in reality, just the picture on the lid—sickeningly sweet white cream oozing from a half-bitten chocolate—made her want to gag. They could have been Godiva and she’d have felt the same way.

      She must not be that great an actress, because Tess said, “Sorry I didn’t get you something better. I would have if I could have.”

      What she meant was, she would have gotten something better if her father had taken her Mother’s Day shopping as he had in years past. Last year, Mike and Tess gave Cam a designer handbag; the year before, tickets for the three of them to see Jersey Boys on Broadway. There were always flowers, too, delivered from the florist

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