A Faulty Step

[Maura Blake]

"I thought I'd be hearing from you," Maura said into her cell phone once she recognized the number. No contact name had been listed save for a single letter: C. The announcement took the place of any formal (or informal) greeting.

"This doesn't make you Sherlock Holmes," the woman's voice on the other end replied, equal parts humored and relieved. "I always call you... this time of year especially."

Especially. Maura tried not to glance at the calendar pinned to the wall behind her desk. Underneath a photograph of a Toronto Blue Jay's outfielder catching a fly ball, rows of dated boxes were filled in with reminders, appointments, interviews and deadlines. All except one. The date loomed like a dark cloud, weighted heavily with potential storms. It was the day she met Louis Wrightman. Of course, that was her mind's way of alleviating the amount of stress and trauma she had faced that one night off the stormy coast of Long Island -- when she fought off a deranged madman bent on her demise and that of another woman who Maura had unwittingly saved. Mau-ra-E-liz-a-beth....

Blinking out of the taunting memory, she repositioned the phone against her ear. "I'm doing okay," though the very faint tremor of doubt was as loud as a scream. "You know it's a hard day for me. May and November," yet another one of the days which haunted her. "If I can just get by those two months, I know I'm good. You know me... I just bury myself in something and wait for it to pass by."

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about." C never minced words. It was one of the qualities Maura loved about the woman, her sponsor for the last six years. Except when it was aimed at her. And at the moment, C had the tact of a firing squad. "You are in a toxic relationship, Maura. It scares the shit out of me."

Maura suddenly regretted being brutally honest with C when it came to her relationship with Mel. She admitted his addictions to both drugs and alcohol, and that she'd been forced to drive a car when he was too hurt to do so himself. At the very least, she reasoned, he wasn't too drunk. "He needs me."

"No, he needs to get himself clean and sober. He's a grown man, Maura. And you -- at this point in your treatment -- you need to be careful. I've seen it a hundred times. You think you're invincible now because you've stayed sober for this long. Trust me when I say, it'll never be gone. The threat and the weakness. Why are you doing this to yourself?"

Maura was tempted to brush her thumb over the 'end call' button and pretend that the connection dropped. But that would be running away, not facing the inevitable conversation that was bound to happen between them. There were a hundred things she could have said to describe or validate the complications of her relationship. Yet, she went with the most simple of declarations. "He makes me happy."

"Uh huh. I understand. You're getting laid. That's great, congratulations. But this is going to destroy you."

"How do you know?" Maura snapped, turning in the leather chair behind her desk, facing away from the open door of her office which led to an array of co-workers gathered outside in the sea of short cubicles and an endless glow of computer monitors. "Look, I really appreciate everything -- and I mean every thing -- you've done for me. But I'm happy. He makes me happy in some twisted way."

"You said it right there. It's twisted. Maura, for God's sake, he's an addict. You are one... albeit a recovering one. Why, why would you put yourself in this position? I hear it in your voice, you know. You're afraid."

"I am," Maura admitted, leaning her head against the smooth, dark leather upholstery. "But not of him or what he is."

"Then what are you afraid of?"

A sigh served as prelude to the truth. "History repeating itself."