“No.… I won’t do that again.” She gave him a questioning look, and he raised both hands. “It was a mistake, and I know it. I won’t do it again,” he stated.
“Good,” she murmured. “And I get it. I know that it’s easy to try and drown your sorrows, but you can see what happens and how it impacts everybody else around you.”
He sobered at that. “Honestly, I can’t believe that I even got to that point mentally. I would have sworn that I would never do anything to hurt my kids.”
“Especially when they’re already suffering,” she noted. “You know perfectly well that they need a parent, and you can’t even begin to think that your parents, no matter how committed, would make a good substitute.”
He shook his head vehemently. “Oh no, not at all. I guess that it scared me—more than I expected something like this would—because I couldn’t have imagined such a thing would ever happen. Now I have to do a lot of work to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“And realize that you can’t handle booze. So don’t go there.”
He nodded slowly.
As she went to walk to the door, she asked, “By the way, when you were running and had that injury, who all was with you?”
“Just some runners from the club. Charlie was there,” he offered, with a smile. “We’ve stayed friends all these years.”
“Did he run with your wife afterward?”
“Nah, he’s a runner, but he’s not crazy like she was,” he replied, with a smile.
She nodded. “I’m glad to hear that. Please take care of yourself.”
He looked over at her. “Honest, I won’t do that again.”
There was enough belief in his tone for her to realize that he at least meant it. It didn’t mean that she actually believed it would hold him through times of trouble in the future, but she had to believe that maybe he could get through this. She wished him well and walked out of the hospital.
As soon as she got outside, she phoned Charlie. “Hey, Charlie,” she greeted him, as she identified herself. “I just came from the hospital, where I spoke with Agnew.”
“Shit,” he said, “I heard about that.”
“What did you hear?”
“That he tried to kill himself. Man, that kid just can’t get a break,” he stated.
“I’m hoping that he’ll get what he needs now. Obviously this was just a little more than he could handle.”
“Well, wouldn’t it be for everybody?” Charlie stated, disgust in his tone. “Jesus, you lose your wife like that, and it all just comes crashing in.”
“No, I hear you,” she said. “Were you there when he had his accident?”
“Yeah, I sure was,” he confirmed. “He and that crazy-ass wife of his were out running, chasing each other, instead of being safe on the uneven trail. He went ass over teakettle off the trail, snapped a tendon, and did some other muscle and ligament damage, bad on one foot but terrible on the other. He could never run after that. I mean, obviously he could do a little bit of running, more like hobbling, but nothing like he could before.”
“Yeah, that’s what he was telling me. Did he get really depressed back then?”
“Oh yeah, big-time. It was part of the bonding with his wife,” he stated. “And that made for a lot of difficulties in their marriage, up until she hooked up with her running buddy. Then those two women together were nuts. Nobody would run with them.”
“Some people are always after the adrenaline,” Kate noted.
“Well, that’s what these two were, adrenaline junkies like you wouldn’t believe. The harder, the faster, the steeper the trail, the better, and, if it was a flat run, then it was always about who could beat the other,” he said, an odd note in his tone. “But still, it’s not them that bothers me. Yeah, of course, they were young and in the prime of life, and somebody took them out, but I am sorry for the people who are left behind. That’s just so sad.” He sounded genuinely sincere. “Like, who’d have thought this guy would have ever tried to take his own life?”
“No, I hear you there, not with his two kids,” she added quietly. “Yet I’m pretty confident that he’ll get some help now.”
“And I’ll be there for him too. I would have been right there with him, if I’d known,” he said sadly. “I didn’t even know it was that bad. I guess, when we lose somebody, we don’t know quite what to do.”
Kate suggested, “You can share your condolences directly with Agnew, then offer any help you can actually provide, you know?”
“But what help can we really give him and his kids? What could I do for a guy who lost his wife that way?” he asked. “It just sucks all the way around.”