That she would call me up to ask me what color I would be, if I were a color, because she was so completely purple and she wanted to know if we'd match. That she was like no one I'd ever met, that when I moved inside the kaleidoscope heart of her, I saw how dreary my life had been. I don't tell Eric this, because it's all I have left of that girl. “What happened?” he asks.“She drove me home from the bar,” I say simply. “A month later I found out she was pregnant.” She'd used words like should and too soon and career and abortion. I had looked right at her and asked her if she wanted to get married instead.“What made you get divorced?”There were a whole string of things, if I want to be honest about it. And yes, there was a trigger. But I should have known that someone who was such a child herself would not feel comfortable taking care of one. I should have been more supportive after our son was stillborn, instead of clutching Beth like a shield to ward off the grief. But most of all, I should have admitted to myself far earlier that the things I loved about Elise, the impulsiveness and the craziness and the spur-of-the-moment outlook, were not really part of her personality, but a product of the alcohol.
