The Ninth Step Read online

  Sonny’s brows rose.

  “She’s an attorney, or she was. She worked in the DA’s office. She fell on her ass once in a courtroom in the middle of a high profile trial. Judge wasn’t too happy about it.”

  “Ah.” Sonny pulled out his wallet. He handed Cotton his business card. “You need me, those are all my numbers.” He started to turn away, turned back. “I’m curious, what made you pick me?”

  “You did something you’re not proud of, you went to jail--”

  “Yeah, so--?”

  Cotton looked into the street and gave Sonny the facts about the accident, the short version.

  “You’re thinking they can get you for vehicular manslaughter, something like that.”

  Cotton nodded.

  “All right then. We’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, you need to make a meeting a day, if you can.” Sonny squinted at him. “You’ve got steady work now, right?”

  Cotton said he did.

  They went the rest of the way down the steps, shook hands on the sidewalk. Sonny turned, then turned back, holding Cotton’s gaze. “You know the program didn’t make a damn to me at first either. I bet I fell off the wagon a half dozen times.”

  “I thought--”

  “Yeah, but you can get juiced in the joint the same as out here. But here’s the thing, what I finally figured out, booze is not the problem, at least, it’s not the main problem. It’s more like a side effect.” Sonny’s glance pondered a spot beyond Cotton’s shoulder like he was having a think about what he wanted to say, but when he brought his glance back, it was sharp and hard, like a finger jab.

  Cotton felt the jolt to his heels.

  “Lying--” Sonny advised, “to yourself--that’s the problem. One hundred times out of one hundred. I finally figured out I had to tell the truth, I had to own up to what I was and all the shit I’d done, no matter how bad it hurt. It’s the only way.”

  #

  Sonny talked like Anita. Cotton pulled the Mercedes into traffic. They were a couple of nutcases. Zealots. Big bullshit detectors. So what? Like they knew what Cotton should do, how he should live. If he didn’t know better he’d think they were in contact with each other. He’d think Anita had sicced Sonny on him since she couldn’t be here herself. The goddamned booze patrol. Who needed it? But then he glanced into the rearview and it hit him that he’d never tried it. He’d never looked anyone in the face outside of Anita, or outside of a meeting, and said, “I’m an alcoholic.”

  He’d never said it to Scott the handful of times he’d ever seen him in Seattle; he hadn’t told Delia either when he’d seen her last Sunday.

  It isn’t true.

  Yeah, maybe it is, argued the other voice in his head, the loud-mouthed sober hard ass that wanted to take Cotton over, be the good guy.

  Cotton darted another glance at himself in the rearview.

  I’m an alcoholic. The words bounced around in his brain. They sounded like a cop-out, like an excuse and if that’s how the truth sounded, why go there? Joan Latimer would be just as dead. Wes as wifeless. Nikki as motherless.

  Cotton imagined telling Delia he was in AA. After she got through ripping him a new one for taking her gin, she’d laugh her ass off.

  Probably. . . .

  She’d ask him what led him to take the pledge.

  He wondered what he’d say then.

  The truth?

  What would she do, if she knew? Pour him a stiff one?

  Chapter 11

  Shall I tell you?

  Her secret, Delia had meant.

  Livie waited for an opening and changed lanes. Why wasn’t there ever a policeman when you needed one? She looked at her satchel, where her cell phone was stowed. She ought to call Kat and let her know Stella was with Charlie, but no. She wasn’t up to it, the “What is it about Delia?” lecture.

  Why do you feel so responsible for her?

  Let the paramedics handle it. The police. Cotton.

  Where was he?

  Shall I tell you?

  About her own wedding that wasn’t, Delia had meant.

  In the flurry of consternation over Livie’s absent groom and the aborted nuptials, when she’d been deserted by her attendants and all but forgotten by her own mother and Kat who’d had their hands full dealing with the guests, the minister, the musicians and the caterers, it had been Delia who had come in search of Livie, who had found her alone and in utter shock in the small anteroom at the chapel.

  It was Delia who helped her out of her gown. Who murmured things, sweet tender things, like, “Don’t you worry, sugar,” and, “He’ll turn up, he’ll have some wild story.”

  It astonished Livie even now to remember Delia’s demeanor--since when did Cotton’s mother call her “sugar”?--but in the moment, Livie had clung to Delia. She’d been Livie’s single link to Cotton and her future with him that was slipping away. It had meant so much to have Delia’s comfort. Her reassurance.

  Cotton had car trouble, she said. Cotton had overslept. While Livie stood motionless in the shaft of light that fell from the clerestory, Delia set about unfastening the long row of tiny buttons that lay against Livie’s spine and said, “You know how he is; he’ll be late for his own funeral.”

  They neither one believed Delia’s excuses, but Livie had been taken out of herself, out of her panic, by Delia’s soothing ministrations, the sound of her voice. The moment had elongated, become as surreal as the drift of dust motes in the quiet sunlit air. Delia had turned Livie toward her, slipped the bodice of her dress from her shoulders and announced, out of the blue, or so it had seemed to Livie then, that she’d once had her heart broken by a man.

  “Shall I tell you?” she had asked.

  “Yes,” Livie said. She knew Delia came from old Louisiana money, that her daddy, whom she had adored, had been in oil, that he’d owned a construction firm, a string of banks.

  In taking up the story, Delia said her fiancé, not Harold who was Cotton’s daddy, but the other boy, the one she had loved, was like her. “He was from a wealthy family, too. We were so happy, so much in love. Our wedding would have been the social event of the century.” Delia fished her flask from her purse; she uncapped and recapped it. “But it didn’t happen. I married Harold instead. Daddy arranged it.”

  He had cut her off after that, Delia said. She never spoke to her daddy or her mama again. She saw Jimmy only sporadically. “My brother loved Scott and Cotton,” she explained, “but not me. I ruined the family, you see? I broke our father’s heart.”

  What happened? The question hovered. Somehow Livie knew it wouldn’t be answered and it wasn’t. By then Delia’s voice was raw, her humiliation tangible and as stringent as an odor of lightning-sparked ozone. Compassion and shared grief prompted Livie to reach for Delia, but she raised her hand.

  “Please, don’t,” she whispered and turning her back she found solace in her flask, a series of quick sips. Livie remembered Delia’s closed eyes, the flex of her throat as she swallowed. She remembered feeling undone by Delia’s story, feeling there was more to it, something deeper.

  Livie sensed it still, that she was missing a vital piece, but she’d never asked.

  After Delia had fortified herself, she had helped Livie dress in her street clothes and they’d gone to Delia’s house and sat on Cotton’s bed, waiting for word, hand-in-hand, new best friends. When night came, Delia coaxed Livie into taking a few spoonfuls of chicken noodle soup and the next morning Livie added tomato juice and a celery stick to Delia’s glass of gin insistent that she have something solid in her stomach. They were tender in their care of each other as any two loving friends would be who were facing a crisis together.

  But four days later, when Cotton’s postcard arrived resolving if not the mystery of his disappearance, at least the matter of his safety, Delia reverted to her old hostility and in the span of one breath, she turned on Livie, her face knotted with contempt and said, “I knew it was your fault; I knew you’d end up driving him away.”
>
  Livie couldn’t have been more stunned if Delia had stabbed her in the eye with a fork. As ridiculous as it seemed now, she had thought she and Delia would continue as friends, as family, even in Cotton’s absence. But Delia had retreated like an injured animal; she’d gone into herself, into her bottle. In the months that followed, Livie had taken her own misguided journey into the dark side, not in the same way, but she’d come back from that place frightened for herself nonetheless. The comparison to Delia had seemed unavoidable. Poor miserable, lonely, unhappy Delia. Who wouldn’t forget and couldn’t forgive. That would be Livie’s future too.

  If she wasn’t careful.

  #

  The ambulance was parked in front of Delia’s house, but there was no sign of the sheriff or the paramedics, which meant they were inside, Livie thought. Which meant Delia must have let them in. So maybe it wasn’t bad if she’d been able to open the door. Livie got out of her car. A faint early evening breeze was laced with the smell of dinner cooking, something fried, and as she crossed the yard, her stomach rumbled, which amazed her. It wasn’t as if she could eat anything.

  Livie stepped onto the front porch and rang the bell. Nothing. Not a sound. She went to the railing and leaning over, she glanced up and down the street. She felt under scrutiny and glanced sharply toward the house next door, caught the twitch of a window curtain shutting. Except for the old man, Max, it wasn’t a friendly neighborhood according to Delia. But Livie thought it was Delia who wasn’t friendly, who held everyone at bay.

  “Ma’am? Are you the one who called us?”

  Livie looked at the man in uniform who had appeared in the driveway. “Yes, is Delia okay? Where is she?”

  “In the kitchen. She’s gonna have to be transported.” He headed toward the ambulance. Livie went with him.

  “Are you a relative?” he asked.

  “Friend,” Livie said. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “The house was locked up when we got here.” He opened the rear of the ambulance and in a series of quick, practiced motions, unloaded the gurney and hustled it back up the drive. “Took us awhile to get in. The fire department was here earlier; they had to force the back door. You know anything about her medical history?”

  “No, I--”

  “She’s severely hypertensive. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

  “Did she fall?” Livie followed him up the steps, but if he answered, she didn’t hear him.

  Crossing the threshold into Delia’s kitchen, she was lost, helpless in the attempt to make sense of the scene: the dinette table shoved against the glass-fronted china cabinet, the chairs pushed helter-skelter, the window shade hanging askew. Had it always hung that way? And why was it that everywhere she directed her gaze, she saw red? Running down the wall, swiped there on the cabinet under the sink, puddled on the floor? Paint, Livie thought.

  But it didn’t smell like paint. No. The stench was hotly metallic and too sweet, somehow acrid. Livie gagged and put her hand over her mouth shifting her gaze, hunting wildly for Delia, but all she saw were a couple of guys in uniforms kneeling in a tangle of equipment and two bare bruised-looking feet and ankles so grossly swollen, there was no way they could belong to Delia.

  “You aren’t gonna give way on me now, are you?” A third paramedic, the one she’d met outside, put his hand under her elbow.

  She allowed him to lead her out onto the porch.

  “Breathe,” he ordered and waited, looking patiently at her, while she gulped air.

  “I’m all right,” she said.

  “Sure?” he asked.

  “I guess you’re used to this,” she said.

  “It’s my first time out actually. I’m sort of nervous.”

  Livie managed a smile. “I hate first days,” she said. The bleat of a car horn sounded in the silence. Then as Livie said, “Is Delia--?”

  The paramedic was saying, “Listen, I’m not gonna lie to you. She’s in bad shape, but we’re doing everything we can to stabilize her so we can transport her. You want to wait here? We’ll be bringing her out shortly, I think. You can follow us in your car. We’re taking her to Mercy.”

  Livie nodded.

  He started back inside, then turned. “She has any family, you might want to call them.”

  “She-- Yes, all right.” Livie couldn’t bring herself to say there was no one, at least no one she knew how to contact.

  The storm door whooshed shut. She went down the steps and stood staring at the sidewalk, mindlessly studying the weed-choked cracks, shifting aside from the purposeful march of ants. She ought to get her cell phone from the car, but whom would she call? What could Charlie do, or Kat, or her mother?

  When he rounded the corner of the house, she looked up, and she knew him immediately. He stopped. She watched recognition warm his eyes. The one-cornered grin she loved came on more slowly and something else was visible in his expression, simple gladness, the gift of bone-loosening relief. But maybe that was her imagination, a reflection of her own relief, that she was helpless to prevent. She balanced her hand on the porch rail. She could not have named what passed between them. The moment was so exquisitely tender, so outside the realm of anything she knew. It forgot time and heartache and betrayal and remembered only love. She might have gone to him then, forgiven him everything without question, if the door had not burst open.

  The paramedics maneuvered Delia on the gurney down the steps and reality snapped into place. Livie felt herself tremble. She tried to warn Cotton. “Your mother--” she began.

  His eyes jerked from hers to Delia, where she lay on the gurney. “My God! What happened?” Cotton bent over Delia calling, “Mom!” as if she might answer, but she was plainly unconscious. He walked alongside her, stopped after a few steps and when he turned to Livie, she saw that his expression was a mirror of her own pained wonderment at the capricious nature of fate, that it had chosen to throw them together now, in the midst of yet another calamity.

  He asked her how she had come to be there.

  “We were on the phone. I thought I heard her fall. It’s bad, Cotton. They said--”

  “She’s stable for the moment.” The paramedic who had been helpful earlier spoke up.

  Livie introduced Cotton and the paramedic repeated the information about where they were going.

  Cotton glanced at Livie in a way that suggested she could ride with him.

  “I have my car.”

  “Will you come to the hospital? Can you?”

  She shifted her gaze.

  “Forget it.” He sounded contrite. “You’ve already done more than--”

  “I’ll come.” She looked at him. It was the wrong response and she was unhappy with herself for it. She wished she could hate him, or at least be angry. She wished the circumstances of their meeting were different, but that, too, was futile, like crying for the moon.

  She wished she could touch him, trace the fullness of his lower lip, the arch of his brow, the dip that defined his temple that was so familiar, so much the same. There were shadows she didn’t understand in his eyes. The set of his jaw seemed more rigid than she remembered. She had the sense that he was holding himself in a fist.

  “Thanks,” he said and it was only one word, but his expression was loose, almost comical with some odd combination of consternation and joy. His mouth worked as if he were fighting a smile, a whoop of elation. She was afraid she might laugh from sheer nervousness. She would be like one of those bizarre people who brought balloons to funerals, who danced on graves.

  The noise of the ambulance doors slamming shut made her jump.

  “I’ll see you there.” Cotton was backing up as he spoke, keeping his eye on her. When she nodded, he turned away, spoke briefly to the paramedic who was driving the ambulance and then headed to his car.

  An old Mercedes, she saw. As big as a boat and painted a shade of reddish brown that would have been more hideous had it not been faded with age. The Cotton she had known wouldn’t have been caug
ht dead driving a junker like that. Livie wondered what had happened to his truck, the glossy black Ford F-450. It was for business, he’d said when he’d bought it, a write off. Driving something smaller would make him look cheap. Nobody wants a cheap looking builder constructing their home, he’d joked. Half joked. Cotton was like Kat, he loved all the flash and dazzle.

  But that was gone. All that big attitude, that swagger, worn off now. Livie imagined there was a story behind it.

  Even his walk seemed subdued.

  She waited, certain he would turn; he would find her again; she wanted him to, but he didn’t and it bothered her more than it should have that he could still disappoint her.

  #

  The ambulance led the way out of the subdivision, reassuringly without benefit of lights or siren. The early evening light was translucent, a watery mélange of silver, the palest tinge of lavender. Their pace was sedate enough that Livie felt comfortable dialing Charlie on her cell phone, but in all her explanation, she left out that she was following Cotton.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Should I call Kat and have her come pick up Stella, do you think?”

  “Noooo. . . .”

  “You have me on speaker?” Livie withheld a sigh.

  “We went out for hamburgers and now we’re playing Parcheesi,” Charlie said. “Stell’s beating the pants off me.”

  “Don’t call Mom. Pullleeease, Auntie Livie?”

  “There’s no sense in getting Kat all riled,” Charlie said.

  Bless you, Livie thought.

  “Stella’s fine here. If it gets too late and you aren’t back, she can sleep over.”

  “On the sleeping porch,” Stella shouted.

  They laughed at Stella’s exuberance.

  Livie told Charlie where he could find Stella’s overnight bag and she was passing along more instructions he didn’t need when the stripe of red light burst across the top of the ambulance and her heart paused. “I have to go,” she said, lifting her voice over the wail of the siren.