The Ninth Step (28 page)

 “What happened?”

“They told me it was all right; they understood; they
forgave
me. I thought I would feel better, but I didn’t. Still don’t. There’s not a day that goes by, I don’t think of him lying there, helpless, dying alone.”

“But that was war. You aren’t responsible--”

“Cotton wants to make amends, he stands a better chance of that if he’s locked up, if he pays the debt.” Charlie looked at Livie over his shoulder. “Do you see what I’m saying?”

She went to him and put her hand on his back.

“I know how Cotton feels inside, Livie, how cut up he is. That’s all I’m trying to say.” He flipped the toasted sandwich onto a plate, expertly halved it with the spatula blade and handed it to her. “Not that I’m defending the guy,” he added.

Livie carried her plate to the table and sat looking dubiously at it. She wondered if she could eat. She wondered if matters of justice and compassion and mercy could ever be as simply resolved as Charlie seemed to think. She wondered if he or Cotton would ever feel free. She took a small bite of the sandwich and said,  “Mom called you didn’t she? That’s why you came over.”

“She was worried after she left the cemetery.”

“She didn’t have to be.”

“Look, Livie, when I heard where you were, that you were with Cotton alone, I called JB.”

Livie started to protest.

Charlie cut her off. “None of us had any idea what he had in mind. He’s a fugitive, for Christ’s sake and there’s that woman, the one who said he’s got somebody after him.”

“That was his sponsor who called JB.”

Charlie looked at her.

Livie explained. “Cotton seems to think she was being dramatic, but if Wes Latimer were to figure out who Cotton is-- But Cotton’s turning himself in so he’ll be safe now.”

“But he’s not there. He not at the sheriff’s office.”

Livie set her sandwich half on her plate.

“You know JB ran his name through the computer.”

“You said nothing came back.”

“Not until a couple of days ago, a report out of New Mexico. Some farmer there called the police on an old truck he spotted pushed into a ravine. It turned out to be Cotton’s and it was pretty much totaled, but while they were hunting around inside, they found a cell phone under the driver’s seat.” Charlie put together a  second cheese sandwich and settled it onto the griddle. He told Livie to eat. “Before it gets cold.”

But she couldn’t. “It wasn’t Cotton’s cell phone?”

“Nope. Belonged to Latimer’s wife.”

“Oh, no--”

“A warrant’s been issued for Cotton’s arrest.”

Livie pushed her plate away. The smell was nauseating.

“JB sent a couple of deputies out to the cemetery to get him, but by the time they got there, both of you were gone.” Charlie flipped the second sandwich onto a plate and carried it to the table. He sat across from Livie, caught her glance from under his brows. “Everybody was real glad to hear about it when you showed up here, little gal.”

“But this is so ridiculous,” Livie flung her hands wide, “the way everyone is making Cotton out to be some kind of-- I don’t even know--”

“It’s not right, the way Cotton comes sneaking around at all hours of the night. He slept on your porch, for God’s sake, right outside your door.”

“You told JB about that.”

“Your mother did. I just verified it was true, that Cotton was here, way too early for a social visit. And he was wearing my shirt,” Charlie added darkly. “Now he’s taken off again. Seems to be what he does best.”

“I have to find him.” Livie stood up.

“What? No, that’s JB’s job.”

Livie held Charlie’s gaze.

“I know it’s hard. You want to believe in him, but he’s not the man you thought.”

“I think he is, somewhere inside, he still is.”

“Look, maybe while he was talking to you, he had every intention of doing the right thing, he meant every word, but then when he got away--” Charlie shrugged. “It’s hard to face up to your responsibility sometimes, you know? Hell, he’s spent the last six years trying to avoid it. You said he couldn’t stand to look at himself in the mirror. He’s probably a hundred miles from here by now, warming a barstool.”

“They’ll find him, JB and his deputies, and they’ll arrest him.” Livie sat back down.

“Sure they will. I doubt he’ll get far.”

She brought her hands to her face and shook her head. She didn’t believe Cotton was gone again. She had seen something in his eyes, something committed, a kind of brick-hard resolution that said he was through with running. She said, “I can’t just sit here.”

“So, we’ll play a game of Parcheesi. I’ll let you whip the pants off me the way Stella does.”

“Do you remember Razz?”

Charlie stopped eating. “The McKesson’s dog?”

“Remember what Nancy said?--that the driver who hit him ought to be shot.”

“People can get pretty riled, go off the deep end.”

“Yes,” Livie said. “They can.” She stood up, pushed in her chair. She said she was going out to make sure she’d latched the hen house door.

Charlie carried their plates to the sink and turned on the water.

Livie scooted into the hall, picked up her purse and her cell phone from the table and left by the front door closing it softly behind her. She slid into her car and maneuvered quickly around Charlie’s truck.

“People can get pretty riled, go off the deep end.”
Charlie’s warning echoed through her mind.

At the end of her driveway, she paused and looked back at her house. He was coming, shouting at her to wait. But she couldn’t wait. There wasn’t time.

Chapter 22

He didn’t expect Livie to invite him in and she didn’t. But when he bent to kiss her outside on her porch, she allowed it, even clinging to him for a brief passage of moments and then she was gone. The screen door was shut, the front door was closed and he was alone with nothing more than the memory of her scent, the sense of her mouth under his. He felt the yielding pressure of her hip, the fullness of her breasts. He wondered how he could live without her.

And yet he knew there was no possibility of them being together, that he’d killed any chance of that as effectively as he’d murdered Joan Latimer. Anita would tell him to get off the pity pot. But it wasn’t pity; it was fact. Truth. Reality. He couldn’t change it. Nothing he ever did was going to undo the consequences of his actions. All the bad shit would still be all the bad shit.

 Cotton didn’t think about it when he stopped and bought the pint of Jim Beam. He tossed it into the passenger seat, yanked off his tie, loosened the collar of his shirt, and then drove aimlessly. He thought of finding a meeting. Calling Sonny. Anita. He checked his watch. Nikki’s party had started an hour ago. He should go there, but when he reached the interstate, instead of north he headed south to Galveston Bay. He parked and walked down to the beach. When he and Scott were kids, they’d come here a lot with Delia. On occasion, like at the lake, she’d brought out her paints, set up her easel, but more often, they’d run wild while she lay on a towel stuporous from the heat and gin. But she’d laughed at their antics; sometimes she’d buried them in the sand. He wished now he’d brought her ashes here. She would have liked that.

His eyes teared. From the wind, he thought. 

The loose hem of his white dress shirt flapped at his hips.

He unbuttoned the cuffs, rolled them to his elbows. He was aware of the surf breaking in a foamy line to his right. In the distance, he watched two small boys playing near the water’s edge. Nearby, a woman scooped handfuls of sand and let them fall in thin veils through her fingers. When he got close, she turned her gaze to him and her eyes seemed full of reproach. They were Delia’s eyes. Livie’s eyes. He jerked his gaze away, after a moment looked back, but the woman didn’t seem aware of him.

He walked until his calf muscles grew hot and ached with the strain. Back at the car, he dumped the sand out of his shoes and thought how crazy he must look out for a stroll dressed in his funeral clothes.

It was dark when he returned to his mother’s house. He took the unopened bottle inside. The kitchen still smelled faintly of the chicken and rice he and Scott and Sharon and the girls had eaten together last night. But he would not think of them. He unsheathed the bourbon from its paper sack, set the pint bottle on the table, turned a chair around and straddled it.

The only light came from the back porch fixture and it slanted across the kitchen floor, washed the table legs in a dull fluorescence, inked a dark line around one shoulder of the glass bottle. The amber liquid inside it glowed.

Cotton unscrewed the cap, picked up the pint and sniffed it. His mouth watered. He set it down, screwed the cap back on. When his cell phone rang, he pulled it out of his pocket. Scott’s number showed in the window. Cotton guessed they’d made it back to Seattle. Scott was probably calling to see how Nikki’s party was going. He set the phone on the table, passed the half pint from hand to hand.

He could drink it. Wasn’t like there was anyone around to stop him. He could leave here, take it with him, drive.

And keep driving.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.

Powerless. God, he hated that word. 

He stood up and swept the bottle off the table. Uncapped it and dumped the contents into the sink, letting it fall with a clatter. The sweet pungent smell watered his eyes, made his mouth thirst. But it was over. He couldn’t do it; couldn’t drink and run, not anymore.

#

He was afraid they would have gone to bed, but Nikki was in the yard picking up party trash when he rounded the corner of the house.

She spotted him and straightened. She wondered where he’d been and the tender blade of her reproval and the hurt he’d caused her slid painfully between his ribs.

Cotton squashed the impulse to invent some excuse. “Where’s your dad?”

“In the kitchen, washing stuff,” she said.

“Is your brother here?”

“Uh-uh. He couldn’t make it either. There’s a tropical storm by Florida; they canceled his flight. Why?”

“Can we go in the house? I need to tell you and your dad something. About your mom.”

“My mom?”

Wes was at the sink and he was surprised when he saw Cotton follow Nikki through the door. “Party’s over, buddy.” He tried a smile, but it flattened into annoyance and then into bewilderment when Cotton barked a short laugh and said, “You can say that again.”

Wes glanced at Nikki, hunting a clue, finding none.

Cotton tented his fingertips, brought them to his mouth, tossed his hands apart. “Look, there’s no easy way to do this, I should have told you straight off. You remember the day I came here, when you thought I was the contractor you’d hired?”

“Yeah, what about it?” Wes dried his hands.

“I wasn’t here for the job. I came to tell you I’m the guy who hit your wife six years ago.”

Nikki and Wes exchanged a glance. Both pairs of eyes turned back to Cotton. Wes looked done in, like he’d lost all his air. When Humphrey whined at the back door, Nikki went to let him in as if nothing Cotton had said was news. She resumed her position beside her father but kept her hand on Humphrey’s head, scratching his ears. He leaned against her held captive by her attention. Cotton was glad for his presence.

“What are you saying?” Wes asked when he recovered enough breath to speak and his voice combined tight fibers of newborn alarm with a tougher, much-chewed-over gristle of rage and Cotton knew he was getting ready to pin his own face on Wes’s hate, on his need for revenge that had been cooking ever since he’d received word of his wife’s death.

“I was on my way to get married at the chapel on the lake,” Cotton spoke quickly, “I was late and the freeway was backed up so I got off, thinking I’d dogleg around the jam. I’d had a drink, I won’t lie to you, but I wasn’t--”  Cotton stopped.

“You were driving around drunk.”

“I didn’t see the stop sign; I never saw your wife until I hit her.”

“You left the scene.”

“I’m so sorry--”

“You left my wife in the road like a fucking animal, like road kill. You left my little girl frightened out of her mind. She’s never gotten over it, did you know that?”

Cotton looked at Nikki and she looked back, chin knotted, mouth trembling, shaking her head.

“And you had the balls to come here, to work for me? You were going to take my money?” Wes’s voice rang with disbelief.

Cotton’s denial wasn’t clear of his mouth before Wes ordered him out and when Cotton didn’t move fast enough to suit him, Wes grabbed him in a bearhug and strongarmed him clumsily toward the door.

“I’m sorry.” Cotton said it again and once more; he wore out the words. He said,  “Please, I’ll go. I don’t--I never did want your money. You don’t have to do this.”

Wes got the back door open. He shoved Cotton out onto the deck. It didn’t take much effort; Cotton wasn’t fighting. He wasn’t even talking now. There was no use.

He went to the Mercedes and got in, pushed the key into the ignition, lowered the window, but then he lowered his head to the steering wheel. He couldn’t move, couldn’t bear his own weight anymore.  

“Why did you let us think you were our friend?”

Cotton straightened and looked at Nikki through the open window. She had Humphrey by the collar and she came close to the car, but not close enough for Cotton to reach. He darted his glance toward the house worried for her, worried about what Wes was doing. Calling the cops? Loading the Glock?

“Why did you lie?”

“It was a mistake.” Cotton got out of the Mercedes, slowly; he didn’t want to frighten Nikki, not ever again.

“Do you still get drunk and drive?”

“No.”

“Will you ever?”

“No.” Cotton would have promised her anything. “But you have to promise me something, too,” he said.

“What?” she asked.

“You have to promise to believe me when I tell you the accident wasn’t your fault. You didn’t make it happen because you messed up your uniform.”

Her gaze questioned his.