Part 42 (1/2)

”Normal? Wis.h.i.+ng someone you love would hurry up and die is normal?”

He looked down at our hands. The tears felt kind of nice, in a sick way, and telling him what an ogre I was helped, even though I didn't believe for a minute it was normal to choose whiskey over someone's life.

”I'm scared to death I'll fail,” I said.

”But you're equally scared you'll succeed.”

I nodded. ”I can't conceive of my life without Jack. I can't go on like this forever.”

”Just go on for today. We'll make it through tomorrow tomorrow.”

I got angry. ”Don't spout AA slogans at me. I'm no wino off the street.”

As soon as I said it I knew the words were bulls.h.i.+t. I was a wino off the street-or something just as bad. Looking at the lines on Lloyd's face, I had that same powerlessness feeling I'd had when Armand prepared to rape me.

”So, how do people quit?” I asked.

Lloyd's eyes were totally Jesus. It was as if he'd felt all the pain anyone anywhere ever felt and knew there was more to come. ”Most alcoholics do something so awful, they scare themselves off the binge,” he said. ”You hit bottom hard and say to yourself 'My G.o.d, what have I become?' and you stop for a while.”

”I've been there. I am there.”

”But I've never known fear alone to cause a long-term cure. In a few weeks the denial sets in and you take another drink. To really quit, you must replace the fear with something that lasts. You've got to change your entire self.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes so I could see him. ”I'm so whacked out tonight I don't know what the h.e.l.l you're talking about.”

”I know.”

We sat there not talking clear through the sports. Basketball. First of June and I was in a place where the sports guy talked about basketball. Everything was upside down.

Lloyd fished a bandanna from his overalls pocket. I blew my nose with a sound like a honker. ”You said you'd stay with me.”

”I will.”

”There's bunk beds in Shane's room. Will you sleep on top of me in case I need you?”

”We'll talk all night if you want.”

I tried to smile and screwed it up. ”I probably won't talk. I just want you close by.”

49.

Dear Dad, Because I was selfish I didn't let you go. I held on for nine months, same as it takes to make a baby. I love you, I won't forget you, but life and death are separate and I must choose for both of us.

I choose life for me, death for you.

Good-bye, Maurey ***

Wednesday-Shane still lived. Strawberries aren't like potatoes or wheat where you harvest a field and go home. With strawberries, the same field has to be picked every other day for nearly two weeks as the berries ripen. To my horror, I found myself bent over the same plants I'd bent over two days ago. That night I used Marcella's foundation powder to cover my scar. Made me look like a corpse.

Thursday-Shane slipped into a coma, but he still lived. At noon, I heard Paul Harvey's voice coming from a transistor radio in Patrick's breast pocket. Maybe it was the radio speaker the size of my thumbnail, or maybe it was my new expectations, but Paul no longer resembled G.o.d or Dad either one. I dropped off my six quarts and walked away.

That night Lloyd and I sat with Shane three hours while I prayed he would and wouldn't die. The cough was back, and his skin had gone mushroom-colored. I talked like a maniac-told Shane everything I could remember about my life up until the day I lost my virginity. Granma and Brad got in a fight over Merle in the house. The kid stood up to her, but both boy and cat ended up in Moby d.i.c.k for the evening.

Friday-My appet.i.te showed up. Even though I ate a number of strawberries, I still cracked twenty-five dollars for the day. Lloyd never left my side. I made him sit on the closed toilet lid and talk to me while I took a shower. He told me about his wedding. He and Sharon got married at the Chapel of the Little Lamb on the Strip in Las Vegas. The ”Wedding March” record had a bad scratch, and he drank two magnums of champagne. I asked Lloyd if I bought him a pair of jeans and a s.h.i.+rt, would he wear them? He said, ”No.”

That night I got suckered into a game of Chutes and Ladders with Andrew. Granma let Brad and Merle back in the house. Lloyd said tomorrow was the day Shane would die.

”How do you know?”

”He told me.”

”Shane told you he would die Sat.u.r.day?”

”The night he made you make the promise, he asked me how long you could be forced into sobriety and I said a week.”

”But I was planning to quit forever anyway.”

”Would you have made it this long without the promise?”

I didn't need to think about that one. ”h.e.l.l, no.”

”See.”

Although my brain sizzled like a walking case of emotional hives, the only physical symptoms left over from the cold turkey experience were messed-up sleep patterns and a sense of smell about ten times better than anyone needs. Maybe my nose was only normal and it'd been numbed so long I couldn't remember what normal smelled like, but I don't think so. Sober people don't usually smell each other coming from sixty yards. Sticking my head in Moby d.i.c.k was like morning sickness all over again.

The messed-up sleep pattern had me dozing off at midnight, then snapping awake around three-thirty. I'd lie on my back, hyperalert, mind racing like a revved-up truck with a blown clutch, until six when I fell into the sleep of the dead. Lloyd yanked me out of bed a half hour later.

Friday night, early Sat.u.r.day morning, I was dreaming about Frostbite and another horse I didn't much like named Buster Keaton. Buster bit horses, dogs, and people, mostly people. In the dream they were swimming across a river toward me. Frostbite stayed downstream with his head pointed up, facing Buster, and when he reached dry land he pulled himself out by his front legs, and the truth hit me: it hadn't been a week.

I came awake in a heartbeat. Outside, the rain did a soft background number, while Lloyd's gentle snore made the air above me familiar. The blowout with the fifth of Yukon and pills had been last Sat.u.r.day, but I drank a juice gla.s.s of Scotch late Sunday afternoon. Shane must have forgotten, and Lloyd never knew. Shane didn't have to die yet. I owed him another day.

Careful not to wake Lloyd, I slipped into my jeans and s.h.i.+rt and padded downstairs barefoot. The house had a museum smell in the dark, as if it were being preserved for future generations of tourists. The air was like inhaling that blue stuff Mom put in our toilet tank. I hesitated before pus.h.i.+ng open the door to Shane's sickroom. My mission smacked of irrationality. Why was it important to tell a man in a coma he'd miscounted the days? What's a day to the dead, anyway?

Granma was asleep at her desk. She hadn't slumped forward or anything you'd expect, just sat there sleeping with perfect posture. The circle of light from the lamp made her appear etched, which enhanced the closed museum feel. I wiped Shane's forehead and the twin tracks of blood coming from his nostrils. He'd lost flesh and color in his face; his hair looked dirty. When I touched his forehead with the damp washrag, his shallow breathing stuttered, then went on.

”It hasn't been a week,” I said. ”You told Lloyd you'd keep me sober for a week.” It's so weird watching a person die. It's magic-I mean, the definition of magic is to make things appear and disappear, right? And birth and death are the only times things appear and disappear from nothing into nothing. Doesn't seem possible.

”I'm sorry,” I said.

”Andrew had an interesting life,” Granma said. ”No matter where he's going next, he said being here was worth the trouble.” Her eyes were open-other than that, she hadn't moved.