“SUSAN, YOU’RE A GOOD WOMAN. You know that?” And the man means it. He means it with every fiber of his being. He met her at an AA meeting. She is half Native American, which he finds alluring, and she is soft, quiet, naturally obedient. There isn’t a mean bone in her body, nor a selfish one. She is what a woman should be.
She smiles at the compliment. Not a lot of people think she is a good woman. An alcoholic, she’s been sober for one year, but every day is a fight. She looks up to the man, sees him as a mentor. He’s been clean for several years. She isn’t quite sure from what, as she’s never heard him say. Sometimes she wonders if it’s something else altogether, like sex addiction. He always uses the word “vice” to describe it, which makes her question exactly the nature of the thing.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter now. He is a leader in their cobbled-together community of broken souls. He never misses a meeting, never misses a church service. He credits God with pulling him back into alignment. She follows his lead with perfect attendance. It makes sense to her when he says every day is a struggle, one way or the other. You can either live a hard life controlled by the disease, or you can live a hard life sober. He feels the sober life is the better path, and she does too.
He has thick dark hair and a full beard, which she likes, and she also likes how he is big, the way a man should be. She feels he gives the impression of being strong, powerful, fully capable of doing any physical task you put before him. She likes all of that, which is why she’s been thinking about this moment for a long time before it arrived.
They are sitting in his old red truck after a night of bowling with the folks from AA. He gave her a ride there, which featured nothing more than casual conversation, and now he’d given her a ride home. The talk on the way home has been much more satisfying.
“I think you’re a good man, Jerry,” she says.
He smiles. The idea that someone, especially someone like Susan, would think he was a good man fills him with light. It feels like it could come -shining out of his pores.
“Could I take you out to dinner sometime?” he asks.
They were like days out of someone else’s life. He moved out of his apartment and into her trailer. They worked on the yard and made a wonderful little garden. After a long time of unemployment, he found a job. It even paid well and it was on a farm. His years working in hellholes were finally over. He was back in the country, working with beef cattle. All the dairy farms had long been turned into houses, but interest in organic, sustainable beef made small livestock herds viable again. It excited him, this new way of farming. Every day he came home and told her everything he had learned.
The longer he lived with her, the less he felt the tug of his addiction. The thing was, he told himself, everyone, or at least almost everyone, struggled with addiction. He’d come to understand it, forgive himself, and work on living sober one day at a time. Every day it got easier to live clean.
This new, unimaginable life is all so good. Which is why his heart falls when she comes in the door one Monday afternoon. Her face is all wrong. She’d gone out to run some errands. Or at least that’s what she said she was going to do. He doesn’t understand how running errands could make her face go all wrong like that.
“What is it?” He sees her hands shaking.
They sit down at the kitchen table, and she puts her hands in his. He tries to quiet their trembling with the weight of his massive paws, but it doesn’t work.
She knows. Somehow she knows, and she is going to leave me.
“What is it?” he asks again.
“I’m pregnant.” She starts to cry.
It is an enormous relief. So much so he laughs.
“Why are you laughing?” She’s stung, bewildered.
“I thought you were going to leave me.”
“Of course not. But, Jerry, this isn’t good news. I’m too old to have a first child. I don’t have a job. You’ve only had yours for three weeks. We don’t have enough money for this. I’m only a year sober. What if I fall off again? This isn’t good news. I don’t think we should—”
“No,” he says firmly, almost forcefully. “This child is a blessing from God.” He believes it, knows it to be true, but at the same time, he’s terrified. What if he’s like his own father? Or worse, like his own mother? But he feels that with Susan he can be better. In fact, he can right the wrongs of his own childhood.
“No,” he says again. “We can do this.”
She is amazed at his confidence and finds it contagious. A tentative smile replaces her tears, but she whispers one last time, “This isn’t good news.”