Treloar stood to leave.
Nessa stood also and swayed on her feet. She grabbed hold of the chair arm to steady herself. The detective made a move toward her and she said, “I’m fine.”
And her brain returned to normal, just as if the previous minutes hadn’t happened.
Had John been shot? With her gun?
She was almost certain that he had been.
But by whom?
Back to wondering, puzzling, but with a difference. Nothing mattered anymore. Again, that detached, floating feeling, of going through motions that signified nothing.
As soon as Treloar’s car drove away, Nessa got on the phone to the dentist and ordered his records to be sent to the Riley County Sheriff’s Office.
Then she sat in the wingback chair and stared at nothing.
Whoever you are, she thought, you win.
WHEN SHE AWOKE, she didn’t know where she was. The house was dark and silent, and her head ached, which brought back memories of Treloar’s visit. She flicked on the lamp, sending spears of pain through her head.
John was dead.
It was now a fact, etched in granite.
How much time had passed? She looked at her phone and saw that it was eleven--thirty P.M. She had to talk to someone, so she dialed Marlon.
“I have some news,” she said. “The detective came here earlier to tell me—-”
“Did you talk to John about me?” He said it as if he’d been waiting for her to call, waiting to bark out this question.
Confused, she looked at her phone to make sure she’d dialed the right number. “Marlon?”
“Did you?” His accusatory inflection scared her.
“I’m sorry, I just woke up,” she said slowly. “Of course I did. I always told him about the insights you gave me and how many times you saved me from—-”
“Because I got a call this afternoon from a reporter for the K--State campus newspaper wanting to write a story about my suicide attempt back in 2002, and how I overcame my substance abuse problems with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous.”
This shocked her out of her stupor. Why did he think she’d called the reporter? “I don’t think I ever—-I can’t be the only person who—-”
“Anonymous. It’s right in the name. Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s supposed to be anonymous. You get that, right?”
“Of course I—-”
“The reporter said it would be nice to get a comment from me, but she’s running the story regardless.”
Nessa tried to think. Had she ever told John this story?
John.
She was certain she hadn’t.
John’s dead.
But even if she had, why would John call the student newspaper about it?
“Marlon, John’s—-”
“She received an email from [email protected].”
“That’s not my email address, Marlon. You know that.”
“I know. It’s John. But you told him. You broke a confidence.”
“But John’s . . .” Nessa trailed off, shaky. “I don’t think I did. It must be someone else.”
“It can’t be,” he said. “Because you’re the only one around here that I told.”
This stunned her. Why had he told her, of all -people?
“And what about those other things,” Marlon said. “The things I’ve read in the comments on your blog recently?”
“I need to tell you—-”
“Prostitution. Auto theft.” He paused meaningfully. “Heroin.”
He couldn’t hear her. Maybe she really was already a ghost.
So she didn’t say anything.
“Are you a heroin addict?”
She hesitated. “I was, yes.”
“It’s never was, and you know it,” he said. “Once an addict, always an addict. You’re only in recovery. You’re not cured.”
She knew her lines. She’d go ahead and say them, because nothing mattered anymore. “I’ll never use again.”
“It’s that kind of overconfidence that will make you slip and fall. That’s how it happened for me.”
“I’ll never use again,” she repeated.
“Good God. You sound like you’re high right now. Since you can’t even be honest with yourself, I know you will use again. This program only works with complete honesty. You know that.”
A little spark bubbled up, a hint of her former self. Maybe she could still pretend to be alive. “It’s semantics. What difference does it make what I call myself?”
“It does make a difference. If you say you’re an alcoholic when you’re a fucking heroin addict that makes you a liar. I told you everything. And you told me nothing.”
She couldn’t speak.
“Step number four: ‘Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. This step requires self--examination that can be uncomfortable, but honesty is essential in this process.’ Honesty is essential, Nessa.”
“I know,” she said.
“Step number five: ‘Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.’ ”
It all flooded in. Nessa began to cry silently.
“Have you done that?”
She couldn’t answer out loud. No, she hadn’t.
But it didn’t matter.
“Well, you haven’t done it with me. Until you do, Nessa, we have nothing more to say to each other.”
He hung up.
Yes. Perfect. This was right. It was all being taken away.