“This isn’t a joke. I don’t think I need to tell you how dangerous it is to start hauling people off bar stools.” Anger vibrates from her. It rolls off her body.
She’s right, which is another reason I wish Anne hadn’t said anything. It’s one thing to take a phone call and totally different to stroll into hell itself.
“When did it become alright to turn our backs on people who need us?” Jude cuts in.
“There are boundaries,” Stephanie begins.
“Fuck your boundaries.” He doesn’t wait around to see her reaction. Even though I know she has a point I can’t help but enjoy how she fumbles for a response.
I run after him and catch him unlocking his Jeep.
“This is one of those times when your motorcycle would really add some dramatic effect,” I inform him.
But he’s not in the mood to laugh now. “Do you agree with her?”
I choose my words with care. “You can’t save everyone.”
“So we shouldn’t try?” he roars.
So much for my caution. “It’s not that. People have to want help. We can’t fix them by force.”
“Anne wanted help,” he interrupts me, “and you’ll be happy to know that I got out of the business of saving people a long time ago. Christ, I thought you would understand.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I snap.
“Never mind.” He climbs behind the wheel and speeds off, leaving me to analyze his words. I stand on a broken bit of concrete and stare out toward the sliver of gray on the horizon. There’s no peace as I turn my mantra over in my mind. I can’t find solid ground and Jude is one storm I have to weather.
Chapter 11
Before
The word addict filtered into Grace’s head long before it leapt from her lips. She had never intended to police Faith but it became impossible to ignore her behavior. The transgressions were mild, at first. Faith wouldn’t creep back into their bedroom until long past dawn or she might forget to mention she swiped a twenty from Grace’s wallet. It was easy to forgive the little things. When Nana missed a mortgage payment because her bank account was overdrawn, she had no suspicion it was Faith. Grace suspected otherwise, and when Faith didn’t bother to come home for nearly a week, it was confirmed. Police were called. Reports were filed. It was the beginning of a long and fruitless relationship with the powers that be. They had no problem labeling Faith an addict.
Graduation came and went just like Faith. She didn’t bother to attend, not that there was a diploma anyway. When Grace came home from the after party she found her sister collapsed on the front porch, her cheek swollen to twice its size and the color of Grace’s graduation gown.
In the waiting room of the ER, Nana took Grace’s hand and sat in silence while a doctor rattled off her sister’s injuries and the various drugs in her bloodstream.
“What do we need to do?” Nana’s voice carried the weariness of determination. She’d managed to raise her daughter’s children and Grace knew nothing would keep her from seeing the job through to the end.
“She needs to be put in a hospital.” The doctor didn’t bother to deliver this news with empathy. Faith was simply another junkie taking up space a sick person needed.
It took a few seconds for them to realize he meant rehab. For the first time, it occurred to Grace to be ashamed to share her sister’s face.
Nana didn’t bother to waver. “Whatever it takes.”
“Your insurance won’t cover it,” he continued as he flipped through her chart, “but I can get her a bed. She really needs to go tonight.”
Neither of them asked how they were supposed to pay for it. Grace never discussed it with Nana. It was a given. Family came first. It came before tuition.
Later when Faith sat rosy-cheeked and plump in her hospital room and asked where they had found the money, they lied. Insurance, they said and she believed them. Lies were always easier to swallow.
A year later the tiny inheritance their parents had left them had been bled dry. This time Nana mortgaged the house, adding Grace as a homeowner in the process.
“In case anything happens to me,” she told her granddaughter. “There’s still plenty of equity in the house.”
Bit by bit Faith’s problem swallowed them until addict ceased to be a dirty word and just became their normal.
Faith was gone. One Saturday morning, she didn't return. Nana was frantic, calling the police stations. They listened at first, took her information, and a picture. Grace wondered if they would plaster it all around Seattle. If it would leak back to Ballard, so that people called to report when they saw Grace, mistakenly thinking they had done a good deed. It would be endless between the worrying and the praying.