States of Grace by Mandy Miller (great novels of all time .TXT) 📗

“One day at a time, as they say. And I hope you’re keeping track of those days.”

Hachi keeps a log of the meetings I attend, which she sends monthly to the Bar on my behalf. She doesn’t much like the assignment, doesn’t much like authority at all for that matter, but, like me, she’s committed to my staying clean, so she puts up with reporting to the Man, as she calls any authority. Ten years of sobriety has done little to tone down Hachi’s rebellious nature, an instinct rooted deep in her Seminole history. Although staying sober has allowed her to rebuild her life and relationships with her family and friends who had written her off as a lost cause back when she was mainlining smack, she admits the urge has never gone away. Never will, she says, and it’s that concession, that inability to bullshit, that makes her the perfect sponsor for me. I’m not one for happy talk or false promises.

She turns to go back inside to make her own allocution. “You coming?”

I shake my head, anxious to check on whether Zoe’s out of jail yet.

“Maybe we can grab a coffee soon?” she asks.

“You know where to find me.”

Once she’s gone, I pull out my phone and scroll through emails, one from Faith asking if I’m coming up to Palm Beach for her annual Labor Day clambake. Another from Marcus Jackson, one of the few people from my ASA life I still keep up with, asking me if I want to go to a preseason Dolphins game.

“I heard whoever did him gave him a blow job before he got capped.”

I look around for the source of the comment and spot a man and a woman leaning on the hood of a car a few feet away, smoking.

Pretending to be engrossed in my phone, I inch toward them.

“Yeah man, it’s so random,” says the cadaverous man. “Bet the parents are all pissy. Pay a fortune to send your kids to a school like that and…” He pantomimes shooting a gun.

The man’s companion, a woman with mushy features and yellow teeth, snorts, “Dude didn’t deserve it right where he got it, though,” she says, moving a curled hand up and down by her crotch.

They both dissolve into laughter, but, as if a switch has been flipped, the woman’s face hardens into a grimace. “Maybe the asshole got what he had coming.”

They take a few last drags on their cigarettes and disappear back inside.

I could follow them or wait for them until the meeting is over. But no. The powers that be may be able to make me go to meetings every night, but they cannot make me listen to every last tale of sorrow and loss. And the thought of waiting out here with the cops and the dealers hanging in the shadows, both waiting to take advantage of the ones that fall off the wagon tonight, is nothing I need to be part of.

I drop the plastic bag in the dumpster behind the church and head for home.

Chapter 11

The dog is as black as night, icy blue eyes like stars. The dog doesn’t bark, doesn’t move an inch. The dog just sits at attention, as if the dog has been waiting for me to come home.

I step through the gate.

“Vin, who you got there?” I say, approaching, but tentatively, given the size of the wolf-like beast. Some kind of behemoth mix. Shepherd? Husky?

The dog’s plume of a tail starts swishing back and forth.

The dog’s wearing a camouflage vest.

“Remember that last bad dream? When you asked me to keep you company until the storm passed?”

“Same damn nightmare every time.”

“And I told you I had a plan?” He holds out the leash. “Well, this here is my plan.”

I find myself stepping forward and taking the leash.

“Sweetheart, you shouldn’t be alone so much. So I thought—”

“You got me a dog?”

“Sure did,” Vinnie says, a look of childlike pride on his face.

I run my hand through the dog’s thick, bristly fur.

“Way I see it, you got bad dreams, and you’re alone too much, and you always had dogs as a kid, and—”

“And you didn’t ask me first?”

“Nope. Just got her.”

“Her?”

“Yep. A her. Like you.”

Vinnie commands the dog to stand, which the dog does. On three legs. The back left leg is missing.

“You got me a dog with three legs?”

“Yep. Like I said, just like you.”

“I have one leg and a fake.”

“True, but you get the idea. She’s a tripod, at least that’s what Dogs of War call her.”

The dog licks my hand and sets about sniffing my pant legs.

“Dogs of War?”

“That’s the rescue where I got her. They bring retired military dogs back from war zones and adopt them out to help veterans. Like you.”

I zero in on the embroidered words on the dog’s vest—Working Dog. Do Not Pet.

“You think I need help?”

“Sweetheart, we all need help sometimes, right?”

I ruffle the dog’s ridiculously large teepee-shaped ears. “You are a pretty girl.”

The dog’s tail wags double time.

“Look, she likes you. I knew she would,” Vinnie says.

“Likable, right. That’s the first word people use to describe me.” I hold out a hand for her to sniff. “What service?”

Vinnie’s face darkens. “She was assigned to a Marine handler in Afghanistan. They got ambushed when they were out on patrol. Handler was killed and she was shot in the leg. Had to amputate it to save her, so she was no good as a military dog no more. Dogs of War paid for her to be brought back and to find her a home.”

I point at myself.

“Yep, you. Your casa is her casa now. You have some training to do together, but other than that she’s good to go.”

“Wait a minute. I’m the vet here. How’d you get her?”

Vinnie bites his lip, as clear a confession of guilt as I’ve ever seen.

I raise a hand. “I don’t want to know.”

Vinnie pulls several pages from his back pocket. “Your discharge papers.”

“I can’t