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

side to driver’s side, the cops busy shooting the breeze in plain view of two drug deals and one couple screwing against the dumpster.

A hand yanks me by the arm as I am about to step inside. I turn, right arm ready to put my attacker in a choke hold, but the person backs away and raises both hands.

“Stop, Grace. It’s me.”

I squint into the darkness. The voice is familiar, but the person isn’t. It is Hachi. But not the Hachi I know—the strong Hachi, my sponsor, my friend, the one who held me together when everyone else, including me, was tired of trying to save me. No, this is another Hachi. This Hachi is destroyed. Eyes bloodshot, hair a bird’s nest. Her skin a dusty gray, cheeks sunken. She may be forty calendar years old, but in addict age she looks double that.

“Jesus H,” I say, grabbing her and pulling her away from the entrance. No matter how loaded, how done, how stupid you are outside NA, inside you need to follow the script. No drugs and no drama inside.

“What happened?” I say, frantic at the thought that she’s flushed eight years of sobriety down the drain.

She buries her face in hands that haven’t seen soap in ages. “I messed up,” she groans, her whole body quaking like a withering leaf in the wind.

I open my arms and she dissolves into my embrace. A good six inches taller than her five-feet-four, I lower my head on top of hers, my long black hair cascading over her raggedy, brown braids, shielding her face.

“What did you take” I ask, afraid.

“Smack. Can’t afford the pills no more.”

Exactly what I was afraid of—heroin, the last stop on the addict’s highway to hell.

I shudder. “But you’re here, aren’t you?”

“I can’t do this again. Can’t start all over.” I try to lead her inside, but she yanks her hand away. “I just can’t.”

I wipe her face using my shirt tail and smooth her hair back from her face.

“I look like shit,” she whimpers.

“You kinda do, but this isn’t a fashion show. Let’s just go on in.”

She turns her back and starts to walk away. “No, I can’t. I won’t.”

I grab her arm. “Yes, you can. You think I’m going to believe you came over here not to get help? Let me help you this time.”

She drops her head to her chest. “I can’t.”

“I’d have had to come looking for you. Find you in some gutter with a needle in your arm. That’s what you would have done if you’d really given up.”

She raises her head and sniffles, eyes so puffy they appear glued shut. “Guess I’m not real good at giving up either.”

“You and me both,” I say, taking her by the hand and leading her to an empty row of seats in the back of the hall. “But failing at giving up isn’t so bad, is it?”

She rests her head on my shoulder. “Damn, woman. Did anyone tell you you’re a pain in the ass?”

“What do you think?”

The slightest of smiles to crawls its way onto her lips, but soon fades when a woman in a waitress’s uniform starts to share how her three-year-old son drowned in the bathtub because she went to the corner to buy crack.

I clamp my eyes shut against the brutal image and squeeze Hachi’s hand hard, as if the pressure will save her from seeing the drowned child.

Hachi stands to leave. “I can’t. I’m not strong enough.”

“Yes, you are,” I say pulling her down by the sleeve. “You’re going to do what I’m going to do, and what we’re going to keep doing. We’re going to keep coming back here, keep saying the words. For as long as it takes.”

“What words?” she asks, words slurred.

“The words we need to say every day, my friend. My name is Grace, my name is Hachi, and we are addicts.”

***

The second he hears the squeaky gate, Vinnie explodes from the office, arms waving. “Get in here. You gotta see this!”

“I’m exhausted. I’m going to bed.”

“Trust me, sweetheart. You need is to get in here.”

I peek around the door, the tiny, dark office illuminated by the light from an ancient TV.

I point at the rabbit ears. “You might wrap those suckers in foil to get a better picture. Or maybe even buy a new TV?”

Vinnie drags me in front of the grainy screen.

A news ticker crawls across the bottom of the screen. “Body of young woman found on Fort Lauderdale beach.”

“They’ve been replaying this non-stop on all the channels,” he says.

A shot of the beach. The scene a jumble of swings, ropes, monkey bars, and two people drifting by on floating mattresses in the background.

“That’s the playground on the beach at Del Mar Way,” I say. “That’s the one the city had to close the sides of with two-by-fours because a homeless family was living under there. But one of the boards has been pried off.”

“That’s where they found the girl’s body.”

An image of Detective Reilly limboing under crime scene tape.

I lean in close to the screen. “Holy shit! That’s Reilly.”

Another plain clothes officer.

“Wait. That’s Sonny. I just saw him a couple of hours ago.”

Reilly and Sonny standing beside a body covered by a white sheet next to Dr. Owen, the county medical examiner.

“He never said anything—”

“Keep watching, will ya?”

The screen reverts back to a live shot from the newsroom.

“We have breaking news. The body found late this afternoon on Fort Lauderdale beach has been identified as that of Serena Price, eighteen, a resident of the Rio Vista neighborhood. Ms. Price had been shot twice. Once in the head at point blank range and once,” the newscaster clears his throat, “and once in the groin. Ms. Price was to be a key witness at the trial of prep schooler Zoe Slim for the murder of a much beloved guidance counselor at St. Paul’s Prep, Brandon Sinclair. The weapon used to kill Ms. Price has been recovered from Ms. Slim’s bedroom at her home. Prints