Steadfast (True North #2)

by Sarina Bowen

  Yesterday I’d spotted the dealer on the way to pick up that old lady’s tires—a guy in a hoodie, sitting out on his front porch in spite of the chill. When I’d driven slowly by, he’d followed my car with his eyes.

  A dealer on the clock. They were everywhere if you knew what you were looking for. And I knew.

  My heart was still banging away in my chest, my breath coming in gasps. I needed relief, and I didn’t care what it cost me. Just a little hit would be enough. Just one. Ten dollars wouldn’t buy me much, so it couldn’t get too ugly. Just this once, the echo in my head assured me.

  My brain locked onto the search, and I cruised slowly down the street, looking for the porch with the dude in the hoodie. Where’d you go? Where’d you go? my gut chanted.

  Nothing.

  I stopped the car at the end of the street and turned around. Slowly, I cruised back. I thought I knew which house it had been, and there were lights on inside. If I cruised around the block, he’d probably reappear.

  But now another car turned down the street, moving slowly. I didn’t like the look of it. It was a feeble act of self-preservation, but I stepped on the gas. If there were cops watching this house, and I made a buy, that would be it for me. A bust for buying drugs would send me back to prison faster than you can say “loser.”

  These tiny coincidences—the missing dealer (probably on a pee break) and the other car—they were just enough to get me off that street. But it wasn’t enough to make my craving stop. Nothing was.

  Still feeling shaky, I drove through town. When the highway entrance ramp appeared, I got onto it. The steering wheel was sweaty in my hands, but I kept going. Fifteen miles later, I exited again, my beat-up car turning down a country road, and then another.

  Maybe it was just the reflex of five recent months spent here, but I found myself turning at the Shipley Farms sign and pulling up their lengthy gravel drive. The farmhouse was all lit up inside, and I recognized two extra trucks in the driveway.

  It was Thursday night. Which meant Thursday Dinner, a weekly social event the Shipleys did, alternating weeks with the neighbor down the road. A dozen or more people would be gathering inside for supper and board games.

  I was in no way fit for company. So after I killed my growling engine, I just stayed behind the wheel, listening to the engine cool. I wouldn’t go inside. But just sitting here wasn’t a terrible idea. I was safe from myself right here. There weren’t any drugs on the premises. And I’d been clean every single day that I’d stayed here. This little spot on the map was proof that I could do it.

  Maybe only a crazy man drives twenty miles to sit in someone’s driveway. But at that moment, it made all the sense in the world to me. Tipping my head back against the headrest, I tried to calm down.

  After a couple minutes, the kitchen door opened. I thought I’d escaped detection, but apparently not.

  May Shipley’s shoes crunched across the driveway toward my car. She opened the passenger door and sat down, shifting my uneaten sandwich into her lap. “Hi Eeyore.”

  “Hi, Pooh Bear,” I said, relieving her of the sandwich. I shoved it into the bag and tossed it onto the back seat.

  I could feel her eyes on me. We were just about the same age. Of all the Shipleys, she was the one I’d felt closest to during my months here. May and I had worked a lot of farmers’ markets together. Back in July, when I’d mentioned that I was supposed to be attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings, she found one for me and drove me there once or twice a week, knitting her way through the hour in the back row.

  “You okay?” she asked now.

  I shrugged, because I didn’t want to lie to May. But a shrug wasn’t a lie. And I really had no clue how this night would end.

  “Forget your toothbrush?” she teased.

  My voice was flat. “Forgot how to get through the day without heroin.”

  Her eyes were deep pools of empathy. “Did you use?” she asked me calmly.

  I shook my head. “Nope. Came close, though. Swear to God, if the neighborhood pusher hadn’t been on a piss break, I’d be off the wagon right now.”

  She reached over and squeezed my shoulder. What she didn’t do was spout any wisdom. May was as solid as they came.

  Another door on my shithole car opened, and May’s brother Griffin Shipley climbed into the back seat. “This where the party is?” he asked, closing the door against the chill.

  I grunted.

  “Is there a reason you’re not coming into the house?” he asked, bumping the back of the driver’s seat with his big knees. Griffin was built like a Mack truck. Farming gave you muscle, but he’d be a huge guy even if he sat at a desk all day.

  “I just drove out of town because I needed an hour away from my place,” I said. “Didn’t realize it was Thursday Dinner.”

  “You just have naturally good timing,” May said, nudging my elbow with hers.

  “Yeah.” I chuckled. “I excel at timing.” You have to have impeccable timing to kill your girlfriend’s brother the only time the two of you ever got into a car together.

  “Is this a sandwich?” Griffin asked. I heard a rustle, and then he said, “Mmm. Chicken Caesar.”

  “Don’t eat Jude’s food!” May yelped, spinning around to glare at her brother.

  “Why not? Mom and Audrey are slicing up a giant ham right now. This is just a warm-up. Bite?” He offered the wrap to the front seat.

  “You keep it, man,” I said. Food didn’t appeal to me when I was feeling twitchy.

  “We’d better go inside,” May said, reaching for the door. “Heads will roll if dinner doesn’t start on time.”

  “I should go home,” I muttered.

  She turned to pinch me on the arm. “No freaking way. You’re here already.”

  “Didn’t mean to invite myself to dinner.”

  “Get out of the car, Jude. There’s apple-cranberry pie.” She knew it was my favorite.

  My empty stomach picked that moment to growl, which made her laugh. “Come on. Out.” She gave me a shove.

  Caving, I got out and followed the two of them through the kitchen door, because I really could not go back to Colebury right now. Mrs. Shipley stood at her worktable, slicing ham into slabs. “Good evening, Jude,” she said. “It’s lovely to see you.”

  Lovely of you to show up empty-handed for dinner. I was such an asshole. “I’m sorry to just drive up without calling.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “I specifically invited you back for Thursday Dinner. This is Thursday Dinner. You are only allowed to apologize for arriving late. Now wash your hands and find yourself a beverage.” Then, having no more time for discussion, she set down her knife and hefted the platter of ham.

  The Shipleys were good at dealing with strays, that was for sure. I found a water glass in one of Mrs. Shipley’s cabinets, and filled it. Then I carried my drink of choice through the double doors and into the crowded dining room.

  Candles lit the enormous table, where most everyone was already seated. At the far end sat Isaac and Leah Abraham, the hippie neighbors from a few miles down the road, their toddler on Isaac’s knee. The Abrahams were an odd pair in their late twenties. They’d run away from an honest-to-God cult somewhere out west. Then there were the other Shipley kids, Daphne and Dylan—a set of seventeen-year-old twins, Grandpa Shipley, and a cousin, Kyle, who’d picked apples with us over the summer.

  Everyone turned to look when I came in. “Hey,” I said stupidly. But as full as the room looked, there was an empty seat on the bench next to Zachariah, so I moved around the table and snagged it. Zach wasn’t much of a talker. He was a stray, too. A couple of years ago, he’d been booted out of the same cult that the neighbors had escaped. So Zach hitchhiked his way across country to find them. He’d turned up on their doorstep without shoes and without having eaten in days.

  Here he sat now, two hundred pounds of blond, solid muscle. If you Googled the word “healthy” you’d probably find a picture of Zachariah. He knew more
about farming than I ever would, and he was an excellent mechanic to boot.

  Mrs. Shipley, Griffin, Audrey and May brought the rest of the food out of the kitchen and set in on the table. While they took their seats, I bowed my head for what I knew came next.

  “Dear Lord,” Mrs. Shipley began, “thank you for these gifts we are about to receive. Thank you for bringing friends to our table…”

  The prayer went on, and my eyes made a covert trip across the candlelit faces around the table. I’d pointed my car in this direction for a reason, even if I hadn’t realized it in my freaked-out haze.

  Well done, subconscious.

  The months I’d spent on this farm were pretty much the most perilous ones that an addict can have. You’re out on your own again, and you need to rebuild all your habits from scratch, since the old ones practically killed you already.

  This farm had functioned like an accidental halfway-house for me. There weren’t any locks on the doors like they had at rehab. But the farm was in the middle of nowhere, and I’d had no car. So there had been no way for me to get drugs without really working for it. I would have had to borrow a vehicle and wander around Orange County asking questions.

  But I hadn’t done that. I’d stayed clean.

  And the Shipleys were just so fucking nice to me, even though I was that loser who’d just come from jail and then rehab. I have no idea why they’d hired me, except that farm labor was really pretty tight in the summertime, and my parole officer was a friend of theirs.

  From July through October, I’d slept in their bunkhouse out back. There had been four of us in there, including Griffin. At first I’d assumed that he slept in the bunkhouse to keep an eye on the help. But that wasn’t the reason at all. He’d given his bedroom to his aging grandfather, and the farmhouse was crowded. Last month he’d moved in with Audrey a half mile down the road.

  This family had been nothing but good to me. I’d done hard labor all day long and fell into bed at night. And when I’d inevitably woke (because recovering addicts sleep like shit), I would just lie in my bunk and listen to the others breathe. They’d sounded calm, and it had made me feel calmer, too. Eventually, my tired body would drift to sleep again until it was time to get up at dawn and work my ass off.

  I would have stayed forever.

  “Amen,” Mrs. Shipley finally said. There was a smattering of “Amens” to follow hers, and then busy hands began lifting and passing plates around the table.

  “No muffler yet?” Zachariah asked, passing me a platter of ham after hefting two fat slices onto his own plate.

  “I ordered it. Should come in on Monday.”

  He nodded. Zach had driven me to look at the car in Montpelier when I was trying to find something cheap. He didn’t have a car, either. But Griffin had let us use his truck to go check out the vehicle.

  I’d wanted company, too. Because if Zachariah was beside me, I knew I wouldn’t even be tempted to look around the back streets of Montpelier for a dealer.

  That had been three weeks ago, but it felt longer. At that point, I’d suspected that moving back to Colebury would be hard.

  But I’d had no idea that I was about to be sucker-punched by the knowledge that Sophie was still in town. And getting harrassed by some asshole in a turtleneck. Sitting there in the comfort of the Shipleys’ dining room, I fought off a shudder.

  Zachariah passed me the roasted potatoes. I found myself taking less food for myself than I did when I was a rightful employee of this place and not just a hanger-on like I was tonight. But Zach filled his plate with the righteous determination of a man who knows he’ll be shoveling cow shit before six AM. Life had knocked Zach around twice as hard as it ever had me. His people had taped his hands behind his back and rolled him off a flatbed truck when he wouldn’t fall in line with their bullshit. Yet the guy sitting beside me had never touched a drug in his life. (Or a woman. But that’s a whole different story.)

  It was hard not to compare my shitty solutions with all the ways he’d managed to cope. Treatment meetings had taught me that addiction was a disease, one that I had and Zachariah didn’t. According to them, I wasn’t supposed to compare myself to Zachariah, because he didn’t walk around all day with a body that craved smack.

  It sounded nice on paper. The problem was that I remembered the exact moment my friends offered me a line of painkillers to snort. I’d said yes instead of no, even though I’d known it was a dumbass thing to do. The rest is (ugly) history.

  My name is Jude Nickel, and I am an addict. Also, I’m a big fucking idiot.

  After dinner I helped clear the table. And while May did the dishes, I dried.

  “What’s it like being back at home?” May asked me, handing over a dripping-wet mixing bowl.

  “It’s… awful,” I answered.

  May laughed. “That is uncharacteristically candid of you.”

  “Isn’t it?” We worked in silence for a couple of minutes. “The problem is that it’s hard to behave differently in the same old environment. Every time I step inside my old room, I feel like the junkie I used to be. Like the air in there is fucking toxic.”

  She gave me a quick glance that was brimming with empathy. “Isn’t there somewhere else you can be?”

  “I do the math, like, hourly. But I can’t get a decent job until I’ve been clean and out of prison for a while. And without a real job, I can’t move away. Besides, even if I had some kind of roommate situation for cheap, there’s no telling what the roommates might be into.”

  And who wants a felon for a roommate, anyway? Shit.

  She shook her head. “Look, if you ever just need to get away for a night, the bunkhouse is always there. Zach is the only one sleeping out there right now.”

  I seriously did not want to have to take her up on that offer. But, hell. It was better than relapsing. “I appreciate it,” I said.

  “Anytime, honey,” she said. “Now let’s have dessert.”

  Chapter Five

  Jude

  Cravings Level: 4

  I felt saner after my evening with the Shipleys. When I drove home to Colebury afterward, I was full of food and not so itchy. And, as I said my goodnights, the family made it clear that I was expected for dinner again next week.

  This made a huge difference to my outlook on life. If I didn’t show up next week, they would wonder why. And if I relapsed, I wouldn’t be able face them.

  Somehow, their expectations were just enough to get me through the weekend, which I spent changing out snow tires.

  My father’s appearances in the garage could be measured in minutes these days. Apparently, my reappearance had made a good excuse for him to go on a bender. I saw him carry a case of malt liquor into the house on Saturday night while I worked late in the garage, my fingers freezing numb. I worked with the garage door open so that passers by would see activity inside.

  At least I had my anger to keep me warm.

  Sunday’s last customer paid by cash, which meant that when his car pulled away, leaving me tired and completely alone in the darkened garage, I had two twenties in my hand.

  My first thought was: I wonder how much smack I can get for this?

  Thank you, rewired neurons. For how long would my opiate-addled brain reach for that idea first? One year? Two? Ten?

  I shoved the money into the pocket of my coat and went right to the grocery store, where I put $38.29 worth of food into my cart. It was loser food, of course, because my cooking resources were limited to things I could nuke in the crappy little microwave I’d bought at Goodwill on Friday afternoon.

  I chose a frozen meal to have as my dinner. I only bought one, though, because I didn’t have a freezer. So the rest of the stuff in my cart was mostly canned soups and stews. For a treat, I bought a package of cookies and a carton of milk, which I could keep cool by putting it outside my door on the staircase up to my room.

  While I paid for this feast, the checkout girl kept sneaking looks at me from underneath her too-lo
ng bangs. Either she was someone who’d known me in high school, and was therefore sneaking looks at the druggie felon who’d killed his girlfriend’s brother, or else she was admiring my tats.

  It could really go either way.

  On my way out of KwikShop, I saw a guy standing under the awning, hoodie up over his head, hands in his pocket. “You need anything, I got it,” he mumbled as I passed by.

  My gait quickened as I headed for my beater of a car. Great. As if I needed to know one more place in the world where drugs could be found.

  I dropped my grocery bags on the passenger seat and went home to my quiet little cave of a room.

  At rehab, they say, “Be kind to yourself.” I was trying to do just that. In less than a half hour, I’d be eating a (microwaved) meal. I had enough food, and some cookies. And I wasn’t in prison or coming down off a high.

  Progress, I chanted in my head.

  Progress.

  One minute at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time, I kept going.

  The new muffler arrived and I put it in. My car no longer sounded like a Harley. And I made it to another Thursday Dinner. This one was at the Abrahams’ house, and this time I brought a bottle of red wine, even though I wouldn’t be drinking any. With something in my hands when I arrived, I didn’t feel like a total sponge.

  I sat next to May at their table and soaked up the good vibes of the people around me. May got tipsy and told me a funny story about accidentally locking herself in the chicken coop.

  For another week I’d persevered.

  In the minus column, I still couldn’t sleep. The worst hours of the night were from about four to about five-thirty in the morning. Inevitably, I’d fall asleep a half-hour before my alarm was set to go off and then wake up insanely groggy. To combat this problem (and to avoid harming myself in a sleep haze during the first hour of my workday) I mainlined Pepsi before, during and after each tire change.

  Business was decent, but I was dealt another blow. On Monday, a cop pulled into the garage’s driveway and wrote me a seventy-dollar ticket for obstructing the sidewalk with my new sign.