So I can be done with this shitshow.
He swallowed hard. “Okay.”
“You have a tough few days ahead. I want to get an early start.”
He ran a nervous hand over his hair. “I’ve got it. Seven. I’ll be ready.”
“That’s if we’re still going. Are we?” Red colored his high cheekbones and a muscle ticked in his jaw. I’d have felt a little sorry for him if he hadn’t treated me like a mark.
He avoided my eyes. “We are.”
Chapter Nine
I didn’t talk to Tug much on the drive to Stockton. It wasn’t that I gave him the cold shoulder. We were just safer listening to music and keeping our thoughts to ourselves, and we both knew it.
Stockton—south of Lodi in the Central Valley, nestled alongside the San Joaquin River—was fruit and nut territory. All California jokes aside, the highest grossing crops in San Joaquin County were grapes, almonds, walnuts, and cherries, most of which are water intensive.
The city of Stockton was hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis and became the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country in 2011. The area also suffered from a decade-long drought.
When we drove through, Stockton looked like a typical California town with suburban housing curled around strip malls and Walmart Supercenters. On the outskirts, where we were headed, lay agricultural land of all types.
I didn’t know what I expected when we got to Hope House, but it wasn’t a depression-era farmhouse on a plot of land with neat rows of towering walnut trees.
The house itself had the patchwork look of a place that had been built onto over the years. There were outbuildings—a garage, a storage shed, a fancy chicken coop—and the wide white-painted porch seemed welcoming. I had expected something more prison-like, with fences and an obvious office for checking in, but instead, there was an ordinary front door with a screen. A bald man in his fifties answered when we knocked, followed by a woman with light brown skin and eyes the color of fir trees.
“Tug?” The older man wore a smile full of compassion. “I’m Dr. Franklin. Come on in. How are you feeling?”
“Okay,” Tug lied. He looked pretty shaky.
“I’ll get your things,” I said and turned around to get his gear. The woman followed me.
“Hi, I’m Roberta. I’ll look everything over before taking it inside.”
“This way.” I opened the Prius’s hatchback. We’d gotten his backpack from the library on the way, so I said, “You should look this over. I don’t know what’s in it.”
“I will. I know all their little hiding places by now.”
“Thanks.”
“You a friend of his?” she asked.
“Kind of. Not close, but I was available to bring him here. Echo Athens is the one who called ahead. She’s my cousin.”
“I know Echo. I adore her, and Dr. Gayle is amazing.”
“Thank you. I think so too.”
Together, we got Tug’s meager belongings—mostly the clothes and snacks I’d purchased for him—from the car. Roberta said, “Let’s go on inside.”
“Sure.”
I told myself not to sweat this. Tug was going to be fine. I was well rid of a difficult situation I’d never asked for in the first place. But when I entered the building again, Tug looked small and scared.
“In here.” Dr. Franklin called us into what had once probably been a parlor but was now an office and meeting room. There was a desk in the corner with a desktop computer and printer. Bookcases lining the walls held textbooks, books on agriculture, and popular literature—thrillers, mostly. In the center there was a massive farmhouse table with mismatched chairs all around. A bowl of fruit sat in the middle like an invitation to wholesome snacking.
I had expected to see a bunch of AA books and twelve-step literature, but then I remembered Tug had been resistant to that type of recovery. Someday, maybe I’d ask Echo what the treatment plan in a place like this looked like. Or maybe I’d try to forget Tug, forget my foray into the world of addiction and recovery, forget I’d ever been here.
It was all so fucking depressing.
“You gonna be okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “Sure.”
I glanced at the doctor. “So, I guess that’s it?”
“Why don’t you take a minute to say goodbye outside.” Dr. Franklin and Roberta spread Tug’s things out on the table and started going through them.
Tug followed me out to the porch. I pretended not to notice his glassy eyes.
“This is good, right?” I asked. “New beginning. Fresh start. Whatever you want to call it. This is good.”
He nodded. Swallowed hard. “Sure.”
“Look.” I couldn’t help wanting to reassure him. “This won’t be easy, but it seems to me you’ve been through a lot worse.”
He laughed at that. “Maybe.”
“You’ve got this, Tug. You’re going to be okay.”
He nodded, then he flung himself at me. I caught him to me, helpless to do anything but wrap both arms around him while he shook with emotion. I was shocked by how fragile he was, how thin and sweaty. It brought home, once again, the seriousness of the situation. How close he’d come to the edge of oblivion.
“Don’t fuck this up, Tug.” I wanted to shake him. To shout at him. I wanted to rail at him for holding his life so lightly. Instead, I just said, “You owe me, motherfucker.”
He pushed away from me, swallowed again, and nodded. A tear escaped one dark eye. He knuckled it away.
“See you around.” He turned and disappeared through the door.
I stood there for a second, feeling things I had no business feeling. Anxiety for him. Despair. A gut-wrenching sense of responsibility, and hope, and anger.
It was the anger that carried me to my car and back to the road. The sheer inconvenience of caring about Tug, who was practically a stranger, accompanied me to my place.
I showered the stench of the weekend off me. Got rid of the crappy motel heebie-jeebies and the coffee jitters. Once clean, I slid between the sheets and prepared to take a serious nap.
I told myself I wasn’t emotional. I was simply tired—as anyone would be after the weekend I’d had. Lack of sleep and the constant vigilance required to babysit an addict in withdrawal was enough to make anyone feel exhausted. That’s why I’d taken the day off. To catch up on rest and get my balance again.
The digital clock beside my bed didn’t tick, but it might as well have. The numbers morphed from one to the next as I lay there, mind occupied with thoughts I didn’t want or need.
My phone rang, and I went into high alert. Echo was calling. God, was it something to do with Tug? Was he sick? Had he already been kicked out?
“Hello?”
“Hi, hon. How’re you feeling?”
“Fine?” I phrased it as a question. “Did something go wrong with Tug? Did they call you?”
“What? No. Holy cow. Are you okay?”
“No.” I blew out a breath. “I’m a little tired.”
“I’ll bet. If you dropped Tug off, then you can relax. It’s all okay.”
“It was a nice place.” I thought back to the rural stillness of it. “Peaceful.”