“Yes! We all need to remember that this process isn’t about quitting Oxy. It’s about getting to the heart of the things that triggered you to rely on Oxy in the first place. And it’s about recreating your life. Oxy will leave a void. We’ll work to fill that void with other and better things. And last but not least, we’ll be conscientious about celebrating the good.” She started the snapping again. “‘Like a bridge over troubled water,’” she sang. “Join me!”
Genevieve joined her.
It was more likely for Sam to swim the freestyle at the next Olympics than join in this sing-along.
“We’re going to celebrate every single accomplishment,” thedoctor said, still swaying and snapping. “Every choice you make that helps you avoid relapse is worth valuing and acknowledging.” The doctor turned a broad grin on Sam. “You may go now.”
Within half a second, he was out the door.
Three days later, Genevieve rapped on the door leading from Sam’s laundry room to the rest of his farmhouse.
While she’d been sick, her mom had carted her dirty clothing to the house on Swallowtail Lane and brought it back in carefully folded stacks that smelled like Tide. That service had ended, so Genevieve had reached out to Sam and he’d granted her laundry privileges at his house.
As prearranged, she’d found the key to the back door under a rock near the side porch steps. She’d let herself through the exterior door that ushered directly into the laundry room. The door at the room’s far end—the one she knocked on again now—was locked.
She hadn’t intended to disturb Sam.
Well ... she may have intended to bang the appliance lids a little, to see if he was interested in coming by for a chat. But she hadn’t planned on knocking. He’d given her no other option, however, because something was very wrong with his laundry room.
Surely he’d recovered enough from the trauma of her initial meeting with Dr. Quinley to answer the door—
She heard footsteps approaching and stepped back.
The knob lock gave ashnick, and then Sam stood before her. He looked more bemused than annoyed, which she took as an excellent sign.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“I hope so. I’m confused.”
“Because?”
“Because...” She extended a hand toward the gaping empty space next to the washing machine. “You have no dryer.”
“An excellent observation.”
“How do you dry your clothes?”
“The Australian way. In other words, the best way.” He sailed past her onto the porch. “Come.”
She followed him down the side porch steps and around to the back of his house, where an umbrella-style clothesline sprouted from the ground. She stared at it, openmouthed. “I ... thought these went extinct in the 1950s.” Not once in her life had she dried clothes on a line. It was becoming rare even to spot an outdoor clothesline. Whenever she did so, the sight struck her as quaintly old-fashioned.
“My dryer broke a year ago, and I didn’t replace it. I like the way clothes smell when they dry outside. This is better for the environment and less expensive. I’ve never understood why Americans love dryers.”
It would be one thing if he’d been unable to afford a new dryer. But he actually ... preferred this route? “We love them because they’re so convenient. When you pull clothes out of the dryer, they’re all warm and toasty.”
“Clothes aren’t supposed to get that warm.” He looked at her, his chin set.
“I can see that your anti-dryer stance is as ironclad as my pro-dryer stance.”
“It is.”
“I don’t know if we can be friends, after this,” she said wryly.
“We’re friends?”
She laughed. “I was hoping so.”
He headed back to the house, her trailing behind. “North Korea and South Korea marched together a few years ago at the Olympics,” he pointed out. “So there might still be hope for us.”
