There are five missed calls from Drew, and a voice mail. She calls him immediately, no answer. She listens to the voice mail. It’s the school returning her message, explaining that Drew was suspended for punching another kid in the lunchroom, but there is no more detail, just the office school counselor’s number to call back. She calls Drew again and he picks up.
“What’s wrong?” Sasha says before he can speak. “Is Chloe okay? Did she take the bus? I was supposed to pick her up. I... Jesus.” She remembers that she was also supposed to pick up Regan and go to the café. Shit.
“Dude, where’ve you been? She’s fine. She called me to pick her up. She’s right here. Jeez. But I’ve been calling all afternoon, though. What the hell?”
“Oh, thank God,” she says, and even in this heightened state, she still has to put him in his place. “Don’t call medude. We’ve talked about this.”
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“I just... I slammed my hand in the car door by accident and broke it. I had to go... to the hospital. I texted you to tellyou to make sure she was picked up but there must have been no reception at the hospital—looks like it didn’t go through. So you’re all okay?”
“Dandy,” he says.
“Put me on speaker,” Sasha says. She can practically hear Drew rolling his eyes at this, but he does as he’s told.
“Chlo, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” she hears her daughter say, and she can tell by the squeaks and laugh track of some annoying teen sitcom that she’s half distracted and probably over it already.
“Drew is gonna watch you tonight and you guys can order in Chinese,” I say.
“K,” she responds.
“Thanks for asking if I had plans,” Drew says.
“I decide when you have plans. Use my Grubhub log-in and get what you guys want for dinner. I have one more thing to do and I’ll be back late.”
“Fine, but...”
She hangs up on him, relieved they’re safe and uninterested in further conversation about his ruined plans to sit at Blanc’s with Roxie when he’d probably really be off doing... God knows what. She can’t even think about what he’s involved in. What the hell could those men be taking money from him for? Drugs are the only thing that makes sense. And then she lets her mind go to other sinister places. Or maybe guns... or bombs.
She pulls into a Stop-N-Go to get bandages for her finger, a bottle of water and something to eat because she feels her stomach twisting in hunger and she needs energy to hold together all the parts of her crumbling life. She sits in the parking lot, under the glow of a single streetlamp in the otherwiseempty gas station parking lot and sees the rain starting to fall again in the cone of light—a mist that seems to never end and only accentuates the fear and misery she feels. She takes a bite of a prepackaged egg salad sandwich and then puts it on the seat beside her and starts sobbing. She lets the tears come. She pounds the steering wheel with the heel of her hand and lets out a guttural scream. It’s all too much.
Then she sits in the ear-ringing silence for a moment and starts the car and heads to go and see Raffy. It’s time to get him involved, and maybe the police. If she only knew what Drew was involved in, she might know if involving them would mean helping to protect him or helping to indict him, but she doesn’t know. She needs Raff’s help on this. She needs him to pull himself together and be present for once, goddammit. It might be futile, but she has to try.
When she pulls up, she can already tell it will be a drunk visit and not a buzzed one, but that’s to be expected. She has to catch him fairly early in the day for any hope of a semisober interaction, and even then the fog and hangover aren’t really that much better to deal with. Now she can see Raff has fallen asleep in a camping chair next to the firepit and the rain has put out the fire, so he just sits with his head hanging back and his mouth open, getting poured on. It might be the saddest thing she’s ever seen.
She sighs as she turns off the ignition, pulls her hood over her head and carefully guards her damaged hand as she opens the door and readies herself for this dreaded interaction.
“Raff, get up,” she says, poking him in the shoulder.
“Huh?” He stirs and sits up slightly, squinting in the darkness to make out what he’s looking at. “What the hell, Sash. Leave me alone.”
“Get up. Fuck, Raff. It’s raining on your face, for God’s sake. Get inside. I need to talk to you.”
“What happened to you?” he asks, looking at her hand. She would be pulling him up and forcing him inside if she were able, because she doesn’t have all night, but thankfully, he starts to stand on unsteady feet and stumble toward the back door.
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” she says, following him inside. He flops on a chair at the kitchen table and rubs his eyes. She sees his head bob like he’ll pass out at any given moment, so she gets to the point.
“Drew is in trouble. I know he hasn’t visited you in a while and you’re pissed about that, but have you talked to him at all? Has he said anything to you?” she asks. He lays his head on the table and groans.
“Raffy!” she yells, and he startles and sits back up.
“I don’t know. God, Sash, how would I fucking know? I haven’t seen him in weeks. Months, maybe,” he says. He stands up and tries to walk toward the fridge—for a drink, she knows—but he stumbles and holds on to the table, waiting out a dizzy spell.
“Come on,” she says, putting her good arm around his waist and getting him over to the sofa. She goes back to the fridge and twists off the cap to a Heineken and brings it to him. Enabling. That’s the word Drew used, and it flits across her brain every time she does this. She can’t help it. Even after all these years, she sees the man she used to know when she looks at him—the man who put his coat around her shoulders walking down a busy city sidewalk after dinners at Lucino’s, the trips to sunny beaches, drinking from coconuts and planning their bright future, the happiness, the love, all of it. Andthen she thinks about how it was stolen from him—his freedom, his future, his dignity, his confidence, his whole life. She just hasn’t been able to blame him or hate him for ruining them or crumbling under the weight of the trauma. She just can’t.
She grabs a towel from the cabinet and sits next to him, pushing the wet hair back from his eyes and drying his face. She sees tears in his eyes that he blinks away, and she gives him a moment to get the alcohol back in his bloodstream before she explains what’s happened. Then she tells him about the construction paper, the man he handed money to, the men at the smoke shop, his suspension. She doesn’t tell him about her encounter with the men in the basement. That would be too much.
