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The pan hit his cheek, but weakly, and fell to the floor with a clang. But the urine splashed into Bijan’s eyes, blinding him for a moment.

He roared with disbelief and rage, took a step back, twisted away, and bent over, wiping wildly at his eyes with the sleeve of his gun arm and screeching in Russian. Then he straightened up, spun back toward Nana, raised his gun, and snarled, “Nasty old bitch!”

It was too late.

The second Nana threw the bedpan, I’d dived forward, ducked my shoulder, and rolled down the ramp.

As Bijan bellowed and wiped at the piss in his eyes, I landed on the living-room floor and rolled onto my knees, my right hand clawing at my ankle holster.

While he screamed in Russian and pivoted back to my grandmother in a blind rage, I pulled out my little Ruger backup pistol. By the time Bijan called Nana a nasty old bitch, I was ready.

Before he could get his weapon all the way up to kill her, I shot him twice in the chest and once between the eyes.

102

TWO MORNINGS LATER, AND despite the trauma of the shoot-out in her own home, Nana Mama was feeling well enough to go on a short walk and take a shower in the downstairs bathroom, which she described as “heaven.”

My brother Charlie was set to be discharged from St. Anthony’s today and had accepted Nana’s offer to fund a detox and rehab stint at a private facility in Virginia.

Ali had already left for school, Damon was sleeping upstairs, and I was getting ready to pick up my brother when my father arrived for one last visit. He had a flight home early that afternoon. My aunts had gone back to North Carolina the day before, leaving us with a fridge and freezer overloaded with prepared meals.

Bree made western omelets for all of us. Nana Mama ate at the kitchen table for the first time since she’d come home from the hospital, and I realized once again that you could never count her out.

“Mom,” my dad said between bites. “Can I ask you a delicate question?”

My grandmother nodded. “Guess.”

“How did you think to throw the, uh, bedpan contents at that dude?”

She looked at him as if he were crazy. “What else I have? IV line?”

We all laughed. Nana had definitely turned a corner. The speech pathologist had confirmed that her language skills were improving. And once again it was her sense of humor that had me smiling when I left the house to pick up my brother at St. Anthony’s. We’d stop back here for a brief visit, then I’d take him to the treatment center.

I barely recognized Charlie when I picked him up. His hair was cut short. The beard was gone. He was moving stiffly, obviously in a lot of pain. But when he got in the car, he told me he had refused any kind of narcotic.

I drove him back to the house, and when I brought him in, Nana Mama and Dad were overjoyed to see him.

“I promise to stay sober this time,” Charlie told us. “Lying in that hospital bed made me realize how much I’ve lost. I’ve seen the bottom, and I don’t like it there.”

“I’ve been in the exact same spot, son,” my dad said. “As Alicia taught me, there is only one way out of that hole. You can’t do it by yourself with grit and determination alone. You have to surrender all that to a higher power and ask for help.”

Nana Mama nodded. “No go solo.”

“You’re right,” Charlie said. “I’ve tried the other way, and it doesn’t work.”

He kissed Nana on the forehead, told her he loved her, then hugged our father goodbye.

I suppose I could have been cynical about my brother’s chances—I knew more than a few folks who’d achieved sobriety only to let it tragically slip through their fingers.

But I felt optimistic that morning. I felt like Charlie had a real chance at starting over.

On the ride out to the rehab center, I fought the urge to tell him that. And I didn’t ask him about his life on the streets—I didn’t want to make him anxious about the road ahead. Instead, I left everything in the silence of God’s hands. Charlie would have enough time in the coming weeks and months to talk and rediscover the power of the spirit. And he wouldn’t have to deal with all the brotherly baggage between us when he did.

An hour later, we parked outside the rehab center, which had beautiful sylvan grounds with towering oaks and pines on the banks of a rushing tributary of the Shenandoah River.

I shut off the car and said, “Thank you, Charlie, for saving me like that.”

“I didn’t know it was you down there, Alex,” he said matter-of-factly. “Not until you were right in front of me.”