chair. Cleared my throat. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Those men—”
“They were no one.”
“Did they hurt you? Did they . . .”
“No.”
“Your eye looks—”
“It’s fine.” She bit her lip, and after a moment said, “Thank you for the bed.”
“Well.” I scanned the room, embarrassed.
The dining hall had emptied. Alice and Valencia stood in the living room, powdered and ready. Sydney, who looked like a younger, taller version of her mother, walked through the doors, and joyful greetings ensued, after which Alice waved cautiously at me from afar, warning they’d leave soon.
I had so little time and so much to say.
My next words ran together. “Do you think you can get yourself right at the mall? Not so right that you don’t know your own legs, mind you, but right enough to come back here and be normal for a while?”
She looked perplexed. “What do you mean?”
I paused, drumming my fingers, sorting out how to word what came next. I didn’t have time to chip away. Speed-round interventions required a ramrod. I whispered, like this would soften the implication. “Josie, I’m a recovering alcoholic.”
A cock of the head. “And?”
“And I know my kind when I see them.”
She reared back. “I’m not an alcoholic.” She said the word as if her tongue was a virgin to it, as if the pronunciation was in question and the meaning opaque.
I leveled my gaze. “I saw you drinking, and I saw you puking. I know with your mother’s death and that black eye that things lately haven’t been—”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I don’t,” I agreed, “except for this one thing I’m certain.”
She dipped her head back and feigned amusement. “Okay, I get it. You led a crappy life, and when you catch me unwinding one time you think I’m an addict like you.”
“That’s not the case.”
Her defense grew a knife’s edge. “Well, then check this out: You’re dead wrong, and you shouldn’t accuse people of that sort of stuff. It’s, like, defamation or something.”
“All right then,” I said slowly. “Prove me wrong. Promise here and now to abstain while you’re staying with us. Don’t leave Alice’s side while you’re at the mall, and once you’re back, don’t go on any more excursions. It’ll make things a whole lot easier, don’t you think?”
She sat back, crossing her arms, and mouthed something.
“Did you say something?”
She raised her voice. “Yeah, I did. I said you’re a batshit-crazy old man who needs to mind his own business.”
“That aside,” I said, “could you do it?”
She paused, her brow knitted, her mouth clamped shut to withhold the answer we already both knew. Valencia, from far away, looked at us and tapped on her bare wrist.
“Speak up,” I said. “You know us old men. Our hearing isn’t so good.”
She played with the frayed edge of her shirt.
I cupped my ear. “I’m sorry?”
“Fuck you,” she said finally, leaning forward to get in my face. I didn’t flinch, though. I let the seething blow by; I was a stationary object in a wind tunnel, creating a disturbance. The anger wasn’t meant for me, and I knew this.
She stood, saying it again with extra emphasis: “Fuck you.”
I sat back into my chair, satisfied. “I’ll take that as a no.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Yet you’re the one who looks it,” I said. “How about you sit back down so you don’t make a spectacle.”
She edged out a glance to the main area. Alice shot us a questioning look in the midst of chatting with Sydney.
I answered with a reassuring nod and said under my breath, “Sit on down, Josie.”
Josie obeyed, her eyes never leaving mine.
“Let me tell you something,” I said. “I don’t think you’re bad for being like you are. I was like you are. I still am. I’m offering my help because sometimes we need mending and sometimes we