the inherent good of people. She stared at a long hairline crack in the ceiling above her that was lit by the harsh morning sunlight. She wondered if she believed in the inherent good of anyone anymore. Dillon was good, but she couldn’t factor him in just now. The hurt was too fresh. Otto and Delores were as good as any two people she knew, but she could tick off twelve others who were equally as bad, who given the choice would rather shoot you than shake your hand. Dillon had done nothing to deserve the dangers of the lifestyle she had chosen. He was a good man, and she had no right to drag him down the garbage-strewn path she had chosen to call a career.
Josie stood up and set the empty glass on the coffee table, the tumbler clicking too hard. The noise raised Chester’s head from the floor in front of the front door. The old dog looked suddenly alert and ready to protect. She sat on the floor beside him and picked up the cell phone from the coffee table. The dog laid his head on her lap and fell back asleep within seconds. With a stomach sick with guilt and shame, she flipped her phone open and dialed Dillon’s cell phone. After three rings, it went to voice mail. She hesitated and almost hung the phone up, but knew he would see the missed call anyway.
“Dillon, it’s Josie. Hope you’re doing okay. I know you’re at work. I’m sorry to call you like this. I know I don’t have the right. I just need you. I need a sane person to talk to.”
Thirty minutes later, Josie had moved from the floor up to the couch again, unable to face her bedroom. Otto and Delores had cleaned it, swept the remnants of the attack from her room. Dell had come in and patched the holes in the walls while she was at work. But the white hot flash of the bullets, the flying debris, the threats, and the deafening sound of the guns played in a repeating loop in her mind. She could still smell cigarette smoke lingering in the air, and she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to sleep in her bed again. Then she heard a car in front of her house. She didn’t reach for the gun lying on the coffee table. She knew with certainty that Dillon, good caring man that he was, had come.
She held the door open for him and they stood awkwardly inside the living room for a moment. Dillon wore his office clothes, a navy suit and red tie, and stood with his hands in his front pants pockets.
“I appreciate you coming over like this,” she said.
“I heard about the mess last night.”
“I don’t even know where to begin,” she said. “It’s like my brain has shut down on me.”
“Come in the kitchen, and I’ll make you a cup of hot tea,” he said.
Several minutes later, he sat down across from her at the kitchen table with two hot mugs and tea bags.
“I want to do this job,” she said, staring into her mug, “but I don’t know if I have what it takes. I feel like the floodgates of Mexico are leaking and all their violence and chaos is about to flow into our country. And we’re in the direct path. And by some bizarre twist of fate, I’m the one that’s supposed to repair the crack. I know this is absurd, but in some ways, I feel like the security of this nation rests on my shoulders.”
“Josie, the Mexican and United States governments can’t figure out how to solve the problem. What in the world makes you think you can?”
“That’s just it, though! No one gets it. It’s like looking at those sad pictures of starving kids in Africa. They’re disturbing to look at, the problem seems too big, but it’s not in people’s neighborhood, so they turn the page. They watch a thirty-second news blip on TV and figure they’re informed. Unless you live with this fear every day, how can you know how serious it is?”
“So what now?”
She scowled and rubbed her temples. “I don’t know. I care so much about this town and about this damned job, but it’s destroying my life. I’m scared to sleep in my own bed. I can’t walk my dog outside without worrying I’ll be gunned down by some Mexican cartel. I feel like my life