one looked like he was either pretending to or actually was holding up what looked like a gang sign with his fingers across his chest, smiling a big smile. He looked the most like Jacquie’s daughter Jamie. The oldest one didn’t smile. He looked like Opal. He looked like Jacquie and Opal’s mom, Vicky.
Jacquie wanted to go to them. She wanted a drink. She wanted to drink. She needed a meeting. Earlier she’d seen that the AA meeting for the conference would be on the second floor at seven thirty every night. There were always meetings at conferences, it being a mental-health/substance-abuse-prevention-based conference, full of people like her, who had gotten into the field because they’d been through it and hoped to find meaning in their careers helping other people not make the same mistakes they had. When she went to wipe sweat from her face with her sleeve, she realized the air conditioner had been turned off. She went to the AC unit and turned the cold air on high. She fell asleep waiting to cool down.
* * *
—
Jacquie walked into the room in a hurry, thinking she was late. Three men sat in a small circle made of eight folding chairs. Behind them were snacks that nobody had touched yet. The room was a mess of fluorescent buzzing, a smallish conference room with a whiteboard on the wall in front, off-whitish light, which encased them all in its flatness—which made everything feel like it was happening a decade ago on TV.
Jacquie went to the back table and looked at the food spread—a pot of coffee in a very old-looking auto-drip coffeemaker, cheese, crackers, meat, and mini–celery sticks fanned out in a circle around various dips. Jacquie picked up a single stick of celery, poured herself a cup of coffee, and walked over to join the group.
All of them were older Native guys with long hair—two wore baseball caps, and the one who seemed like he was probably the leader of the group wore a cowboy hat. The guy in the cowboy hat introduced himself to the group as Harvey. Jacquie turned her head away, but the face embedded in an orb of fat, the eyes and nose and mouth, they were his. Jacquie wondered if Harvey recognized her, because he excused himself, said he had to go to the bathroom.
Jacquie texted Opal. Guess who im in a meeting with rt now?
Opal responded immediately. Who?
Harvey from alcatraz.
Who?
Harvey, as in: father of the daughter I gave up.
No.
Yes.
You sure?
Yes.
What you gonna do?
Idk.
Ydk?
He just got back.
Opal sent a picture of the boys in their room, all of them lying the same way, with headphones on, looking up at the ceiling. This was the first picture she’d sent via text message since Jacquie told her not to, that she was only allowed to email pictures of them because of how it could mess with her day. Jacquie reverse pinched then pinched and repeated to see each of their faces.
Will talk to him after meeting, Jacquie texted, then switched her phone to silent and put it away.
Harvey sat down without looking at Jacquie. With a simple hand gesture, a palm facing up, he pointed to her. Jacquie wasn’t sure if this not looking at her, plus the trip to the bathroom, meant that he knew. Either way, it was her turn to tell her story or share whatever she felt like, and he would know as soon as she said her name. Jacquie rested her elbows on her knees, leaned into the group.
“My name is Jacquie Red Feather. I don’t say the I’m an alcoholic thing. I say: I don’t drink anymore. I used to drink and now I don’t. I currently have eleven days sobriety. I’m grateful to be here, and for your time. Thank you all for listening. I appreciate all of you being here.” Jacquie coughed, her throat suddenly rough. She put a cough drop into her mouth so casually that you could tell she probably ate a lot of cough drops and smoked a lot of cigarettes, and never quite beat the cough, but beat it enough while she was sucking on a cough drop, and so ate them constantly. “The problem that became a drinking problem started for me way before the drinking was even related to it, though it was when I first started drinking. Not that I blame my past, or don’t accept it. We’d been on Alcatraz, me and my family, back during