We Begin at the End(6)

“Would you mind holding on to Lady while I pick something up? I’ll just be a second.”

“Sure.” He reached for the leash.

“Oh, you can’t put her down. She’s just been clipped and her nails are tender.”

“The claws?”

Alice thrust the dog into his arms and headed inside.

He watched through the window as she placed an order then stopped and talked with another vacationer. Ten minutes passed, the dog panting into his face.

When Alice finally made it back she was laden with bags so he carried the dog over to her SUV and waited while she loaded it. She thanked him, then reached into a paper bag and handed him a cannoli. He made a fuss of trying not to take it, then waited till he was clear of Main before eating it down in two bites.

He walked along Cassidy then cut through onto Ivy Ranch Road. At Star’s place he stood on the porch a while, listening to the music play inside.

Star opened the door before he could knock, met him with the kind of smile that kept him from giving up on her. Hollowed out but beautiful, beaten down but her eyes still shone. She wore a pink apron like she’d been baking. Walk knew the cupboards were bare.

“Good afternoon, Chief Walker.”

In spite of himself he couldn’t help the smile.

There was a fan moving slow, drywall bare in spots, drapes pulled from their rings like Star couldn’t close out the day quick enough. The radio played loud, Skynyrd sang about Alabama as Star danced her way through the kitchen, loading a garbage bag with empty beers bottles and packs of Lucky Strike. She grinned at him, looking like a kid as she did. She still had that way, vulnerable, troubled and trouble.

She spun once, then tossed a foil ashtray into the sack.

Above the fireplace was a photo, the two of them, fourteen, ready and waiting for the future to come at them.

“How’s your head?”

“Never better. I’m thinking clear now, Walk. Thanks and all … last night. But I think maybe I needed it, you know. One last time. Now I’m seeing right.” She tapped her head, then moved on, still dancing. “The kids, they didn’t see nothing, right?”

“Are we going to talk about it, today?”

As the music faded out she finally stopped moving, wiped the sweat from her head and tied her hair back. “It’ll come and it’ll go. Does Duchess know?”

Star asking him about her own daughter.

“The whole town knows.”

“You think he’s changed?”

“We all have.”

“Not you, Walk.” She aimed for admiration but all he heard was disdain.

He hadn’t seen Vincent in five years, though he’d tried often. The visits were close at first, he’d ride with Gracie King in the old Regal. It had been cold and hard, the judge sending a fifteen-year-old boy to a men’s prison. Star’s father took the stand, told of Sissy, of the kind of girl she was becoming. They showed photos of the scene, little legs, blood on a small hand. They called in Principal Hutch, and he told about the kind of boy Vincent was. Trouble.

And then it was Walk’s turn, and his father had looked on, brown shirt, honest face. He was foreman at Tallow Construction, they had a factory that smoked away dreams two towns over. That same summer Walk had gone with him, for orientation. He’d stood in coveralls and watched, all the grays, the pipes and scaffold so intricate like bowels, a cathedral of metals.

In that courtroom Walk met his father’s proud gaze and offered up the kind of unabridged truth that sealed his friend’s fate.

“I don’t need to be looking back anymore,” Star said.

He made coffee. They took it out to the deck, birds on the swing-set flapping lazy and high when Walk settled into an old chair.

She fanned her face. “You going to get him?”

“He said not to. I wrote him.”

“But you’ll go anyway.”

“I will.”

“Don’t tell him … about me and all.” Her knee bounced, she tapped the chair with her finger. All energy before the real purge came.

“He’ll ask.”

“I don’t want him here. I don’t think I can, in my house.”

“Okay.”

She lit a cigarette and closed her eyes.

“So, there’s a program, a new one, over in—”

“Save it.” She held up a hand. “I told you. It’s behind me now.”

They’d tried counseling, Walk had driven her to Blair Peak each month for a lifetime, the shrink seemed to get through, progress had been good. Walk would drop her, leave her and head to a diner to wait. Three hours, sometimes more before she called. Some days the kids would ride the hours with them, silent in the back, looking on as their innocence trailed the cruiser, slipping further behind.

“It can’t … this can’t go on.”

“Still popping pills, Walk?”

He wanted to tell her it was different, but then he wondered how. They were the afflicted. Plain and simple.

She reached over and squeezed his hand, no harm meant.

“I think you’ve got cream on your shirt.”

He glanced down and she laughed.

“Look at us. You know, sometimes I still feel it.”

“What?”

“Fifteen, baby.”