Purple Hearts(10)

Hailey followed him, wearing a pink sundress and sporting a sweaty blond ponytail. She’d filled out a little since they married, and her face was wide and sun soaked. When she saw me, she stopped.

I lifted the flowers. “Hey, Hailey.”

She looked toward the house, and then back at me with a small smile. “JJ, come give Uncle Luke a hug,” she called to him.

He wrapped his arms around my legs. I put my hand on Jacob Junior’s platinum head. For a minute, my muscles relaxed.

“How old are you now, thirty-five?” I teased.

He giggled, running away. “I’m four and a half!”

Hailey smiled at me. “Hi, hon. Come here.”

Her body against mine was medicine, warmth and softness I had forgotten existed.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked into my shoulder.

“I’ve been around,” I started, but the sound of their back door opening and shutting made me pause.

Hailey let go, giving my arm a squeeze.

We turned toward Jake. His expression shifted to anger. “What’s going on, Luke?”

His dark hair was pulled back into a Cowboys cap, his sunburned shoulders bare under a clean white tank. A little chubby, hair a little curly. More of our mom in him, where I got my dad’s hard features.

“I came to talk—talk a few things over. Apologize. I’d love to sit down with you and Hailey, if you have a minute.”

Jake folded his arms over his chest. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Hailey crossed the yard, lowering her voice. “Babe, I think—”

“He should not be here,” Jake argued. “That’s what the counselor said. Hard lines.”

They were probably referring to the clinic volunteer who came to meet with them shortly after I missed their wedding a few years ago, when they realized how serious my dependence was. I was supposed to be at that meeting, too.

“Hard lines when he’s—” She cut off and looked at me. “She said if you’re using, we don’t contact you.” She turned back to Jake. “You’re not even giving him a chance.”

Jake looked at JJ, who was now still, listening to the volley. “JJ, inside, please.”

“But I want—” He had spotted the LEGOs, and was pointing at them.

Jake said louder, “JJ, one, two—”

JJ snapped his hand down with an angry little grunt, and ran inside, pulling the door shut.

I stepped closer to them. “I’m in the army now. I’ve been clean for almost a year.”

Jake folded his arms. “Then why do I see that fuckhead on our street once a month?”

I tried not to show the rage that rose up. He had to be talking about Johnno. I let up my grip on the flowers, took a deep breath. “He’s crazy. I don’t know why he’s around because I’m not buying from him. I’m not buying from anyone.”

Jake shook his head. “But you’re still in the shit, Luke. You may be off pills, and if that’s the case, congratulations, but wherever you are, that asshole will follow, with my wife and kid around. I can’t have that.”

“Well . . . ,” I started, then trailed off. I thought of the calls, the voice mails, but I wasn’t here to talk about Johnno. That was another problem. “All I can say is I’m clean, and I can’t control where he goes. That part’s not my fault.”

Jake exploded. “It’s never your fault. That’s the problem.”

My insides twisted, but I stood my ground. My hand moved to my pocket. The letter could say it better than I could. “Can I read you something?”

Jake’s face looked pained, like I had punched him. “Jesus, Luke—I don’t know, man.”

“It’ll take one second. You don’t have to say anything or forgive me or—whatever.”

Before he could object again, I pulled it out. The paper was stiff with wrinkles from being folded and unfolded so many times over the past year. The ink had almost faded. My hands shook.

“I’m sorry I stole money from the garage, and from you.” I glanced at Jake. His eyes were on the ground.

After I had flunked out and the government student loans had stopped coming, I had started scraping twenties off the safe in the Morrow Garage office, Johnno idling in the Bronco outside.

“I’m sorry I missed the birth of your son.”

Hailey had gotten pregnant when they were twenty-one, after Jake had completed the mechanics certification at Austin Technical College—the one I was supposed to have done, too.

My voice was shaking now. I held back tears. “I’m sorry I was intoxicated on what should have been one of the happiest days of your life, your wedding.”

I remembered my phone vibrating on the bedside table while a girl named Jen and I had snorted Oxy off the bathroom counter in her studio apartment. I had barely made it for the photos after the ceremony, wearing the only clean shirt I had, my long, stupid hair piss yellow and unwashed. The photographer had asked me to hold JJ, then just a toddler, in the family photo, so Jake and Hailey could wrap their arms around each other.

My dad had stepped in.

No, he’d said. I don’t want him touching my grandson.

When I finished reading, I swallowed, composing myself. I looked Jake in the eye, then Hailey, and back to Jake. “I take full responsibility for all of this. And I don’t want to disappoint you again.”