The Stone Necklace

by Carla Damron

  “Here.” John handed her son to her. “I have an idea.”

  Tonya pulled Byron close. She didn’t want to go to work today. She didn’t want to help Marion with the filing or set up appointments for Mr. Jamison or answer the phone five hundred times, or try to be nice to clients who weren’t. What she wanted to do was this: hold her little boy, the two of them whole and able to go on with their lives.

  “Okay,” John said from behind her. “Turn around. Put the squirt down and drop the towel so I can get a good shot of you.”

  He held the camera, his finger poised on the button. He wanted to take her picture.

  “No,” she said.

  “Don’t say no. We need to get a photo of those bruises. If this thing goes to court, we’ll need proof of your injuries.”

  She put Byron down, not trusting her arms to hold him with the rage simmering inside her.

  John scrutinized her through the digital viewer. “I doubt we’ll use these, but it’s good to have them.”

  She clutched the towel and held her ground. “No.”

  “Babe, you’re not thinking. They have to cover your medical bills. We need to prove pain and suffering—I was looking on the internet last night. That’s what they call the disruption to your life this kind of thing causes.”

  “The internet?” So he was serious about pursuing this.

  He clicked a picture. “It probably won’t even make it to court. The insurance company will want to settle, but we need this evidence just in case.”

  She backed up behind the door. She would not be “evidence.” He had no right to her body, to her bruises and swollen nose. They were hers to feel, hers to live with.

  “Look.” John used a quieter, warmer tone. “Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be. Use the towel to hide your breasts, I’ll just get that blue stripe above them.” He stepped closer, his face softening. “Please, honey?”

  She could never fight him when he looked at her like that: the half smile, the crinkled eyes. She positioned the towel over her nipples, cold from the exposure, and recoiled at each click, whir, and flash of the camera.

  SANDY STUDIED THE POSTED list of meetings and tried to summon the courage to go inside the church classroom. Jackie had suggested this meeting because Sandy could attend right after work. The AME church was a mere five minutes from the hospital so she had no real excuse to not attend. Except for the little problem of her feet cemented to the floor and an overwhelming urge to run from the building.

  “First time?”

  She turned to find a skinny kid with spiky yellow hair and piercing green eyes.

  “Yes. Well, no, I’ve been to meetings, but not here. I mean, this is my first time to this meeting.” She blushed at her own stammering but the guy just smiled.

  “It’s a good one. Can get lively at times.”

  What did lively mean? Arguments? Fighting? She eyed the exit at the end of the hall.

  “Ah,” he said, removing a scarf and shoving it in the pocket of his sweatshirt. “First meeting on the outside.”

  “What?” Was she wearing an invisible sign?

  “You have that ‘fresh from rehab look.’ I’m not being critical—I had the same expression fourteen months ago. The idea of coming here scared the hell out of me.” He rubbed a hand across his nose. A tattoo across his knuckles spelled out “VIDA.”

  “Good guess.” She watched a string of people come up the hall to enter the meeting room, but the kid remained.

  “I’m Jake.”

  “Sandy.” She almost added “Albright” but this was NA, the land of no last names.

  “They won’t bite. At least, nobody’s gotten bit so far.” He cocked a thumb towards the room and she read “LOCA” on the other hand. “VIDA LOCA.” Crazy life.

  She looked at the odd mixture of men and women in the room. White, black, Hispanic. A guy pushing seventy and this kid in front of her maybe twenty years old. She should go inside. She really should.

  “You can sit with me in the back. And you don’t have to talk or even introduce yourself if you don’t want. Come on.”

  She eyed the long corridor like an escaping student caught by hall patrol. But the truth was she needed a little shove to get through that door. She took in a deep breath and followed Jake into the meeting. After the mandatory stop at the coffee urn they found seats in the back row of mismatched plastic chairs. She liked the Jesus pictures decorating the room’s cinderblock walls; a dark-skinned Christ was much more believable than the blond, blue-eyed version in the fellowship hall at her dad’s church. The AME Jesus went with a shepherd motif: in flowing blue robes he smiled his perfect Jesus smile at the lambs, both black and white, gathered around him.

  The NA leader started the meeting and invited new members to introduce themselves. Sandy remained quiet while Mark, an old member who hadn’t attended in half a year, talked about a career crisis that cost him a ton of money. He was contemplating a move to get away from the pressures of his adrenalin-filled work as an investment manager.

  Maybe Sandy should move away, too. Everybody at the hospital seemed to know about her stay in rehab. Some avoided her, while others winked like they shared a secret, something she found troubling. The emotional toll of the job was worse now, like the time she spent with Lena. When she had felt the pain radiating from that woman, it was hard not to absorb it as her own. Would moving again be the solution? Leaving Charlotte hadn’t been her choice; she’d screwed up at the hospital and almost killed a patient. She wasn’t using drugs when it happened, just depressed and befuddled by the implosion of her life. The hospital administrator let her resign, instead of firing her, saying it was because of what she’d been through, though Sandy suspected it was more a matter of protecting Donald’s reputation than hers.

  That Mark guy, who kept talking about the economy and how unfair it was that some big deal had fallen through, twitched like a ferret. Dots of sweat covered his bald head. He tapped his foot against the scarred linoleum floor. Crinkled his nose. Coke addict maybe?

  When the leader began a discussion on managing addictions during the holidays, Sandy had a terrifying thought: the usual Christmas services at her father’s church, followed by a white-linen dinner with her parents, her brother and his perfect Baptist family. She hadn’t visited them, un-medicated, in two years. A Christmas Plan B was mandatory if she was to stay sober.

  Beside Sandy was one of those annoying water bottle people. Soggy napkins surrounded her sweating one liter container which she kept opening, sipping, replacing the top, then repeating the cycle over and over again like somebody with unresolved weaning issues. Sandy considered snatching the bottle and pouring the water over her head.

  A stringy-haired woman brought good news of visitation with her children. She cried as she talked about losing her home and custody of her kids because of crack cocaine. A former interior designer, she now shared a room with two women in a recovery house and tried to get by waiting tables. “But it’s a start,” she said. “I got two hours with my babies. It’s a start.”

  Sandy glared at the woman. She had kids—how could she do that to them? If Sandy had carried her child to term, had given birth—no way she’d have turned to drugs. She never got that chance. She’d never held her baby. Never nursed her. Never celebrated the first word, the first step. All those months of eager anticipation only to have it stolen from her. Ripped away. And here she was surrounded by a room full of miserable addicts talking about their miserable lives. And there was no relief, because the only life raft she had was snatched away, too.

  Twitchy Mark eyed his watch. The foot kept tapping.

  “Would you stop all that squirming?” A guy beside Mark said. “You got some place to be or something?”

  Mark jumped from his chair. He was wide in the chest and loomed over them. “Maybe I need to get the hell away from all you people. You think you’ve got it so bad but you don’t have a damn clue.”

  Sandy eyed the picture to see
if the black Jesus was covering his ears. “Here we go,” Jake whispered.

  The group leader stood and took a step forward. “Easy, Mark. We’re just concerned.”

  Mark’s gaze doing a bumblebee flight around the room.

  “You using?” Jake asked.

  Mark spun around as if looking for an assailant.

  “You have the look. I mean, I know the look. Real well.” There was no accusation in his expression, but calm acceptance.

  Mark stared, but Jake just smiled back.

  “I slipped. It was stupid. So stupid.”

  She glanced around at the others. Some flinching, some nodding in calm acceptance.

  Mark continued. “But I’m trying to hold it together now. I have too much going on. Real life, you know?”

  Nobody spoke for a moment, and Mark took his seat again. “Sorry,” he said.

  “I’m sorry too, man,” the fat guy said. “Real life can suck.”

  Real life like this new life Sandy never would have planned for herself. Real life without a child or husband or nice home or much reason at all to get up in the morning.

  The group sipped their now-cold anemic coffee.

  The leader spoke. “I’m glad you came to the meeting, Mark. It wasn’t an easy choice, but it was the right one. Every sober day is something to be proud of.”

  Mark rubbed a palm against his sweaty forehead. “I’m just trying not to crash and burn.”

  “Ain’t we all,” said Jake, giving a tight smile to Sandy. “Ain’t we all.”

  AS SANDY PULLED INTO HER DRIVE, she thought she saw movement by the door. Sean? No, he would have let himself inside, unless he lost his keys for the nine millionth time. The shadow looked taller than Sean and very lean. Was somebody breaking in? She reached for her cell as she started backing out, but the figure waved and descended the steps. The ambling gait, the way he buried his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, the way he stood on the sidewalk, head cocked to the side like a puppy to watch her: Jesse was back.

  She turned off the ignition. Strange how the drive to go to him fought the drive to dash away. He gripped the car door when she opened it and climbed out.

  “Hey.” She knew his arms would be around her before she took a step, and expected a smart ass comment about the weight she had gained, but he said nothing. He smelled the same. Tangy citrus from his aftershave. He felt the same, the supple leather of his jacket, the rough stubble of whiskers on his chin. She had missed him, even when she didn’t want to.

  “You never called me back,” he said. “So I figured I’d better stalk you.”

  She unlocked the door and let him inside. He surveyed the living room as she switched on lamps and swept Sean’s clutter from the coffee table.

  “Where’s the roomie?” he asked.

  “At work.”

  Jesse sat on the sofa, stretching his long legs out. He wasn’t as dark as either parent; Sandy knew this from his family photos. His skin was more the brown of a potato. His hair had thinned on top, like his dad’s, and the Rogaine wasn’t helping. “Don’t suppose you have a beer?” he asked.

  “Uh, no.” She frowned at the callous question.

  “Oh, right. Sorry. I, well, I know alcohol wasn’t a problem for you.”

  She decided to sit across from him, not too close. “I’m not an alcoholic. But if I do drink, I’m more likely to use. It lowers my defenses.” Lesson One-A from Brook Pines: know your triggers and avoid them like hell. She hadn’t decided if Jesse fit in that category.

  He reached for a pillow and started fiddling with the fringe. “Why didn’t you call me back?”

  “Why didn’t you call me back when I was in rehab? Or come see me? Or send a card?” She hadn’t meant to blurt it all out but seeing him had her off her game.

  “A card? You expected me to send a card?” He flashed a wry smile and tossed the pillow at her.

  “No. But something.” She flung it back.

  “I started to come. They told me visiting day was Sunday. But I thought—hell, I don’t know what I thought.”

  So he had called the center to find out about visiting day, which was something, at least.

  “I worried about you,” he added. “I wasn’t sure how I could help. Thought maybe I was part of the problem.”

  Maybe he was; she wasn’t sure. Everything about life before rehab seemed like one ugly tangle.

  “Finishing the program took a lot of guts.” Jesse spun the pillow between his hands. Big hands that could palm a basketball.

  “Not guts. Desperation. I had to survive rehab or lose everything.” At least, that was how it felt. If they took her nursing license, she couldn’t work, couldn’t pay the mortgage or the car payment, the failures piling on top of her.

  “You wouldn’t have been destitute. I wouldn’t abandon you like that.”

  “I wasn’t about to have you support me.” She sounded more bitter than she meant. Jesse sold high-end medical equipment like MRIs and ultrasound machines. His salary was in the six digits, and he traveled all over the southeast. She often wondered if he had a girl in every port. When she asked him, he’d answer, “Trust me, babe.” Like that could happen.

  “So no beer. Maybe a soda? Coffee?” Jesse asked.

  She nodded. He followed her into the kitchen where Miss Saigon purred against his leg like they were lovers reunited. Jesse bent over to scratch her chin. “You are such a flirt,” he said.

  “Takes after Sean.” Sandy opted to make coffee because caffeine might keep her on her toes. Jesse sat in his usual spot at the kitchen table, leaning back, hooking his thumbs around the ladder-back chair. His eyes on her used to be something she enjoyed but now it made her feel exposed. When she placed the cream and Splenda on the placemat, he took her hand.

  “What was it like?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Rehab. What was it like?”

  She let her fingers slip away from his and busied herself with cups. She was hungry so she added cheese and crackers to the table.

  “You don’t want to tell me?” He studied her as if he could see more than she wanted. Jesse was smooth as ice and just as slippery, but this wasn’t the kind of conversation they had. They didn’t pry. They kept things in the here-and-now.

  “Hard as hell. Especially that first night.” The agony of withdrawal: uncontrolled shaking. The manic hammering in her heart. The paranoia: the sprinkler head over her bed held a camera. Even after they gave her a tranquilizer she lay awake, trying to hear what the muffled voices outside her room were saying about her.

  He stood, ambling over to the coffee maker and pouring cups for both of them. “It got better?”

  “Rehab was like another planet. Kind of hard to describe.” Sometimes it had been okay, like she was floating in the ocean, cool and peaceful. Then waves came out of nowhere and toppled her into the roiling sea. Drowning had its appeal, even now. She bit into a cracker. A little stale, but tolerable.

  “Did anybody come to see you?” he asked.

  “Sean did. A lot. He brought me the DVD player and a bunch of movies. My parents came, too.” She sipped her coffee.

  “Wow. How’d that go?”

  “About what you’d expect. I should have sold tickets.” Actually much worse than anyone expected. Having them across the glossy black table from her, having Pastor-Dad caress the worn cover of his Bible, having them dare to mention the failure of her marriage. The false condolences and expressions of concern, the subtle gleam in her father’s eyes as though he was secretly pleased to witness her failure. After they left, it took two hours of therapy with Dr. Flanders and a mild sedative (too mild) for her to settle down. Dr. Flanders forbade future visits from Reverend and Mrs. Duncan L. Albright.

  Then the greeting card came, the crisp white envelope, gold foil inside, the “get well soon” in cursive font and the note from her mother: “we’re praying for you every day, Sandy. We’re praying for your soul.” Don’t, she wanted to answer, because
she wasn’t sure she wanted her soul saved.

  “How long had it been since you saw your folks?” Jesse asked.

  “Can we not talk about it?” She lowered her coffee, her hand quaking. What a wreck she was.

  “Sure, babe. Sure.” Jesse tried too hard not to notice her trembling, which humiliated her. She wished she did have beer. Just one, to take the edge off. And a valium. No, that was what Jackie called “stinking thinking.”

  She glanced up at him and had a fleeting thought of dragging him to the bedroom and undressing him. Sex with Jesse could be mind-blowing and that was one high she was still allowed. But then he’d see her nude, and that new layer of fat around her waist couldn’t be ignored. This wretched sober life.

  Miss Saigon hopped up in Jesse’s lap and swished her tail under his chin.

  “What have you been up to?” she asked.

  “Same old, same old. Got a new contract down in Orlando. Big facility. They’re working me hard.”

  “Nice to have business in this economy.” She wondered if he had a Florida girlfriend yet.

  “Always gonna have sick people no matter what Wall Street does. That’s why I’m in the biz.” Sometimes Jesse took on a hip-hop accent and attitude but he’d just as easily morph into an Ivy-League-grad-stockbroker.

  She wished she was more like him. If she could shed her skin and become someone else. She faked it, back when she used drugs. For two and a half years, she had pretended she hadn’t lost everything that mattered to her.

  Damn it. She had to turn this off. Jesse came over to her and reached for the fists balled at her side, enfolding them in his bear paw of a hand. Touched her face. Kissed her.

  She thought about asking him to leave and closing the door on Jesse’s part of her life. But his arms came around her, his hips pushing against her, and he felt familiar, the feel of his bristly cheek on hers, the way he mmmmm’ed when their lips touched, the solid warmth of the man. She slid her hands around him.

  Finally, finally, she stopped thinking.