The Ninth Step

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “You be careful, Livie, gal, you hear?--and you call me if you need me no matter how late.”

  She said she would. She said he would never know how grateful she was that he was there for her.

  #

  She didn’t see Cotton at first when she went into the ER. Waiting at the desk, she heard a nurse say something about an ambulance, someone coding. Livie’s stomach dropped.

  Cotton found her and she went with him into the waiting area. He told her that Delia’s heart had stopped. “That’s why they flipped on the lights and siren. They’re still working to get her back.”

  “But she was stable when they left the house.”

  “She’s lost a lot of blood, they don’t know from where.”

  “She fell.” Livie remembered the bright swaths of red smeared over the kitchen wall, puddled on the floor.

  “No, I don’t think-- Well, I guess she could have, but the way they’re talking, it sounds as if it’s something internal. Here, sit down.”

  She perched on the edge of a molded plastic chair. The room was cold and she was afraid . . . of herself, Cotton, what was happening to Delia. The entry doors opened and a man and a woman burst through them on a billowing wave of alarm. The hair on Livie’s scalp rose. In her mind’s eye, she saw her mother’s face when she’d carried Kat, who’d been unconscious, through a similar set of doors, Livie in a dancing panic at her side. Livie remembered Kat’s little legs, the way they’d dangled uselessly over her mother’s arm. She remembered the bruised, sunken orbits of Kat’s eyes, how she’d prayed for Kat to open them.

  Their mother insisted to the ER doctor that Kat was fine; she’d fallen from her bicycle the day before, but she’d been fine. It had been a lie. A bald-faced lie. Livie had burned over it; she’d been furious and shamed: Her mother had lied. Lied! To a doctor. How could she?

  Livie didn’t like remembering. She might have lost her sister then. Because their mother had been so careless with her. It’s what happened when you didn’t pay attention. People died. And after that, what difference did it make for you to argue, the way their mother had, that you loved them? They were still just as dead.

  The man and woman were at the desk now asking for information. A nurse directed them to the surgical floor. Someone down the corridor laughed. There was a page delivered in a well-modulated voice asking for Dr. Albertson, a squeak of rubber-soled shoes, the chime of an elevator, even the antiseptic smell struck a note. Livie tucked her arms around herself.

  She and Cotton were alone.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “Coffee? There’s a machine.”

  “I should be asking you,” she said.

  He sat beside her and looked at her. She had a sense that he was filling himself with the sight of her. She was treated to the brief light of his smile. “I can’t believe you’re real,” he said.

  She shifted her glance. A television bolted to the wall high up in one corner reflected a picture, but no sound.

  “You look-- You’re still so beauti--”

  “Don’t.” She spoke more sharply than she’d intended.

  He balanced his elbows on his knees. “They wanted to know if she drank. I guess they smelled the liquor on her.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “The truth. What else? Nothing’s changed. She’s still a drunk, a total lush.” He kept his gaze on his hands, muttered something that sounded like, “I ought to know.”

  Livie didn’t ask. She’d heard him argue with anyone who suggested his mother had a drinking problem, but she’d also heard him argue with Delia. When she’d complained about this pang or that ache or life in general, he’d said there wasn’t anything wrong with her that getting off the booze wouldn’t cure. “You could at least cut down,” he’d advised her.

  Livie thought she could have done more, should have done more, when she’d gone to show Delia Cotton’s letter. She had seen Delia’s swollen ankles, noticed her pallor. She’d even wondered when Delia had last seen a doctor. Why hadn’t she asked? But Delia wasn’t her mother and on no account would Delia take that sort of interference from Livie. Besides, Cotton was here. He should have been the one to see to Delia, shouldn’t he? She was his responsibility. Livie touched her temples. It wasn’t making her feel better to blame him.

  His neglect didn’t excuse hers.

  Livie knew Delia. It was only on the surface that they appeared to have nothing in common. Delia had no one except Max, the old man who lived down the street, who brought gin to her. Livie had her mom and Kat and Kat’s children. Charlie. Her little farm. Satisfying work. Compared to Delia, Livie had a whole world of things to be thankful for.

  But like Delia, there were days when she didn’t give a flip about it; days when she would waken with depression and loneliness lying across her chest like wet dogs.

  Days that had led her to give up hope.

  All of Delia’s days were like that.

  Livie twisted her hands in her lap. “I wish I’d pushed her harder. If I could have gotten her to talk--”

  “No, Livie, for god’s sake, don’t blame yourself!” Cotton jerked to his feet and she flinched. He clapped his hands to his head. “I feel terrible as it is. I’m so sorry about all this, not just tonight, not just Delia--”

  He bent his gaze to hers. “I would do anything, you know that, don’t you? Give anything to go back, to make it up.”

  She said his name, “Cotton,” wanting to stop the rush of his words. He took no notice.

  “The stuff I’ve written to you, it sounds so stupid, but I keep hoping-- I’ve driven to your place so many times, I think the car could find its way alone.”

  Livie broke their gaze. She thought of the irises, the basket filled with eggs, the offerings of peace he’d left for her on the porch. She’d known, hadn’t she known they were from him?

  Cotton sat beside her again. “Please believe me, I just want to make this right.”

  “Your mother said you told her you left to get away from me.” Livie couldn’t keep the edge from her voice.

  “No! See, that’s what I’m trying to--”

  “--that I was pressuring you to change, to be other than who you are.”

  “She’s a drunk, crazy old woman. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  “She blames me because you dropped out of college. She wishes you’d become a lawyer like Nix.”

  “Well, you know that’s nuts. I dropped out before I met you and I could never have been a lawyer. I was a terrible student.”

  Livie smoothed the folds of her skirt. “This isn’t the right time to have this discussion. There’s something I need to tell you anyway. A woman called--” She hesitated.

  Cotton waited, his gaze was patient, expectant. Sweet, she thought. He could be so sweet.

  She started in again. “It’s just I heard from a neighbor who spoke to the sheriff and he said--” But no, she thought. It was too ridiculous. She couldn’t even tell Cotton the name of the woman who had called JB. It might be some crank for all she knew. It wasn’t as if she’d gotten all the facts and what she did know was second hand. Cotton had enough to deal with right now in any case.

  “Livie?”

  She shook her head. “It’s nothing. What happened between us, it’s in the past and I think it’s best if we leave it there.”

  “But I don’t want anything from you, to take anything more from you. I don’t want to cause you more pain. I just want a chance to explain.”

  She didn’t answer.

  He stood up again, laced his fingers behind his head, whispered, “This is all so screwed up--”

  “Are you with Delia O’Dell?”

  Livie and Cotton both looked at the woman in green blood-spattered scrubs who was asking.

  Livie half stood.

  Cotton said he was Delia’s son.

  “I’m Dr. Hoffman, Penny Hoffman.” The woman spoke quietly, but distinctly, the way Livie spoke to Zachary when he needed to
be calmed down, when she needed him to listen. “I’ve been looking after your mother since they brought her in.”

  “How is she?” Cotton asked.

  The doctor gestured. “Let’s sit down.”

  Chapter 12

  “This is Olivia Saunders.” Cotton introduced Livie, fighting an urge to take her hand as he sat beside her. “She’s--”My bride, my wife, the love of my life. . . .

  “A friend of the family,” Livie supplied.

  Penny Hoffman nodded. She was sixtyish, Cotton guessed, tall and angular. He had the sense that there was no flesh left over for curves under the loose-fitting scrubs. There was nothing soft about her face either except her eyes.

  “Your mom’s in critical condition,” she said. “She was in cardiac arrest when the paramedics brought her in.”

  “They said she died.”

  “She’s lucky she was in an ambulance. We were able to resuscitate her. We’ve inserted a tube to help clear the fluid in her abdomen and we’re giving her blood transfusions. But she’s not out of the woods.”

  “Will she be?”

  “If we can stop the bleeding, that’s the tricky part. She’s very weak, not a good candidate for surgery at this point.”

  Cotton took a breath of air, blew it through his teeth.

  “I told her the last time she landed in here that she had to stop drinking.”

  “Last time?” Cotton and Livie spoke at once.

  “She was here for ten days last October according to her chart. A procedure was done then, a ligation, to close off the source of the bleeding.”

  Livie brought her tented fingers to her mouth. “I should have looked in on her--”

  “No.” Cotton held her with his glance; he couldn’t stand the sound of her distress. “It’s my fault. If anyone should have been checking on her, it was me.”

  “Actually it’s your mom who’s the alcoholic and she’s back in here because she refuses to address her addiction.” Dr. Hoffman was matter-of-fact.

  Cotton dropped his gaze.

  Livie leaned around him. “What exactly is her condition?”

  She was so close, Cotton could feel the warmth of her skin, her breath on his neck. He wanted to put his hand there; he wanted to turn and kiss her. He wanted to go to his knees and beg for her forgiveness. He wanted to look at her, to fill his eyes with the sight of her. He did none of those things. He kept his gaze low while Penny Hoffman answered Livie’s question: Delia was suffering from cirrhosis and in addition to massive internal bleeding, she was under siege from an entire host of other complications: edema, weight loss, jaundice; her condition was chronic and degenerative. The doc went on and on.

  Cotton thought if Livie had asked him, his version would have been a lot shorter: You drink enough for long enough, you tear the shit out of your liver. You rupture a bunch of veins, bleed into your gut. You vomit blood everywhere. In Seattle, Anita had gotten drunk with a woman who’d choked to death on her own blood in the street outside a liquor store. She’d had the cap off the half pint she and Anita had just purchased when she fell. Anita said she’d cut her knees all to hell on the busted glass trying to save the bottle.

  “Can we see her?” Cotton asked when Dr. Hoffman stopped talking.

  “As soon as she’s stable, we’ll move her into the ICU.” The doctor stood up, said she’d be around all night if they needed to speak with her again.

  Cotton asked if Livie would wait and when she nodded he went after the doctor and caught her before she disappeared through the double doors underneath a sign that read: Admittance Restricted.

  “What are the odds my mother’ll make it?” he asked her. “You know, like. . . ?” He lifted a shoulder. Through the night, out of here, another month, a year? He could tell from Dr. Hoffman’s expression that she hated the question; he knew all the reasons why, too, but there it was.

  Penny Hoffman crossed her arms. “It’s hard to predict. I’d say a bit worse given that this is the second major bleeding episode she’s had in less than a year. Of course, if she goes home and takes even one more drink, all bets are off.”

  #

  Livie was perched on the edge of the chair when he came back to the waiting area. “I should go,” she said. “My niece is spending the night and I’ve left her with a neighbor.”

  “Stella. She was just a baby when--”

  Livie’s eyes narrowed.

  Cotton shifted his glance remembering Stella, the times he’d walked with her and rocked her, the endless games of peek-a-boo. One starry night at Kat’s house, they’d had Sinatra on the stereo and Cotton had put his arms around both Stella and Livie and twirled with them outside on the patio. He remembered Stella’s giggles, her chubby-fisted kisses to “Mr. Moon”. She had loved “Mr. Moon”.

  “How old is she now?” he asked Livie and nearly lost himself in the sudden surprise of her smile, in the way he felt redeemed by its light.

  “Seven going on seventeen,” Livie answered, the smile fading as quickly as it had come. “She has a brother, Zachary, who’s three. Kat has her hands full.” Livie stood, purposefully, as if she’d had enough of small talk.

  Cotton stood too, somehow keeping her gaze. Her eyes seemed full of conflict and shadow, as if she wanted to say a hundred things; she was so much the image of his memory, so much the source of the ache in his heart. He touched two fingertips to the back of her hand, unable to keep from it and when she allowed it, he thought his heart might stop. The space they shared became charged, electric. Cotton knew Livie felt it, too, that she had to.

  “Livie--” Her name shaped his breath.

  “I hope Delia will be okay.”

  “She’d be dead if it weren’t for you.”

  “I’m glad I could be there for her.”

  “When I remember how she treated you, it really pisses me off.”

  Livie recoiled. “How she treated me?”

  Cotton saw his mistake and tried to backpedal, mouthing, “No I--” mouthing, “I don’t mean to minimize my--” Finally saying, “Look, it’s going to be a while until she’s moved. Can’t we talk?”

  “You should call your brother, Scott. In Seattle, right?” Livie’s voice was whip-thin and as brittle with accusation as her gaze. He felt flayed by it, felt his face burning.

  But he was confused about this further source of her anger, what Scott had to do with it. “What are you getting at?”

  “You told me he took off when you were in high school and you didn’t know where he’d gone--”

  “I did?” Had he told her about that?

  “--that you didn’t care if you never spoke to him again. But you did know where he lived. You went there.”

  Cotton looked away.

  “It wasn’t him you never wanted to see again, was it? It was me. Your mother’s right.”

  He began a protest.

  She put up her hand. “No. Don’t say anything else. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Yes, it does. This is why I stayed away because I didn’t want you to be hurt by me any more than you already were. I know what you think, that I couldn’t commit, that I didn’t love you, but you’re wrong. So wrong. If you would only listen, let me expl--”

  “No,” she repeated. “It’s too late,” she said and his knees almost buckled.

  She went to the entrance door and he waited for her to go through it, wild to stop her, thinking if he tried, he risked making it worse when she stopped of her own accord and faced him.

  “Do you know I waited for you to turn around and you didn’t.”

  He frowned. “I’m sorry, I’m not following--”

  “In the driveway at your mom’s house, before the ambulance left, you never once looked to see if I was still there. You assumed I would do what I said even after everything that’s happened, you never doubted I would come here and wait with you.” She advanced on him, one step, two. “It would never occur to you that you couldn’t trust me, would it? You don’t have any idea what that f
eels like.”

  His mouth worked; words collided in his brain, but before he could put them together she was gone. He felt jolted by her absence. His ears rang. The doors opened and a nurse rushed past him making a wind that ruffled his clothes. What had happened? What had just fucking happened here? He backed to a chair, sank into it, dropped his head into his hands.

  He’d failed her again, but he didn’t know how.

  #

  “I don’t know what she wants from me, what else I can do,” he told Anita. He was sitting in the parking lot of the hospital in the Mercedes with his cell phone. “All I want is to make it right, but no matter what I say, she takes it the wrong way. She won’t listen; she won’t let me--”

  “Geez, Cotton, I can’t believe you’re still so damn clueless.”

  “What?”

  “You blame everyone but yourself. It’s all about how your mother lied to Livie, put ideas in her head, and now Livie won’t give you a chance. It’s your mother’s fault; it’s Livie’s fault. The devil made you do it.” Anita sighed. “Are you really going to make me repeat what, why and who created this situation? Are you really going to make me say that none of these circumstances you’re whining about would even exist if you hadn’t been boozing it up on your wedding day? Or how about if you’d just stayed put after the accident instead of running?”

  Cotton curled his hand around the steering wheel, balanced his forehead on his knuckles.

  “Cotton?” Anita said his name softly.

  “Have I ever told you how much you piss me off?” he asked her.

  “I’m really sorry about your mom. Have they let you in to see her?”

  “Yeah. For a couple minutes. She’s in a coma. They said the next seventy-two hours are critical.”

  “Have you called your brother? Is he coming? Do you have a sponsor there? You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “I’m okay. Not thinking of drinking.”

  “Like hell.”

  Cotton laughed. He told Anita about Sonny Bozeman.