“I need to stop drinking.”
Dix nodded.
“Jenn tell you about me?”
Dix nodded.
“This job, in Paradise, is the last stop. I get off the bus here and where do I go?”
“Freud says the things that matter most to people are love and work,” Dix said.
“I don’t want to be oh for two.”
“I don’t know where it will lead,” Dix said. “But I’ve talked with Jenn, and the connection between you is very powerful.”
“You’re saying maybe I could be two for two?”
“I’m saying you do what you can. Jenn is up to Jenn. But the work is up to you.”
“I can do the work,” Jesse said.
“If you’re sober.”
“And Jenn?”
“Jenn will do what she will do,” Dix said. “All you can do is be sober.”
“And staying sober helps the work and the work helps the staying sober.”
“Can’t hurt,” Dix said.
Again they sat quietly in the unadorned room. Dix remained motionless.
“That’s what you’re doing,” Jesse said.
Dix didn’t answer.
“You stay sober by helping people stay sober,” Jesse said.
“See, you learned something already.”
Jesse thought about it. He laughed.
“I need a drink,” he said.
“Me too,” Dix said.
“But you won’t.”
“Nope.”
They were silent for a long time. Jesse could hear his breath going in and out. Dix didn’t move. The steadiness of his gaze was implacable.
“And if I can’t quit?” Jesse said finally.
Dix waited a moment before he answered.
“Then,” he said, “you’re fucked.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Jesse sat in the sunroom off the front parlor of the house in Swampscott and talked with Hank and Sandy Bishop.
“The dead girl we found in Paradise is your daughter Elinor,” Jesse said.
Sandy Bishop’s mouth was thin with denial. Her husband seemed to have disappeared behind the blank facade of his face.
“That can’t be,” Sandy Bishop said.
“I’m sorry,” Jesse said. “But it is. We know it’s Billie, and we know Billie is your daughter.”
Hank Bishop’s face seemed to grow tighter. Sandy’s pretty cheerleader face became more disapproving. Jesse felt as if he had misbehaved and she were going to scold him. Jesse waited. Hank Bishop opened his mouth and closed it. He looked at his wife. She continued to gaze at Jesse, the disapproval in her face unflinching. Jesse waited. Hank’s breathing was audible. He seemed short of breath. He tried to speak.
“We…”
Sandy raised her right hand sharply as if she were tossing something away.
“Billie was lost to us,” she said, “a long time ago.”
The only thing Jesse could hear in her voice was the same disapproval that had shown in her face.
“How long?”
“She ran away from us at the end of the school year, but she had left us in every other way long before that.”
“You didn’t get along?” Jesse said.
