Lena, she couldn't seem to take her eyes off of her. 'You're so much like Sibby, you know?'
Lena shook her head. 'I don't look like her anymore.'
'It's inside,' Charlotte insisted, holding her hand to her chest. 'Y'all were always the same inside, too.'
Lena had to laugh. 'Sibyl was nothing like me. I was in trouble all the time. They probably have a chair outside the principal's office named after me.'
'She was just better at getting away with it,' Charlotte countered. 'Remember how she used to mouth off to Coach Hanson in biology class?'
Lena felt herself smiling. 'She ran circles around him. He hated her guts.'
'Remember that awful music she used to listen to? God, she had such a crush on Joan Jett.'
'Was it Sibyl who – I mean, was she the one who-' Lena felt her face turning beet red. 'Christ. Never mind.'
'It was mutual,' Charlotte supplied. 'We were both studying on the bed. We had the window open and it started raining outside and I reached over to close it and one thing led to another and it just… happened.'
Lena felt her stomach drop. Sibyl's bed was by the wall. They had made out on Lena 's bed.
'Are you okay?'
Lena nodded, trying to block the image that came to her mind.
Charlotte took Lena 's reaction the wrong way. 'She never thought you would accept her.'
'I didn't,' Lena admitted, feeling a familiar sadness. 'I do now, but I didn't when it mattered.'
'She knew you loved her, Lee. She never doubted that.' Charlotte stood and walked over to the window. 'What's Nan like?'
' Nan?' Lena echoed. 'How do you know about Nan?'
'She called me when Sibyl died.'
'Oh.' Lena felt ashamed for not making the call herself.
Charlotte seemed to pick up on this. 'You had a lot going on, Lee. Don't worry.'
'I should have let you know. You were…' Lena didn't know how to characterize Sibyl's relationship with Charlotte. 'I should have called you.'
'She sounds kind of snooty on the phone.'
' Nan?' Lena shrugged. 'Not really. Sometimes she gets prickly, but she's okay most of the time. I lived with her for a while.'
'Hank told me,' Charlotte said. 'We had a good laugh over that one.'
Lena felt her stomach drop. 'What else did Hank tell you about me?'
That he was worried about you. That there was this guy you were seeing who was really bad, and he was worried you wouldn't get away from him.' She paused, hesitating before adding, That he went to Atlanta with you.'
A lump came to Lena 's throat. 'Is that why he started using again? Because I…' Lena couldn't say the word, couldn't talk about what had happened at the women's clinic.
'Listen to me,' Charlotte ordered, her tone sharp.
She waited until Lena looked up. 'You cannot make someone use drugs, just like you can't make them stop. You don't have that much power over Hank or anybody else. Hank started using again for his own reasons.'
She sounded just like one of his A A pamphlets. 'Did he tell you his reasons?'
Charlotte shook her head again. 'Mostly, he just listened to me. I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn't see what was going on with him until it was too late.'
'When did he start back?'
'I'd guess three months ago, maybe four or five if he started slow.'
'Did he say anything in your meetings?'
'I can't tell you what he said in meetings, Lena. You know that.' She held up her hands, as if to stop the next question. 'I can tell you that two months ago he told me that he couldn't be my sponsor anymore. I was hurt, I didn't really question him like I should have because I was too busy feeling angry and rejected. Part of me was glad when he didn't show up at the next meeting or any of the ones after that. Sometimes, he'd drive over to the ones in Carterson and I just assumed he was going to those.'
Carterson was about fifty miles away, not a long drive for someone like Hank, who liked to be on the open road.
Lena asked, 'When did you realize he had stopped going to meetings?'
'A few week ago. I got over myself and asked a friend in Carterson to tell Hank I said hi and she told me she hadn't seen him in forever.'
'Did you ever see a white SUV outside his house?'
'No.' She added, 'Larry and I go for walks after supper. We pass by Hank's almost every night. I've never seen anyone there. As a matter of fact, I wondered if you had come to get him. His car was in the driveway, but there were never any lights on except the usual one in the kitchen.'
Hank always left the kitchen light on as a deterrent to thieves; not a good strategy if the entire neighborhood knew the trick.
Lena asked, 'When did you last see him?'
'Four days ago – that's why I called you. He was outside trying to fix his mailbox. Somebody put a cherry bomb in it, probably one of those kids from a couple of streets over getting a head start on Halloween. Larry offered to help but Hank cursed at him, told us both to go away, so we did.'
Lena mulled this over. 'He's been holed up in his house for how many months and the only thing that got him outside was a broken mailbox?'
'He was so high, Lee. I'm surprised he could stand up on his own, let alone walk the twenty feet to his mailbox. His skin was awful. He obviously hadn't bathed in a while. A fool could see what he's doing.'
'Which is?'
'Trying to end it.'
Lena felt her voice catch. 'End his life?'
Charlotte shrugged. 'End his misery, maybe.'
'What's changed? What happened that set him off?'
'I have no idea. That's the truth. My focus every day when I get up is not taking another drink. I'm an alcoholic. We're not known for our altruism.'
Lena doubted that was the case with Charlotte.
She pressed, 'But you saw he was having problems two, maybe three months ago?'
'I don't know,' Charlotte admitted. 'Maybe I saw that he was depressed or preoccupied or acting differently, but all I cared about was me. School had started back and I was in this hellhole with kids snickering behind my back and teachers snickering in front of it. I was struggling to stay sober. My focus was on what would keep me on the right path.' She held out her hands as if she were helpless. 'By the time I realized something was wrong with him, it was too late. He wouldn't talk to me, he wouldn't return my
