Keeping well away from the bank, we stood there for some time watching in dumbstruck silence before Shorty Rojas joined us, shading his eyes against a sudden burst of sunlight as he stared across the raging flood.
'What do you think?' I asked. 'Is this as high as it goes?'
He shook his head. 'I hear it's still raining up in the mountains,' he answered, 'and the guy on the radio said it's running about seventy-four thousand cubic feet per second. They're calling it a hundred-year flood.'
Michelle Owens looked alarmed. 'What does that mean?'
'A flood this bad only happens on an average of every hundred years or so,' I explained.
Shorty nodded. 'That's what they say,' he observed laconically, 'but this here's the third one I've seen, so their hundred-year call ain't exactly scientific. I may have to move them horses up to a higher corral.' He turned and walked away.
Eventually Michelle and I headed back as well. It was eight-thirty. People would be filtering into the various group-session rooms for the short, early morning mixed group with both clients and family members present. We had just passed Joey's and my cabin when I saw a patrol car go jouncing up the dirt road past the tennis courts. The lights were on. So was the siren.
It almost made me laugh aloud. An hour and a half late and the damn deputy shows up in response to my car prowl call with his lights flashing and siren blaring.
And to think Louise Crenshaw had called me melodramatic.
CHAPTER 4
I went on into the ranch house and hung around by the coffee table in the dining room, expecting at any moment to be summoned into Louise Crenshaw's presence to meet with the deputy, but that didn't happen. The deputy disappeared into thin air. Nobody bothered to come looking for me.
Karen and the kids showed up a few minutes later. Kelly still wasn't speaking to me, which didn't exactly make me feel terrific. She had her mother relay a message to ask me where Joey Rothman was, and I passed along the information that I didn't have the foggiest idea and couldn't care less. On that happy note we all filed into the portable, a semi-permanent, classroom-sized building which was the site of my group's mixed session.
I dreaded the morning's opening Round Robin when the counselors went around the room, calling on each person individually and inquiring after everybody's current state of mind. It was an exercise intended to bring out into the open whatever murky feelings might have surfaced overnight since the last session. During the course of family week, Round Robins often resulted in emotional fire storms.
One thing I had already learned from my three and a half weeks of treatment was that everybody involved, family members and addicts alike, had long since learned to function by putting on as normal an outward appearance as possible while keeping their real feelings buried far beneath the surface. In chemically dependent families, nobody dares say what they really think or feel for fear the entire house of cards will come tumbling down around their ears.
Living through Round Robins, 'touching base exercises' as they called them in the Ironwood Ranch lexicon, is often a scary, treacherous process.
That particular morning it was especially so, and not just for me. I glanced around the room. Naturally, Joey Rothman was nowhere in evidence. Kelly, sullen and pouting, sat with her arms crossed staring moodily at the floor. Just because she wasn't speaking to me didn't mean she would have any compunction about letting loose with a full pyroclastic blast in front of the whole group. That unpleasant prospect made me more than a little nervous.
Directly across the open circle from Kelly sat Michelle Owens, still pale, red-eyed, and miserable. On Michelle's other side sat Guy Owens, tight-lipped and explosive, wound tight as a drum and waiting expectantly. Still searching for Joey, he eagerly scanned each new face every time the door opened and closed. I idly wondered if that little twerp of a Burton Joe and his female counterpart would be tough enough to handle the ensuing donnybrook if Joey Rothman was dumb enough to turn up in Group that morning. There were enough people present that Rothman probably wouldn't get hurt too badly, but Guy Owens would scare the living shit out of him. Of that, I was certain.
So while part of me looked forward to the coming confrontation, relishing it, another part of me empathized with Michelle Owens and wondered what would happen to her if her father lit into Rothman and beat the crap out of him. I also worried how Michelle would take it if Kelly happened to mention that her quarrel with me was also about Joey Rothman, the father of Michelle's unborn child. So sitting in that room waiting for things to happen was very much like sitting on a keg of dynamite.
But somewhere along the way, a little of the dynamite was unexpectedly defused. Before the session officially got under way, Nina Davis, Louise Crenshaw's personal secretary, hurried up to where Michelle and Guy Owens were sitting, said something to them in urgent undertones, and led them from the room. As the door closed behind them, I let out an audible sigh of relief. Unfortunately, Burton Joe heard it. As soon as the Round Robin started, he called on me. First.
'I heard you mention at breakfast that you hadn't slept well last night, Beau. Is there any specific problem you'd like to discuss with the group?'
Like hell I was going to discuss it with the whole group. 'Not really,' I replied as nonchalantly as possible. 'I was waiting up to talk with Joey, but he never came in.'
Kelly swung her head around and stared at me in disbelief. 'Why don't you tell them the truth, Daddy?' she blurted passionately. 'Why don't you tell them that you were mad at Joey because he's a really awesome guy? You caught us kissing and jumped to all kinds of terrible conclusions. You acted like I was a stupid two-year-old or something. I've never been so embarrassed in my whole life.' With that, she burst into tears.
Her frontal attack left me with no line of retreat. Everyone looked at me. Glared is more like it. I felt like I was totally alone, standing naked at center stage under the glare of an immense spotlight with every flaw and defect fully exposed. I waited, hoping a hole would open in the floor and swallow me, but just when I was at my lowest ebb, help came from a totally unexpected quarter.
Scott, sitting on the other side of Kelly, leaned back in his chair far enough to catch my eye behind the back of his sister's head. He winked at me as if to say 'It's okay, Pop. I've seen these kinds of fireworks before. Hang on; it'll pass.'
For the first time in years, I could feel that ineffable bond of kinship flowing back and forth between my son and me. It lanced across the room like a ray of brilliant sunshine, giving me something to cling to, putting a lump in my throat.
'Is that true, Beau?' Burton Joe asked.
That blinding sense of renewed connection with Scott left me too choked up to answer. I nodded helplessly. Misreading the cause of my emotional turmoil, Burton Joe nodded too, an understanding, encouraging nod. As far as he was concerned, my uncontrolled show of emotion demonstrated a sudden breakthrough in treatment.
'Just go with it,' Burton Joe said solicitously. 'Let it flow.'
Other words of reassurance and support came from around the circle. Ed Sample, sitting next to me, gave the top of my thigh a comforting, open-handed whack. I couldn't explain to any of them what had really happened. Talking about it would have trivialized it somehow, when all I really wanted to do was grab Scott in my arms and crush him against my chest. But that didn't happen, either.
The outside door opened. Everyone shifted slightly in their seats, disturbed by the sudden intrusion into the privacy of the session. This time, instead of Nina or Louise Crenshaw, Calvin Crenshaw himself stood in the doorway.
'Sorry to disturb you, Burton,' he said slowly, 'but I need to speak to Mr. Beaumont.'
Burton Joe nodded. 'All right,' he said. 'You can go, Beau.'
We were all used to Louise popping in and out, but for Calvin Crenshaw to interrupt a group was unusual to begin with. Beyond that, and despite an apparent effort to maintain control, it was clear to me that something was dreadfully wrong. Calvin Crenshaw's complexion was generally on the florid side. Now his skin was livid-his cheeks a pasty shade of gray and his full lips white instead of pink.
I got up quickly and followed him from the room. I waited until he had closed the door to the portable before
