Somewhere around two in the morning I carried her upstairs to bed. She weighed even less than the day before. She was turning into air.
I couldn’t get in bed with her. Even as tired and wrecked as I was, after such a day. She was curled up so small with her knees pulled against her chest and her fists on her face like an unborn baby herself. I tucked blankets around her, then came back downstairs and stripped the filthy mess of clothes and quilts off the couch and stuffed it all in the washer. I picked up the dishes and put them in the sink. Came back to the naked couch and lay down and wished some flood would come and wash out the dry, grainy sockets of my eyes. My only job and purpose now was to keep Dori alive, and I didn’t know how to do it.
55
June was sending Emmy away to some residence place that would get her clean. None of this quickie rehab business that Mom wore out like a doormat, nor even the upscale three weeks that Stoner paid for, prior to shaming her over it to the point of death. We’re talking possibly years of Emmy’s life, starting it all over from scratch. In Asheville. There is no such reboot camp around here. Lee County being a place where you keep on living the life you were assigned.
June called to let me know if I wanted to say goodbye, this would be the day. What kind of bucks is this gold-star cure going to cost, you wonder. But it’s rude to discuss money. I just asked the polite things like, Does this establishment have bars in the windows because you know Emmy’s going to try and bolt. June was pretty confident Emmy would stay put. The reason: Rose Dartell. She’d contacted Emmy, offering to relieve her of some body parts. Holy shit.
I said I’d come over after work. I was still unfired at the co-op, probably because any other kid they hired would be as strung out as I was. I’d drag my ass in late, Rita and Les would hit pause on their Medicare war to join forces in eye-rolling. You get used to a routine. I needed the job, and if I lost my line on cheap livestock syringes, I’d be in trouble at home.
It was late winter now, where sunset puts its claim on much of the day. I drove up towards June’s place, looking at pink sky through the black trees. June opened the door, looking worn out. “She’s upstairs packing, hon. Hang on, let me go see if she wants you to come up there.”
Emmy came downstairs with her coat on, wanting to go for a walk. We headed up to the ruined cabin. She pulled her hat on fast, but I saw attempts had been made to salvage the wreck. Some kind of pixie cut, spikes and wisps. It had been a few weeks since the rescue but she still looked too thin, too jumpy, old in a young body. Rode hard and put up wet, guys like to say. But in some other way, she was restored to full Emmy. She wanted a cigarette.
“She’ll know you smoked, if you go back in there smelling like a chimney.”
“She’s bigger on forgiveness than permission.”
“Fine then, let her blame me for corrupting you.” I produced what was required. Emmy leaned against a tree and inhaled so hard the flame from my lighter pulled into the paper and crackled. Breathed in, breathed out, eyes closed, God don’t I know it. That moment where nicotine has to stand in for all other things you’re dying for.
“Late in the day for that, don’t you think?”
For contributing to the delinquency, she meant. I wondered so many things: Was Fast Forward some kind of drug lord now, did he really just throw her away like trash. How does a person you’ve worshipped turn into a monster. And by the way Rose Dartell, what the fuck. None of this would Emmy want to talk about. We went into the skeleton cabin and sat on the log benches we’d dragged together as kids. She smoked and held her cigarette away from her, the way girls do to try and keep the smell out of their hair. Old habit. She put her face down on her knees for a while, then sat back up. “Demon, I’m scared to death.”
“Of what?” I thought she’d say Rose, but no. She was scared to go away. Afraid they would brainwash her in this place. Afraid nobody there would understand her, she said. What she really meant was, nobody would know what she’d always been: queen bee, Emmy Peggot.
“You’ll rock the house,” I said. “You will rule rehab.”
But I didn’t really know. Here, all we can ever be is everything we’ve been. I came from a junkie mom and foster care, briefly a star, to some degree famous because of all that. Quick to burn out, right on schedule. Emmy grew up in Knoxville and moved back here out of the blue, but she landed in Lee County High with the full pedigree. Daughter of Peggots, homecoming royalty. In Asheville she might just be a pale, conceited girl with an air of broken beauty.