“Sweetheart,” she said. “Do I look like the kind of woman who would sit in a man’s lap?”
He laughed. “I love how you southern women say sweetheart like a Yankee woman would say dumbass.”
Leigh rolled her eyes.
“Sweetheart.” He held her hand. “You can’t annex an entire city from your life just because you’re afraid you’ll run into your sister.”
Leigh looked down at their hands. She had never in her life wanted to hold on to someone else so tightly. She trusted him. No one had ever made her feel safe.
She said, “We wasted fifteen grand on her, Walter. Fifteen thousand dollars in cash and credit card debt, and she lasted one day.”
“It wasn’t a waste,” he said, which was generous considering five grand of the money had been his. “Rehab usually doesn’t work the first time. Or the second or third time.”
“I don’t—” she struggled to articulate how she felt. “I don’t understand why she can’t quit. What is it about that life that she enjoys?”
“She doesn’t enjoy it,” Walter said. “Nobody enjoys that.”
“Well she’s getting something out of it.”
“She’s an addict,” Walter said. “She wakes up, she needs a fix. The fix wears off and she has to hustle to get the next one, the next one, the next one, to stop from getting dope sick. All of her friends, her community, that’s the world they’re trapped in, constantly hustling so they don’t get sick. Her addiction isn’t just mental. It’s physical. Why would somebody do that to themselves if they didn’t have to?”
Leigh would never be able to answer that question. “I liked coke in college, but I wasn’t going to throw my life away for it.”
“You’re really lucky you were able to make that choice,” Walter said. “With some people, their demons are too big. They can’t overcome them.”
Leigh pressed together her lips. She had told Walter that her sister had been molested, but that was where the story had ended.
He said, “You can’t control what Callie does. All you can control is how you respond to her. I just want you to make peace with it.”
She knew that he was thinking of his father. “It’s easier to make peace with the dead.”
He gave a rueful smile. “Trust me, baby, it’s much easier to make peace with the living.”
“I’m sorry.” Leigh stroked the side of his face. The sight of the thin gold ring on her finger momentarily threw her. They had been engaged for less than a month and she still could not get used to seeing the ring.
He kissed her hand. “I should finish this worthless paper.”
“I need to review some case law.”
They kissed before retreating to opposite sides of the couch. This was what she loved most of all about their lives, the way they silently worked together, separated by one couch cushion between them. Walter leaned over his laptop on the coffee table. Leigh surrounded herself with pillows, but she extended her leg across the cushion, pressing her foot against his thigh. Walter absently rubbed her calf as he read his pointless paper.
Her fiancé.
Her future husband.
They hadn’t talked about children yet. She assumed that Walter hadn’t brought it up because children were a foregone conclusion. He probably had no qualms about possibly passing on the addictions that had nearly destroyed his side of the family. It was easier for men. No one blamed a father when a child ended up on the streets.
Leigh instantly chastised herself for being so cold. Walter would be a magnificent father. He didn’t need a role model. He had his own goodness to guide him. Leigh should be more concerned about her mother’s mental illness. They had called it manic depression when Leigh was a child. Now they called it bipolar disorder, and the change had made not one bit of difference because Phil was never going to get any kind of help that didn’t come out of a pitcher of micheladas.
“Fuh-fuh-fuh …” Walter mumbled, searching for a word as his fingers rested on the keyboard. He nodded to himself, and the typing resumed.
She asked, “Are you backing that up?”
“Of course I am. And all my supporting data.” He stuck in the USB drive. The light flashed as the files backed up. “I’m a man, baby. I know all about computering.”
“So impressive.” She pushed him with her foot. He leaned over and kissed her knee before returning to his paper.
Leigh knew she should get back to work, but she took a moment to look at his handsome face. Rugged, but not hardened. He knew how to work with his hands, but he knew how to use his brain so he could pay someone else to do the job.