“I found him trained,” Mel said.

“Love this bathroom,” Connie said. “What I’d give for a bathroom like that.”

“All I need in a bathroom is a hole in the floor,” Ron said.

Jack and Mel spent a lot of their time together looking at the plans, people looking over their shoulders. One morning Mel came into the bar to have coffee with Jack, who was out splitting logs. Preacher and Harv were found poring over the drawings by themselves.

Mel backed out of the bar and went around back to find Jack. He stopped what he was doing as she approached.

“Do you know what’s going on in there? Preacher and Harv have our plans spread out and are going over them. Our house has become a community project.”

“I know. Don’t let it worry you. We’re going to do what we want.”

“But does it bother you that everyone has an opinion? That usually disagrees with our ideas?”

He grinned proudly. “I hired excavation,” he said. “They start the first week in February. They’ll clear and level the land, widen the road. I’m having them clean and stack the trees for firewood.”

“It’s happening,” she said. “It’s really happening.”

“Yep. It’s happening.”

“Jack? Not even fish. No dead animals.”

Rick was cleaning out the ice machine under the bar, whistling. “Looks like you’re doing better these days,” Preacher observed.

Rick stood up. “Yeah, things are a little better. Probably thanks to Jack having a sit-down with Connie.”

“Yeah? What’s going on?”

“We have a couple of things ironed out,” he said. “Lizzie’s staying with me. I gotta have her close, Preach. Keep her reassured, you know.”

“’Course. You gotta keep an eye on that.”

“We’re spending nights with my grandma—I think it makes her feel good to have people there. And my grandma has always said that house will be mine someday, anyway. Not a lot of room there,” he said with a shrug, “but enough for now. We have a little crib in the room and a couple of things for the baby. Lizzie is helping out at the store during the day. She’s taking a leave from school for a little while. She didn’t go back after Christmas break and she’s a lot happier. Lots calmer. The baby will be here in a couple of months, then she’ll need some time with him. She’ll get a little behind, but I’ll graduate on time. Then we’ll work on her diploma.”

“Planning to keep that baby?” Preacher asked.

“Can’t do anything else, man. It’s not going to be easy. I’ll take care of the baby while she’s at school, and when she gets home in the afternoon, I can come in to work till eight, nine, whatever. We’re not going to try to get married till we have a year or two together. And get a little bit older.”

“You thought about college?”

Rick laughed. “Not for a few months now.”

“One thing at a time, bud. You have a family to think about. Then, there’s always community college when Liz is in high school. All I’m saying is, these things don’t have to come in a hurry. No point in taking on things that will only tip you over the edge. You’re only seventeen—there’s time.”

“That’s kind of what Jack said….”

Preacher grinned. “Did he, now.” He and Jack had talked about this. A lot.

“God,” Rick said, shaking his head. “You guys. You’re the best friends I’ve ever had.”

“So are you, pal. You just have to never panic. Things can fall into place.”

“Maybe that’s right,” Rick said.

“Sure that’s right. You’re doing fine, kid. Give yourself a little credit. You make us old boys real proud.”

Mel went to the bar in the afternoon, looking for Jack. Preacher told her he was out at their property, shooting with Mike. “Where’s Paige?” Mel asked, looking around.

“Lying down with Chris, I think. She took him up for a nap and said she might.”

Mel looked at her watch. She had twenty-five minutes to kill before her next appointment and had been looking for an opportunity just like this. She jumped up on a stool facing Preacher. “Paige seems very happy,” she said.

The look that came over Preacher’s face was wistful. Angelic. “She does,” he said. “It blows my mind.”

Mel couldn’t help but chuckle. “Could I have a ginger ale?” she asked. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something….”

He poured her a drink, put it on a napkin in front of her. “Yeah?”

“You remember that time several months ago, after the boys were up to fish and play poker, Jack had that meltdown. Got tanked, passed out, had to be carried to bed. You said sometimes the past snuck up like that and it would take him a while to get his stability back.” Preacher gave a single nod, frowning slightly. “So—you know what that was, right? I’m sure if you served in combat, the Marine Corps talked about it some.” He just looked at her. “Post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD.”

“Has he been having trouble with that?” Preacher asked.

“No, he’s been good. I watch, though. I want to tell you a story. A short one. I had a friend back in L.A., in the hospital where I worked. She was an administrator, older than me. A brilliant woman. When I knew her she’d been in her second marriage for twenty years. One night over a glass of wine she told me that her first marriage, a brief marriage, had been extremely abusive. She got beat to a pulp regularly. And while her second marriage was totally kind and loving, sometimes she’d see an expression on her husband’s face or he’d have a tone of voice—completely innocent for him—yet it would conjure something from her previous life with her ex-husband and there’d be a rush of emotions—fear, anger. Terror. It would put her in a funk, depress her, really challenge her ability to cope. She said it was as if her nervous system was programmed to react a certain way, which had helped her to survive the first marriage. But she felt bad about the way her reaction would make her second husband feel. Like he’d done something wrong, when really, the wrongdoing was ages ago.”

Preacher looked down. “You mean I could remind her of that shitbag somehow?” he asked.

“Not really, no,” Mel said. “It’s way more subtle than that. Something harmless and innocent ‘suggests’ that earlier time…because…” Mel’s explanation trailed off.

After a moment of silence, “I can get that,” he said. “Like a war veteran hearing fireworks and suddenly feeling like he’s back in a firefight.”

“Exactly,” she said. “And then there’s the thing about shame. My friend, she told me that sometimes she would be chased by it. It’s hard to understand why a woman who has done nothing wrong and has been abused would ever feel shame—it’s the shame of letting herself get into that situation, at not getting out faster, shame at having let it happen. It’s not a right or wrong thing, it just is. We can’t judge feelings. John, I wanted you to know about this. In case you run into it.”

He was quiet for a minute. Finally he said, “Is there something special I should do?”

“Nah,” she said, shaking her head. “If you sense a chronic problem, behavior you can’t understand or explain, think about support counseling. Maybe none of this will happen with Paige. I’m only telling you because it can. It might. You should be in the know. I think you do the things that come naturally—be loving. Forgiving. Patient. Understanding. That night with Jack? I held him in my arms and told him it was all right.”

Again he was quiet for a minute. “That woman, your friend. Those times her husband did something…Did she stop loving him? Even for a little while?”

“No. Never had anything to do with love. Plus, he saved her life, loving her in a pure way like that. It had to do with being hurt real bad once. A little time, a reality check on her part, a solid partner…She could always manage to get back on track. Kind of like Jack. Lucky to have good people around. Lucky to be safe.”

He smiled a small smile.

“If you ever sense something is wrong, don’t be too private about it. Let me help you with it. I know a couple of things about this.” She glanced at her watch. “I have a patient due. I have to go. I just wanted to talk to you about that. You take it easy,” she said. She jumped off the stool.

Fifteen

Wes Lassiter didn’t have to go to court. A plea agreement was reached by the prosecutor and the attorney for the defense, and it did not give Paige any peace of mind. The judge was disappointed in Lassiter for breaching the conditions of his bail by phoning Paige and trying to leverage her, but in the end he sentenced the man to forty-five days in jail, five years of probation, and two thousand hours of community service. Also required, a meeting at Addicts Anonymous every day, the order of protection was enforced and the custody agreement upheld. And he immediately went to jail.

“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’re winning,” Brie told Paige over the phone. “He’s been compromised—he’s not getting away with anything. Even though the jail sentence is short, it might be enough to modify his behavior. Jail is ugly. Mean and dangerous. And the scuttlebutt is that he has to liquidate to pay his lawyer, which means you’ll be getting your divorce settlement.”

“I don’t care about that. I don’t care about money. I just want to be safe from him.”

“I know,” Brie said. “But in the grand scheme of things, forty-five days with the threat of the judge going bonkers and sentencing him to ten years if he screws up is better than three to five. Really.”

“Why doesn’t it feel that way?” Paige asked.

“Because you’re scared,” Brie said. “I would be, too. But this is good. No one’s letting him off. And the chance of him calling or approaching you in that five years of probation and getting hammered for it—that’s a strong deterrent. During that five years, he could actually move on. I don’t hold much hope of him becoming a different kind of human being, but, God help me, he might find a new target. Oh, God really help me.”

“I don’t know if that’s encouraging, or the worst thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know,” Brie said. “So it goes in our business.”

Paige was notified that the house was listed for sale, and that her signature was required. Her lawyer sent her papers regarding the liquidation of 401Ks and retirement accounts. The closed checking and money-market accounts were accounted for, as well as the charge accounts and mortgage balances.

In a quiet moment, Preacher asked her, “Are you worried about money?”

“No, I’m worried about never being free of him. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

“I don’t know what I can do about that, besides promising to do everything I can to keep you safe. But, it looks like you’re going to get a few bucks here—maybe something you can put away for emergencies. The being afraid part, we’ll have to take it as we go. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“I know you will, John. I’m sorry you’re stuck with this basket case who’s afraid of her own shadow.”

“I’m not stuck,” he said, smiling. “I’ve never felt stuck. I live a real simple life, Paige. I’ve never really worried too much about money. Maybe we should talk about that a little bit. Money.”

“Could we not?” she asked. “Money and things—it was so important to Wes. It drove him mad, trying to be rich, to have a lot, to look like he was successful. It leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that if a check comes in the mail, I might not even be able to cash it!”