Page 3 of Now to Forever

He grins, like he’s proud. “Probably won’t stop me, but I’m happy for you.” Then to me, “Scotty, good to see you.”

Motherfucker.

I look at him and force a smile with all my teeth. “Pleasant as a bowl of shit soup, Officer Callahan.”

He chuckles with an exhale, looking me over one last time before lifting his fingers from the wheel in a slight wave and cruising out of the lot.

“I’m not even going to ask,” Mel mutters.

“Wouldn’t answer if you did.”

Mel and I have only known each other from our six months of talking after the meetings, but these exchanges have become who we are. I don’t say much; she lectures me like a Snapple lid while sprinkling in small pieces of her personal life I don’t ask for. I know she was born and raised in western North Carolina and, following her divorce, moved to Ledger about ten years ago with her two kids. She works at a plant nursery and lost her daughter to a drunk driver roughly two years ago, which led her to becoming a drunk herself. According to her, if there was something at the bottom of the bottle that was worth killing her daughter over, she was going to find what it was. She never found it; now she’s sober.

And, unfortunately, I now know that she knows Ford. Judging by the hokey look on her face when she spoke to him, she even likes him. Another soul lost.

We’re quiet, watching cars come and go.

“You aren’t going to find what you’re looking for,” she says. “Not here. Not like this.”

Gary walks by, lifting his chin in a silent goodbye as he trudges to his truck.

“And what is it that you think I’m looking for?”

“Here’s what I see—” She taps another cigarette out of the box with a muttered, “One vice for another,” lights it, and takes a deep inhale before continuing. “You’ve been shoveling shit your whole life, and I can’t imagine what that’s like, but you continuing to show up here shows you are addicted to one thing, Scotty.” She points her lit cigarette at me. “Being unhappy.”

I make apsh!sound, waving my hand dismissively. “In your professional opinion?” I snark.

“What do you do when you aren’t here grilling everyone?”

I run my tongue across the back of my teeth, silent.

“You need a purpose, Scotty. More than chasing ghosts. More than this. You never share—the only person you talk to is me after meetings. You told me once about a hobby, the next month you’d moved on to something else.”

My eyebrows pinch in offense. “I dabble.”

The truth is, I haven’tdabbledin a while. Where I used to experiment with hobbies, my no-strings-attached free trials lost their luster when I walked into the boxing gym four months ago only to find Ford taking up all the space in it. So I’ve been staying home. Working.Fine.

“You need to do something for you.” She flicks her fingers, making ashes drop from the end of her cigarette. “Chase something that excites you. Let yourself love something.Someone.”

Someoneis the last thing I need.

“Andyourpurpose?” I shoot back. “You drank yourself stupid for—what—nearly two years? What changed? Your daughter’s still dead.”

At my directness, she doesn’t waver, simply drops her cigarette and stamps it out with her shoe.

“You never run out of bitch, do you?”

I don’t know if she’s trying to be funny, but I laugh anyway. Her lips quirk into an almost smile.

“Someone pointed out if I would have died and my daughter lived, I would be devastated if she wasted her life the way I was. I was drunk for her the same way I’m sober for her. And my son who is still very much alive. Would you be doing this if your brother and dad were still here?”

The shout of a child interrupts the unwanted feelings her question provokes and makes us both look. In the nearly vacant lot, next to my Bronco, a minivan parks. Little arms flail from the back windows and a frazzled redheaded driver in the front seat smiles, slightly confused as she looks through her windshield at me, Mel, and the church.

The hell is Joo doing here?

I smile toward the circus in the parking lot with a wave before giving Mel a smug look. “I’m fine. See? My best friend is here.” I do not tell her she’s also my only friend. “I’m a social butterfly.”

“Scotty,” Mel calls as I walk toward the screams. I pause to look over my shoulder. “Fine isn’t the same as living.”

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