The Ninth Step by Barbara Taylor Sissel Page B

again. He guessed he’d known that he would have to ever since the day he’d left it six years ago.
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    He stopped south of where the roads converged, set his foot on the brake, letting the engine idle. The headlight picked at the centered line of yellow reflectors leading his eye, drawing it inexorably to the stop sign that marked the south corner, the corner he was facing. The sign was canted at an angle that leaned away from the road. He didn’t remember that from before, that it had been bent. He was cold and he cut off the A/C, rolled down the window. The damp summer air crawled over his scalp, pushed clammy fingers down the neck of his shirt. Above the low growl of the car engine, he heard the whirr of insects. A possum snooted through the roadside trash that was netted along the fence line. This was it; the hell of his nightmares, the scene of his crime: Two country roads and a four-way stop in the shitend of nowhere.
    He’d wakened that rainy morning, the morning of his wedding day, with the mother of all hangovers. He’d worn it like concrete. It had soured his mouth, hurled itself against the walls of brain. How could he go to Livie in that condition? On the day they were to be married? She would be so disappointed in him. She would say she had warned him not to let it happen; she would say a hangover was no way to start their life together. When a hot shower and three Advil didn’t put a dent in the symptoms, he’d made himself a Bloody Mary. A light one . . . that timeless cure . . . and brought it with him. Somehow the glass had tipped and in the moment, the single moment it took him to grab for it--bam. The noise had been god-awful; it had gone on forever. And then nothing. No sound at all and somehow the silence had been worse. It had deafened him, paralyzed him, sucked out his breath, then he was half falling, staggering from the truck. He’d gone first to check on Nikki and then he’d knelt beside her mom, but when he realized he couldn’t do more for them than call 9-1-1, he’d waited to hear the squeal of sirens and then he’d driven away. Driven blind into a setting sun.
    The hours that followed were a blank. Cotton rubbed his eyes now. The next clear memory he had was of a gas station in Dallas, some guy passing by the front end of his truck and yapping something about what a damn shame it was.
    “Whadd’ja hit?” he’d asked.
    Cotton had walked around to look and stood staring stupidly at the damage. Eventually, he moved his hand into the broken cavity that had housed the headlamp. He passed his palm over the crumpled front quarter panel, the jacked-up hood. The truck was new, a glittery, jet-black, Ford F450, double cab, loaded. His pride and joy. Cotton remembered kicking the tire and calling the truck a fucking piece of shit. Like it had run the stop sign and wrecked his life all by itself. He remembered thinking: Somebody’s dead on account of this truck .
    When he looked again at the wrecked front end, he swore he saw blood and he almost went to his knees. He had to get rid of it; he had to wipe out every shred of evidence that tied him to it, the VIN number, plates, the pile of maps and old receipts in the glove box--all of it had to go. That was Cotton’s immediate plan and hard alongside it was an urgent need to get hold of Scott. Cotton wanted--needed his big brother.
    Of the two of them, Scott was the smart one, everyone said so. Scott had made sure they ate when Delia was too drunk to remember she had kids. Scott was the one who’d forged Delia’s name on school permission slips and report cards. He’d figured out how to keep the TV cable turned on. Scotty was the one who knew everything about women and sex and cars. Mainly cars. Remembering all of this had helped Cotton focus. Scott was an ace mechanic; he’d know how to lose the truck. But Scott was way to hell and gone in Seattle.
    Okay, Cotton told himself, so he’d go there. Getting to Washington would be his whole