Page 84 of Not a Word

What Gage was, she thought to herself, was not quiet, but a little too inquisitive. Asking her how her aunt died. How she was murdered, whether they caught the guys who did it. For the sake of consistency, she gave him the same story she’d given Holden, that she was killed in a bank holdup that went horribly wrong. Even gave Gage the same name she’d given Holden. Mary Zane, though her aunt’s name had been Evelyn Corby.

Alicia hoped she’d told Gage enough to satisfy his curiosity, because if he went online, searching for more details, he wasn’t going to find much. At least Holden hadn’t done that. He accepted her story as told. But Gage struck her as sharper than Holden.

There was her ride. A gray Civic. It slowed to a stop outside Holden’s house. She opened the back door on the passenger side and hopped in.

“How you doin’ today?” the driver, a young Hispanic man, asked.

“Fine,” Alicia said, in a tone that did not encourage further conversation.

She wondered whether she would go back to Holden’s place after work, even if he did do laundry. She could use a break. It was hard pretending. Okay, she wasn’t totally putting on an act. She did like the guy. He was a sad case, for sure, but then again, wasn’t she? A pair like them, it only made sense they would meet in rehab. Alicia didn’t like to think of it as a contest, but she believed she was doing better than Holden at getting her life back on track. She hadn’t used in a long time. Some booze, a little weed now and then, but she was off all the other stuff. And she believed she could keep it that way, because things were different now.

Alicia had a purpose.

For the first time in more than twenty-five years, she had a chance to get even.

At first, she thought it had been a hell of a coincidence that she and Holden ended up in the same group, a bunch of recovering addicts trying to come to terms with why their lives were so fucked-up. But then she thought it wasn’t so crazy that they would end up crossing paths. They were both products of tragedy, both had turned to drugs or alcohol to deal with the pain, and both had ended up in treatment. Both lived in the same town.

But still, fate had played a role.

At Sharnwood, they were going around the circle, each coming forward with their stories. One guy, he’d been in a car accident that was his fault. His girlfriend had died. Drank to forget. There was a woman who’d lost her four-year-old to cancer. Couldn’t get past it. Not everyone had as sorry a tale to tell. “I just like it,” said one guy about why he drank. Another, addicted to crack, couldn’t explain the need, except to say, “It gets me through the day.”

When they got to Alicia, she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to talk about it. But she disclosed that her parents both died when she was in her teens. From there she went to live with her aunt, and not long after that, her brother died. And the real capper? Her aunt was murdered.

“Holy shit,” said several in the circle.

Including Holden, who said, “Oh man, that one kind of gets to me, but in a different way.”

Rather than push Alicia to provide more details, Ben, the group leader, asked Holden to explain what he meant by different.

Holden didn’t speak for several seconds. “I’ve never really talked about this,” he said. “Not for years. In the beginning, I wanted to, but was scared to, because . . .” His voice started to break. He sniffed a couple of times. “Sorry.”

Ben said, “Take your time.”

“I couldn’t talk about it because . . . I wanted to be loved. And if I told, I wouldn’t be anymore.”

All eyes on Holden.

“So as the years went on, I tried to forget about it, forget it ever happened, and I guess that’s why I’m so fucked-up. I’ve pushed all this shit so far down, it’s taken all the energy I’ve got to keep it there.”

Ben went back to his earlier question. “What did you mean by different?”

Holden took another moment, then said, “Alicia’s life got messed up because of a murder, and mine got messed up because I was keeping quiet about one.” He paused. “I don’t think I can really say more than that.”

“Nothing leaves this room,” Ben said.

Holden cast his eye around the circle. “Yeah, well, I don’t know. Everybody here seems okay, but I don’t think I want to get too specific? I can say this much. I was just a kid, and the person who did it, it was . . . it was somebody really close.”

“When did this happen?” Ben asked.

“Like I said, I was just a kid. It was nineteen ninety-nine.”

This was the first time Alicia thought, What?

“I saw something I shouldn’t have seen. I was in bed and I heard a shot.”

Shot, Alicia thought.

“I got out of bed and went to the window, because it sounded like the shot was in our backyard. The houses were kind of spaced out, so if anybody else heard it, they probably didn’t think much about it. So I looked out and I saw her body on the ground.”