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children developing at different paces. And he could never bring it up with Krista, who was always reading him for signs that he was ready again to care.
     
     
Alone with him now, Krista shook out her ash-blond hair and sat back from the table, looking small and tired in the old armless chair. "I don't ask him to do that."
     
     
Doug watched the perfectly still, half-inflated red balloon, wanting the year-and-a-half-old to bounce it, something. "Do what?"
     
     
"Leave us alone together like this. It's fucked-up, his pushing. Sometimes I swear he wants it more than I do. Like it's you and his friendship he wants to save."
     
     
"Where are you getting all this?"
     
     
She shrugged as though it were obvious. "You don't come around. I mean, he's an asshole, but you guys are like brothers." She combed up her hair with her fingers, lifting it high off her ears, then letting it fall. "Or maybe it's me. Like I'm so radioactive now you can't come around."
     
     
Doug sat back and sighed.
     
     
"It's you who's radioactive," she said. "Your X-rays got inside me young, altered me permanently." She picked at a waffled, clover-shaped place mat, the old food dried into it. "You came home late from your meeting last night."
     
     
"Jesus," he said. "That fucking glass rattling in the door."
     
     
Jem blew back into the room. "Gloaner's in," he said, dropping down in front of Shyne and plucking at her balloon string, trying to grab her attention. She gazed up at the sagging, slow-drifting heart. "Talking about your meetings again?" Jem said. "Like fucking church with you."
     
     
Doug said, "It's in a church."
     
     
Jem gave up on his niece and turned to the gored table, rolling an Irish-flag Zippo lighter over and over in his hand. "Hey, I go dry. Days at a time. Good to step back now and then, reset the clock. Healthy. But this is, what, you're on like a year or more? That's fucking hitting pause, kid."
     
     
"Two years next month."
     
     
"Key-reist almighty. Real comfortable up there in the front seat of that wagon. I'm remembering one time you fell off-- Dearden's wedding."
     
     
Krista smiled at the memory. Doug wondered why this always came up. "That was a mistake."
     
     
"A mistake where you rocked the house, buddy. That was a night."
     
     
"I had almost a year in, until that slip."
     
     
"Slip? Yo, a slip ? That was a high-dive, Rodney Dangerfield. A Back to School Triple Lindy belly flop. My point is, Duggy-- you went right back. Look at you. Unshakable. Better, stronger, faster. So what's the fucking harm now and then, breaking down and getting a little wet with your poor, misguided, dry-throated friends?"
     
     
The phone rang and Jem snapped it up, answering, "Monsignor Kid-Toucher, what's the word?" again jumping to his feet and wandering away.
     
     
Krista sat there with her arms crossed, watching her daughter, lost in thought. "You're no priest," she said.
     
     
Doug turned to stare at her. "The hell are you talking about?"
     
     
"Even the Monsignor, Desmond the Nearsighted-- the Pope of the Forgotten Village-- even he lowers himself to drink with the boys."
     
     
"Because he can handle it. I can't."
     
     
"'Cause you're an alcoholic ."
     
     
"Right. 'Cause I'm an alcoholic ."
     
     
"So proud, though. Proud of your disease."
     
     
"Jesus, Kris," said Doug. "You were asking why I don't come down anymore?"
     
     
"So what's your high now? Just banks? Being the prince of these thieves?"
     
     
Doug frowned, done. He never talked about this with her, and she knew he didn't like her talking about it at all. "Any more shots you want to take before I go?"
     
     
Krista wiped some cracker mush from her daughter's mouth before turning on him. "Yeah. What's it gonna take to wake you up from whatever dream it is you're dreaming?"
     
     
When he didn't answer, she stood and carried her crossed arms into the kitchen, leaving him alone with Shyne's staring eyes.
     
     
    * * *
THEY DROVE