Admission of Guilt

<<<<

"I hope you're happy," Terri sobbed into the phone.

Grant's heart sank; it was obvious that Terri was geeking, high on something. Probably on cocaine, her drug of choice.

He also knew that Craig wouldn't let Terri have Macy, their five year old daughter, if he suspected that Terri was high.

"You hope I'm happy?" Grant asked. "Well, I'm not. I can tell that you slipped, and it's tearing me up inside."

"Then come over," Terri begged.

"No, Terri," Grant said firmly. "I'm not putting my clean time in jeopardy just 'cause you decided to slip."

"Fuck you!" Terri screamed into the phone and slammed it down.

"Ain't shit you can do for her," Adonis said when Grant called him.

----

Almost overnight, Sandra looked positively gray, sickly. Shannon actually took some initiative and took over the duties of cooking and Kaylee did double duty of running the register and running the food to the pick up counter.

Kaylee shook her head; it seemed that the news of her diagnosis did not stop Sandra from weakly getting to her feet and staggering out back to smoke a couple of cigarettes.

"I swear to God, that's it," Shannon said to Kaylee as she slid the king shrimp po-boy through the service window. "I'm quitting right after I finish this pack."

Chapter 8

Grant put in his service plan and his manager smiled. Bender, Kimble, DeGarde, Baylor Lake, and St. Ann were on his plan for the month of December.

"Grant, I love you, will you marry me?" he joked.

"Well, um, gee Benny, you're not really my type," Grant smiled. "But, um, don't you think Emily would mind?"

"Yeah, yeah, you're right," Benny said.

----

Kaylee looked up as the door chimed. For a moment, her heart caught in her throat; it was him again.

Then she Burt into merry peals of laughter. Brook stared at Kaylee as if Kaylee had just lost her mind. She'd never heard Kaylee laugh before.

Grant Johnson wore motorcycle goggles over his eyes and a smile on his lips.

"Hey, just protecting my eyes in case you decide to hit me again," he said.

"You know, you're actually kind of pretty when you smile," Brook offered.

:Can I help you?" Kaylee giggled.

"Yeah, I want a roast beef po-boy, regular, and a root beer," Grant smiled and pulled the goggles off. "How's your wrist?"

"Hurts," Kaylee smiled and showed him the ace bandage that adorned it.

""Yeah, well, that was a hell of a hit you gave me," Grant smiled and pulled out his wallet.

"Kaylee, can we sit down and talk, please?" Grant begged as he paid for the food. "It'll only take a couple of minutes, and then I'll get out of your hair, I swear."

>>>>

Grant held onto the man's brass medallion for three days; he could tell that the disk meant a great deal to the man. For three days he did not use any of the drugs that another evacuee had available, did not drink any of the mouthwash he had squirreled away. He did not want to risk getting stoned or drunk and accidentally losing the man's medallion.

He could have hugged Adonis when he saw the bald-headed man enter the shelter.

"Hey, got your button," he proudly said and handed it back to Adonis.

"It's called a chip," Adonis smiled happily.

"Um, can you get me one of those?" Grant asked.

"Nah man, only one that can get you one of them is you," Adonis laughed. "But I'm going to an eight o'clock meeting tonight; want to go?"

"Yeah, yeah I do," Grant agreed.

He listened as the twelve men and women described their own experiences, described their own feelings. He could have sworn that someone came to these people before the meeting and told them all about him; their experiences, their feelings were eerily similar to his own.

But they weren't crying about them. They were laughing, making light of tragedy.

"How can y'all laugh about this shit?" he finally exploded and the room erupted in raucous laughter.

"My man," Adonis laughed. "We survived. Believe me, them mother fuckers didn't drown on the Titanic, they laughed when they reached the shore."

----

He sat down with Adonis and they carefully went over the Fourth Step: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our lives.

He spoke openly and honestly. Adonis interrupted him from time to time, to clarify a few points, or to share his own experience with Grant. Finally, they were finished.

"So, my man, you are now a member of Narcotics Anonymous in good standing," Adonis smiled. "How's it feel to not have to carry that shit all around all on your own?"

Grant looked at him for a long moment.

"I don't know," he finally said.

"Good, good, that's what I wanted to hear," Adonis said. "Grant, as long as you honest, ain't nothing going to get between you and God, ain't nothing ever make you go back out. You start with them little white lies, saying 'Oh, I'm fine,' when you ain't, start making excuses, that bad ass disease of yours going to kick the door in on you, take your ass down."

Adonis stood up.

""Time for you to start doing some shit," Adonis said.

"What you mean?" Grant asked.

"Man, you were living in this motel Red Cross paying for, what, three months now?" Adonis said. "Time for you to get a job, get your own place. Oh, and there's some people in Bender might like to know their little boy's still alive. And gets a haircut. You clean and sober, why don't you try looking like you clean and sober?"

"Easy for you to say, bald headed mother fucker," Grant smiled.

----

He stood on the doorstep and rang the doorbell. Margaret opened the door, screamed in shock, then hugged her long lost son and sobbed.

----

They sat down in the studio apartment that Grant rented and made a list of the people that Grant had harmed and talked about making amends to them.

"Oh, that one," Adonis said. "Oh, that's going to be fun."

Grant didn't answer. He could still hear Kaylee's sobs as he thrust himself in and out of her dry pussy. He could still smell her blood in the car, still feel the raw hatred he'd felt toward himself afterward.

He could still remember looking into her green eyes afterward, looking for some sign that she forgave him, that she still found him attractive, still loved him.

"You listening?" Adonis asked.

"Um, can I mail her a letter or something?" Grant asked.

"Sure, you rape her in a letter?" Adonis asked.

"No," Grant admitted.

"Oh, then I guess the amends is going to have to be up front, huh?" Adonis asked.

He was doing well in his job as an insurance salesman; Benny was one of the old-timers that went to the noon meeting and gave the kid a job.

"Yeah, boy cleans up real nice, huh?" Adonis asked Benny as Brant showed up at an eight o'clock meeting, still wearing the new suit Adonis had bought for him.

Grant took a side street on one of his trips to Bender and pulled up in front of the Richards' home. Cathy greeted the tall good-looking boy, was polite when he told her he was a former classmate of Kaylee's, but told him truthfully that she did not know how to get in touch with her daughter.

"Last I heard, last Joey told me, she was working at some sandwich place out on Highway 19 in Baylor Lake," she said and paled when Tommy yelled at her to close the door; she was letting out all the air-conditioning.

The sandwich sop was easy enough to find; it was the only one on Highway 19 in Baylor Lake.

<<<<

Her head was in whirlwind. All the anger, all the hatred, all the fear had melted away as she sat and listened to him.

He told her of always living under Jesse's shadow, or under Parker's shadow, of never being good enough. He told her of getting kicked out of school after school; that's how he finally wound up at St. Thomas Aquinas.

He told her about getting high for the first time, how quickly he became addicted, how quickly the drugs became more important to him than anything else.

He told her about running to New Orleans, to get away from the demons in his own house, in his own head.

She smiled softly as he told her about meeting KayAnn, of convincing himself he was in love.

Her own eyes misted as he told her about waking up in the hospital and finding out that his wife had been murdered, and he was being charged with her murder.

He stopped and blew his nose. It took a minute before he could start speaking again. She softly touched his arm and his hazel eyes looked into her green eyes for a long moment.

"Anyway, I wound up in Alexandria, after Hurricane Katrina, still there," he smiled. "Met this guy, he gave me his nine year chip to hang onto. Man, I hung onto that damned thing like it was gold, you know? 'Cause I could tell it was real special to him."

Grant dug into his pocket, pulled out a brass medallion and put it on the table in front of Kaylee. She looked at the Roman numeral II on it and looked up at him.

"I've been clean and sober now for two years," he smiled proudly.

"That's great," she said sincerely.

"Yeah, yeah it is," he agreed. "But Kaylee, the only way I can keep what I got, is to try and clear away the wreckage of my past, try to right the wrongs I've done."

He looked out the window; it was a beautiful day, not to cold yet. The dead leaves blew down the empty highway. Occasionally a car or truck would drive past, stirring up more dead leaves. He looked back at Kaylee.

"I drove past this place about a thousand times, trying to get up the courage to come in," he admitted.

She looked at him, waiting.

"Kaylee, I was so afraid of coming in here," he said and smiled.

"Want some more root beer?" Kaylee asked, noticing that his cup was empty.

"No, no, I want to finish this," he said, a little forcefully.

Slowly, the anger returned. He was talking about making amends, making it up to her. How in the Hell was he going to make six years, nearly seven years up to her?

How was he going to repay her for being ostracized by her family?

How was he going to make up for six, nearly seven years of nightmares, of the overwhelming fear that he would find her and rape her all over again?

"I don't know that there is a fucking thing you can do," Kaylee screamed.

Shannon and Brook gasped; they'd been trying to eavesdrop the entire time. Neither girl had ever heard Kaylee curse before.

"Get out!" Kaylee screamed. "Just get out of my life!"

She stormed away from the table, stopped and turned back around.

"You want to make it up to me?" she screamed. "You really want to make it up to me? Kill yourself, fucking piece of shit bastard!"

She heard the door chime as he left the small building. Finally, she left the kitchen and returned to the front of the sandwich shop.

On the table where they'd sat, she saw his chip. At first, she was going to drop the chip into the trash barrel. Something stopped her hand and she put it into the pocket of her jeans instead.

"God damn, think one of y'all could wipe a table every now and then?" she spat at Shannon and Brook.

She almost smiled as both girls grabbed dishtowels and hurriedly wiped down every table in the small shop.

"With great power comes great responsibility," Sandra joked as she watched the frenzied activity.

Chapter 9

Grant sat in his car for several long moments. He'd expected some anger. Heed hoped for forgiveness, hoped for a fresh start, but had expected some anger.

He had not expected such a hateful, vindictive outburst, though.

When he'd found Peggy Campion, now Peggy Dupre, that amends had gone quite well. A little too well, actually.

With her husband, an older man, a doctor, sitting in the next room, reading a newspaper, Peggy had loudly flirted with Grant.

"Oh, no," she giggled and cooed. "Oh, come on, Grant! Nobody ever fucked me like you!"

Grant beat a hasty retreat. Either Peggy was trying to make her husband jealous, or was trying to seduce him. Either way, Grant didn't want to be any part of it.

His amends with his parents was also a mixed bag.

"Look, sport," his father said. "You hurt yourself a hell of a lot more than you ever hurt me."

"Oh, no!" his mother drunkenly slurred. "Now why'd you do all that?"

----

He went to his meeting that night and shared with them about the horrible attempt at making amends.

"Boo fucking hoo," Terri sneered nastily.

"Hey Terri, don't interrupt, all right?" the chairperson asked.

"Fuck you, stupid fucking dyke," Terri screamed at Rosemary.

"Honey, even if I was a dyke, there's no way I'd want to fuck you," Rosemary calmly said.

Terri stormed out of the meeting; no one tried to stop her.

After the meeting, Adonis put his arm over Grant's shoulder.

"Man, that is tough," he said, not making light of Grant's troubles, as he normally did.

"So," Benny said. "Does that mean you're not going back to Baylor Lake?"

"What you mean?" Grant asked.

"Son, I ain't stupid," Benny smiled. "I know that girl was the only reason you were going to that shithole town."

----

He knew the girl, had seen that piggish face before. Her mustache was much more pronounced now. Her eyes opened slightly, an indication to him that she recognized him.

----

Kaylee looked up as she heard a car screech to a stop in front of the sandwich shop. Her heart sank; it was his Cadillac.

She'd regretted the anger and regretted the hateful words almost as soon as her knees hit the floor by her couch.

"God, if there is a way I can make it up to him, please let me know," she begged in her prayer.

"Damn it, God," she said aloud. "I didn't mean the very next day!"

"You have a daughter?" he bellowed when he came into the shop.

Her face lost all color.

Joelee was hers and hers alone. He was never to know about Joelee, never to see Joelee, never to threaten Joelee, never to destroy Joelee the way he'd destroyed her life.

>>>>

When she'd started getting sick, she dismissed it. She'd felt horrible for weeks now.

Then it hit her; she'd not had a period in quite a while.

Daddy had actually looked relieved as he threw her out of his home. Mom was too afraid of Daddy to do anything about it.

Joey knew that he would pay severely for helping out his baby sister, but that didn't stop him. As she cradled the baby in her belly, she vowed she would name the little boy after him.

But Joelee was a girl; a beautiful little girl, with red hair and freckles and hazel eyes and a dimpled smile.

Kaylee was the doting, devoted mother she never had. Joelee would know from the moment she woke up, to the moment she went to sleep that she was loved, that she was beautiful, that she was special.

"Mommy, why's Carrie so mean to me?" Joelee asked.

"I think she's probably jealous," Kaylee declared.

"Jealous?" Joelee asked, little face wrinkled in confusion.

"Well, is she even half as beautiful as you, or half as smart as you, or even half as sweet as you?" Kaylee asked as she pulled the fish sticks out of the oven.

"No, I don't think so," Joelee said.

"Well, there you go; she's jealous," Kaylee said.

"But she doesn't have to be," Joelee said. "I'll still be her friend."

"Well, let her know that," Kaylee said.

<<<<

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.

"I didn't want to," she yelled back. "All right? I didn't want to!"

"God damn, Kaylee," he said and she watched in amazement as some tears slid down his face. "I know I was a horrible person to you, but, damn!"

"Look, here's your chip," she said and tried to hand it back to him.

"No, I want you to have that," he said and used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe the tears away.

"But Grant, it's yours," she protested.

"No, Kaylee," he said as he turned around. "I never ever stopped thinking about you; you were the one person I kept thinking about, day after day. Least I can do is let you have my chip."

He opened the door to the shop. She looked on as more tears slid down his face.

"I'll start sending you child support," he said. "I don't know how much is right, but I'll find out, okay?"

"You don't have to do that," she weakly said.

"Yes, yes I do," he said, then left.

----

Leroy told him that he sent Monika, the mother of their four-year-old boy, fifty dollars a week child support. That sounded about right to Grant, but he figured he had six years to make up for so he started sending Kaylee one hundred dollars a week.

"So, what's your daughter's name?" Terri nastily asked as Grant was sharing at a meeting.

"You know what?" he asked. "I don't know."

"Huh, some fucking great father you are," Terri sneered.

----

Kaylee looked up as the door chimed and smiled. He smiled back and approached the counter.

"Hi," he said.

"Hey," she said.

"was on my way to DeGarde, figured I'd stop of for lunch since I had to go through Baylor Lake anyway," he said.

"Where you coming from?" she asked.

"Alexandria," he said and smiled.

"Grant, you don't go through Baylor Lake to get to DeGarde," she giggled.

"Dummy, he came here to see you," Shannon hissed.

"Duh, no kidding," Kaylee hissed back.

"Um, Bender?" Grant asked. "I was on my way to Bender?"

"You still don't go through Baylor Lake," she smiled.

"St. Ann's?" Grant asked.

"Nope," she said and shook her head no.

"Take a break," Sandra hissed and nudged Kaylee away from the register.

"So, um, what's her name?" Grant asked as he prepared to take a bite of the roast beef po-boy.

"Joelee," Kaylee smiled. "Joelee Ann Richards."

"Joelee?" Grant asked, puzzled.

"Yeah, well I thought she was going to be a boy; I was going to name her Joey, after my brother," Kaylee smiled. "Wait."

Grant watched as she got to her feet and walked to the back of the shop. She returned a moment later carrying a small photograph.

"Oh, my God," Grant enthused when he looked at the broadly smiling Joelee.

He smiled at the picture. She smiled happily, even though she was missing two teeth.

"Kaylee, she's beautiful," he said and slid the picture back to her.

"Take it," she said after a moment's hesitation.

He looked into her green eyes.

"Mother fucker, just the fact that she's even talking to you is a fucking miracle; do not take it lightly," Adonis had told him.

"Thank you," he said quietly. "This means a lot to me."

"She means a lot to me, too," Kaylee said.

"You getting the child support?" Grant asked.

"Yeah, thank you," Kaylee agreed.

The door chimed and she got to her feet.

"Sit down," Sandra ordered. "I got it."

"Well, I really do have to get to DeGarde," Grant smiled as he crumpled up the paper his sandwich had been wrapped in.

"Know how to get there?" Kaylee teased.

"Yeah, I had to drive through there to get here," Grant admitted and put the photograph into his wallet.

----

"What a stupid name," Terri sneered.

"Hey, Terri, you got a problem with me, take it out on me," Grant said. "Take it out on me, not a six year old girl. Better yet, why the fuck don't you get a God damned sponsor and try working the fucking steps, instead of fucking your way to sobriety?"

"Spoken like a true daddy," Adonis said proudly.

Terri threw her cup of coffee in Grant's face and stormed out of the meeting.

Chapter 10

Kaylee sat down at the kitchen table as Joelee scribbled out her wish list for Santa Claus. She promised the girl she would mail it the very next day.

Her heart sank as she read over the list. The girl didn't ask for much, but Kaylee didn't have a whole lot of money. True, Grant had been sending her money, but a recent trip to the Dentist's office had wiped that out; Joelee had three cavities.

She put the letter in her purse and tried to think of whom she could borrow the money from. Shelley's new boyfriend did not like Kaylee at all; tried to keep the two friends apart as much as possible. Shelley would loan her a little.

The next day, she actually smiled as she saw the white Cadillac pull into the parking lot.