The Pan of Bars on Nicole’s Porch
“From Shane,” I said.
“Forty thousand dollars. On a note. Kyle signed it. We’re three months behind.”
She looked up at me, finally. “Shane came over in October. He sat right there where you’re sitting. He didn’t threaten anything. He just said he knew we’d been close to you a long time, and he needed somebody who’d been around you to say what they’d seen. And then he asked how the shop was doing.”
“And you said you’d seen me drink.”
“I said I’d think about it,” Nicole said. “And then I did think about it. Every night.
“I thought about Kyle losing the shop, and the girls, and the house. And I told myself it was just a weekend thing, that you’d still have them half the time, that you’d be okay because you’re always okay.” Her voice broke. “Amber, you’re always okay. You’re the one who’s always okay.”
I did not say anything. I could not.
“I knew the minute I sat down in that chair,” she said. “I knew when I saw your dad. I’ve thrown up every morning since.”
I want to tell you that I was not angry. I was. I sat at that table and I was angrier than I have ever been at anyone, including Shane.
But I also looked at her. I looked at my best friend in her dead father’s old sweatshirt, gray in the face, with the snow on her steps that she had not shoveled, and I understood something.
Nicole was not evil. Nicole was scared. She had always been the scared one. In second grade she was scared of the tornado siren, and I held her hand under the desk. In high school she was scared to tell her dad she wrecked his truck, and I went with her.
She had not been strong enough for this one. And I had not been there to hold her hand, because the thing she was scared of was losing me.
“You could have told me,” I said finally. “In October. You could have just told me what he was doing.”
“I know.”
“I would have helped you. I would have figured something out.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s what made it so much worse.”
Jean set her coffee cup down hard on the saucer. It made us both jump.
“All right,” she said. “That’s enough crying. Both of you. Here’s what’s going to happen.”
She stood up. She went to the hook by the door and took down Nicole’s winter coat and held it out.
“Get your coat on,” she said.
“Mom, where are we going?”
“To see Pastor Dan. He’s still at the church, he always is till two. And you are going to sit down in his office and write down the truth with your own hand. Everything you just said. And you’re going to sign it.”
“Mom, if Shane…”
“I will handle Shane,” Jean said. “I have known Shane Lutz since he was in diapers. I taught his Sunday school class. I can handle Shane.”