Sam waved off the concern. She was unwilling to explain how she had always put her life into categories. The Sam who had sat across from the Culpepper brothers at the kitchen table was not the same Sam who had practiced law in Portland.
She said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve handled a criminal complaint.”
“It’s just an arraignment. It’ll come back to you.”
“I’ve never been on the other side.”
“Well, the first thing you’ll notice is the judge won’t be kissing your ass.”
“They didn’t in Portland. Even the cops had ‘fuck the man’ bumper stickers.”
Charlie shook her head. She had probably never been anywhere like it. “Usually, I have five minutes with my client before we’re in court. There’s not a lot to say. They generally did what they were charged with doing—buying drugs, selling drugs, using drugs, stealing shit or fencing shit so they can get more drugs. I look at their sheet and see if they qualify for rehab or some kind of diversion, and then I tell them what’s going to happen next. That’s what they usually want to know. Even if they’ve been in a courtroom a zillion times before, they want to know the sequence of events. What happens next? And then what happens? And then what? I tell them a hundred times, and each time they ask me again and again.”
Sam thought that sounded a hell of a lot like Charlie’s role during Sam’s early recovery. “Isn’t that tedious?”
“I always remind myself that they’re freaked the hell out, and knowing what comes next gives them some sense of control.” Charlie asked, “Why are you licensed in Georgia?”
Sam had wondered when this question would arise. “My firm has offices in Atlanta.”
“Come on. There’s a guy down here who handles the local stuff. You’re the micromanaging asshole partner who flies down every few months and looks over his shoulder.”
Sam laughed again. Charlie had more or less framed the dynamic. Laurens Van Loon was technically their point man in Atlanta, but Sam liked having the option to take over if needed. And she also liked walking into the bar exam and leaving with the certainty that she had passed without opening a book to study.
Charlie said, “The Georgia Bar Association has an online directory. I’m right above Rusty and he’s right above you.”
Sam thought about the three of their names appearing together. “Does Ben work with Daddy, too?”
“It’s not ‘too,’ because I don’t work with Dad, and no, he’s an ADA under Ken Coin.”
Sam ignored the inimical tone. “Doesn’t that cause conflicts?”
“There are enough criminals to go around.” Charlie pointed out the window. “They have good fish tacos here.”
Sam felt an arch in her eyebrow. There was a taco truck on the side of the road, the same sort of thing she’d see in New York or Los Angeles. The line stretched at least twenty people deep. Other trucks had even longer lines—Korean barbecue, Peri-Peri chicken, and something called the Fusion Obtrusion.
She asked, “Where are we?”
“We passed the line into Pikeville about a minute ago.”
Sam’s hand reflexively went to her heart. She hadn’t noticed the demarcation. She hadn’t felt the expected shift in her body, the dread, the feeling of despondency, that she had assumed would announce her homecoming.
“Ben loves that place, but I can’t stand it.” Charlie pointed to a building with a distinct Alpine design to match the restaurant’s name: the Biergarten.
The chalet was not the only new addition. Downtown was unrecognizable. Two- and three-story brick buildings had loft apartments upstairs and downstairs shops selling clothing, antiques, olive oils and artisanal cheeses.
Sam asked, “Who in Pikeville would pay that much for cheese?”
“Weekenders, at first. Then people started moving up here from Atlanta. Retired baby boomers. Wealthy tech types. A handful of gay people. We’re not a dry county anymore. They passed a liquor ordinance five or six years ago.”
“What did the old guard think about that?”
“The county commissioners wanted the tax base and the good restaurants that come with alcohol sales. The religious nutjobs were furious. You could buy meth on any corner, but you had to drive to Ducktown for a watered-down beer.” Charlie stopped for a red light. “I guess the nutjobs were right, though. Liquor changed everything. That’s when the building boom really took off. Mexicans come up from Atlanta for the work. Tour buses pour into the Apple Shack all day. The marina rents boats and hosts corporate parties. The Ritz Carlton is building a golf resort. Whether you think that’s good or bad depends on why you live here in the first place.”
“Who broke your nose?”
“I’ve been told it’s not really broken.” Charlie took a right without engaging the turn signal.
“Are you not answering because you don’t want me to know or are you not answering because you want to annoy me?”
“That is a complicated question with an equally complicated answer.”
“I’m going to jump out of this car if you start quoting Dad.”
Charlie slowed the car.
“I was teasing.”
“I know.” She pulled over to the side of the road. She put the gear in park. She turned to Sam. “Look, I’m glad you came down here. I know it was for a difficult and awful reason, but it’s good to see you, and I’m happy that we’ve been able to talk.”
“However?”
“Don’t do this for me.”
Sam studied her sister’s bruised eyes, the shift in her nose where the cartilage had surely fractured. “What does Kelly Wilson’s arraignment have to do with you?”
“She’s an excuse,” Charlie said. “I don’t need you to take care of me, Sam.”
“Who broke your nose?”
Charlie rolled her eyes in frustration. She said, “Do you remember when you were trying to help me learn the blind pass?”
“How could I forget?” Sam asked. “You were an awful student. You never listened to me. You kept hesitating, over and over.”
“I kept looking back,” Charlie said. “You thought that was the problem, that I couldn’t run forward because I was looking back.”
Sam heard echoes from the letter that Charlie had sent all those years ago—
Neither one of us will ever move forward if we are always looking back.
Charlie held up her hand. “I’m left-handed.”
“So is Rusty,” Sam said. “Though handedness is believed to be polygenic; there is a less than twenty-five percent chance that you inherited from Dad one of the forty loci that—”
Charlie made a loud snoring sound until Sam stopped speaking. She said, “My point is, you were teaching me to take the pass with my right hand.”
“But you were the second handoff. That’s the rule: the baton moves right hand, left hand, right hand, left hand.”
“But you never thought to ask me what the problem was.”
“You never thought to tell me what the problem was.” Sam didn’t understand the novelty of the excuse. “You would’ve failed in first or third. You’re an inveterate false starter. You’re terrible on bends. You had the speed to be a finisher, but you were always too much of a frontrunner.”
“You mean I only ever ran as hard as I needed to in order to get there first.”
“Yes, that is the definition of ‘frontrunner.’” Sam felt herself becoming exasperated. “The second handoff played to all of your strengths: you’re an explosive sprinter, you were the fastest runner on the team. All you needed was the handoff, and with enough practice, even a chimpanzee could master the twenty-meter takeover. I don’t understand your issue. You wanted to win, didn’t you?”
Charlie gripped the steering wheel. Her nose made that whistling sound again as she breathed. “I think I’m trying to pick a fight with you.”
“It’s working.”
“I’m sorry.” Charlie turned back in her seat. She put the car in gear and pulled onto
the road.
Sam asked, “Is this over?”
“Yes.”
“Are we fighting?”
“No.”
Sam tried to silently play back the conversation, picking apart the various points at which she had been provoked. “No one made you join the track team.”
“I know. I shouldn’t have said anything. It was a gazillion years ago.”
Sam was still irked. “This isn’t about the track team, is it?”
“Fuck.” Charlie slowed the car to a stop in the middle of the road. “Culpeppers.”
Sam felt sick even before her brain had time to process exactly what the word meant.
Or who, to be specific.
“That’s Danny Culpepper’s truck,” Charlie said. “Zachariah’s youngest. They named him after Daniel.”
Daniel Culpepper.
The man who had shot her.
The man who had buried her alive.