"I'll take that as a yes," he said. "Whether you admit it or not, you're glad we did it. For what they did, they deserved it. So we gave it to 'em. But now that it's all done, and some time has passed, you want the luxury of feeling bad about it."
"I don't feel bad for them," I said.
"You're right. You don't. Not deep down. But it makes you feel good tothinkyou do."
"You're so full of it," I said.
"Hey, I'm not complaining," he said. "It's the way it works. Some people, they do the things that need doing. And others, they get to sit back, nice and safe, with clean hands and a cleaner conscience." He shrugged. "I'm alright with that. And so is Lawton."
"But you beat the hell out of them," I said.
"No," he said. "Lawton beat the hell out of 'em. And you know damn well he could've hurt 'em a hell of a lot worse."
"Maybe he didn't need to hurt them at all," I said. "I mean, you guys embarrassed the crap out of them. Wasn't that enough?"
"Lemme put it this way. You're the girl he loves. Those guys? They scared you. They hurt you. You remember that night, right?"
I nodded, swallowing the fear and desperation I'd felt at the time.
"Yeah," Bishop said as if reading my mind. "There was two of them and one of you." Slowly, he shook his head. "Lawton couldn’t let that go. And if you don't get that, maybe you don't know him as well as you think."
I heard myself ask, "How's he doing?" Probably, I shouldn't care. But I did care. I cared so damn much, I could hardly stand it.
Bishop shook his head. "Not good. But you didn't hear it from me."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing except a brief goodbye and headed back inside, closing the door behind me.
Inside the house, I sat on the couch for the longest time. Maybe Bishop was right. Maybe I didn’t know Lawton at all. Or maybe I did, and I just didn't want to face it.
Either way, I wouldn't figure it out today. I trudged upstairs and got ready for work.
Chapter 52
"Guess what?" Josh said.
From the look on his face, it was obviously good news. "You got all A's again?"
"No." He gave me an aw-shucks smile. "Yeah, well, I did. But this is even better."
I gave Grandma a sideways glance. She hadn't said one word about the so-called good news since I'd arrived. Her lips were pursed as she crammed another flyer into its envelope.
The flyer – an advertisement for some fictional cat-training video – showed two fluff-ball kittens surrounded by loose yarn and shredded bed pillows.
"This is bullshit," Grandma said as she folded another flyer and crammed it, hard, into its envelope. "Everyone knows you can't train a cat. Whoever did this flyer is a dipshit."
As the dipshit designer – even if Grandma wasn't aware of this fact – I felt compelled to disagree. "Sure you can." I pointed to the promotional text. "Nine out of ten vets agree. See?"
Grandma gave a dismissive snort. "Then they're dipshits, too."
"Vets are never dipshits," I said.
"Yeah? Then the company's full of shit. Probably made the whole thing up. Bet they wouldn't know a real cat if it bit 'em on the face." She frowned. "In fact, I wish a catwouldbite 'em on the face. Would serve 'em right."
Without thinking, I reached a hand up to my face. When Grandma looked up, I pretended to scratch my nose.
Actually, there was no such company, and no such product. But that was my little secret, along with the fact that Grandma's so-called job was a sham. She refused to accept charity of any sort, even from me.
She was a smart lady, but had no real job skills, no car, and no driver's license or interest in getting one.
