Karin Slaughter - Skin Privilege

She waited until Lena looked up. 'You cannot make someone use drugs, just like you can't make them stop. You don't have that much power over Hank or anybody else. Hank started using again for his own reasons.'

She sounded just like one of his A A pamphlets. 'Did he tell you his reasons?'

Charlotte shook her head again. 'Mostly, he just listened to me. I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn't see what was going on with him until it was too late.'

'When did he start back?'

'I'd guess three months ago, maybe four or five if he started slow.'

'Did he say anything in your meetings?'

'I can't tell you what he said in meetings, Lena. You know that.' She held up her hands, as if to stop the next question. 'I can tell you that two months ago he told me that he couldn't be my sponsor anymore. I was hurt, I didn't really question him like I should have because I was too busy feeling angry and rejected. Part of me was glad when he didn't show up at the next meeting or any of the ones after that. Sometimes, he'd drive over to the ones in Carterson and I just assumed he was going to those.'

Carterson was about fifty miles away, not a long drive for someone like Hank, who liked to be on the open road.

Lena asked, 'When did you realize he had stopped going to meetings?'

'A few week ago. I got over myself and asked a friend in Carterson to tell Hank I said hi and she told me she hadn't seen him in forever.'

'Did you ever see a white SUV outside his house?'

'No.' She added, 'Larry and I go for walks after supper. We pass by Hank's almost every night. I've never seen anyone there. As a matter of fact, I wondered if you had come to get him. His car was in the driveway, but there were never any lights on except the usual one in the kitchen.'

Hank always left the kitchen light on as a deterrent to thieves; not a good strategy if the entire neighborhood knew the trick.

Lena asked, 'When did you last see him?'

'Four days ago – that's why I called you. He was outside trying to fix his mailbox. Somebody put a cherry bomb in it, probably one of those kids from a couple of streets over getting a head start on Halloween. Larry offered to help but Hank cursed at him, told us both to go away, so we did.'

Lena mulled this over. 'He's been holed up in his house for how many months and the only thing that got him outside was a broken mailbox?'

'He was so high, Lee. I'm surprised he could stand up on his own, let alone walk the twenty feet to his mailbox. His skin was awful. He obviously hadn't bathed in a while. A fool could see what he's doing.'

'Which is?'

'Trying to end it.'

Lena felt her voice catch. 'End his life?'

Charlotte shrugged. 'End his misery, maybe.'

'What's changed? What happened that set him off?'

'I have no idea. That's the truth. My focus every day when I get up is not taking another drink. I'm an alcoholic. We're not known for our altruism.'

Lena doubted that was the case with Charlotte.

She pressed, 'But you saw he was having problems two, maybe three months ago?'

'I don't know,' Charlotte admitted. 'Maybe I saw that he was depressed or preoccupied or acting differently, but all I cared about was me. School had started back and I was in this hellhole with kids snickering behind my back and teachers snickering in front of it. I was struggling to stay sober. My focus was on what would keep me on the right path.' She held out her hands as if she were helpless. 'By the time I realized something was wrong with him, it was too late. He wouldn't talk to me, he wouldn't return my phone calls, he wouldn't answer the door. He just kept telling me to leave him alone and let him do what he wanted to do.'

Lena was familiar with the refrain. 'That's when you started writing him the letters?'

'Yes.' She paused, lost in her own thoughts. 'It was awkward at first, but then when he didn't write back it was almost freeing. I just wrote whatever I wanted. I've never done that before, just said what was on my mind.'

'You talk a lot about Sibyl, what it was like when you were together.' Some of the passages had been so hard to read that Lena had found herself staring out the window, lost in another time. Charlotte had managed to capture the essence of Sibyl: her good nature, her loving kindness. Even after Lena had finished reading the letters, the feelings had stuck with her, so that it was almost like Sibyl was alive again.

Charlotte said, 'Hank is the only one who knew about her. Us. What we felt for each other, that it was love and not something grotesque.' She leaned her back against the window, arms crossed low over her waist. 'But you know what? A long time ago, he asked me what would've happened if Sibyl and I had made it work. I could have transferred to Georgia Tech, you know. They wouldn't have offered me a full ride like they did with Sibby but I was already in college, doing pretty well, making the honor roll. I was miserable living with my folks and having to drive back and forth to Milledgeville. I could've transferred and gotten a job in Atlanta or got student loans or something to make it happen, but I didn't.'

'Why not?'

'I guess it scared me. Everything scared me back then. Atlanta 's so big, so anonymous. I felt safe here. And it would've killed my parents.'

'It was easier for us to leave home than it was for you,' Lena tried. 'Your folks were-'

'My folks would've never talked to me again if I'd followed her to Atlanta. They caught us together once. Did you know that?' Lena shook her head, shocked that Sibyl had never told her. 'It was fall break of my sophomore year and Sibby was about to go off to Tech. My parents were supposed to be visiting my aunt Jeannie for the day but they got into a fight. They were always fighting back then. This was around the time mother found out he'd been screwing Mrs. Ford from the church for about the last five years.' She laughed at the irony. 'So, they came back early and found us… Well, you can imagine how they found us. They called Hank at the bar and made him come over right then to confront us. He was furious – but at them, not Sibyl. He said we were both adults and that it was none of their damn business.'

' "Let he who is without sin…" ' Lena quoted.

It was one of Hank's favorite verses. He was always throwing it out right before he told you that what you were doing was wrong.

Charlotte said, 'Y'all were so lucky to have him.'

Lena laughed. 'Are you kidding me? I would've killed for your parents when I was growing up.'

'You can have them.'

'Okay,' Lena allowed. 'What they did then was bad, but they never accidentally locked you out of the house all night or forgot to feed you or left you alone with strangers and they sure as hell never got so drunk they ran over you with their car and-'

'What?'

'You know what Hank did.'

Charlotte looked confused. 'What did he do?'

'He blinded her. He took away Sibyl's sight. How can you-'

' Lena, that wasn't Hank.'

Lena felt her heart stop mid-beat. 'What are you talking about?'

Charlotte stood in front of her, still confused by Lena 's reaction. 'I was there that day.'

'No, you weren't.'

'You and me and Sibby were playing in the front yard with an old tennis ball I'd stolen from my brother. You threw the ball over Sibyl's head and she ran into the driveway and-'

'No,' Lena insisted. 'You weren't there.' Even as she said the words, she could picture the day: throwing the ball over Sibyl's head, making her chase after it. And there was Charlotte Warren on the other side of the driveway, scooping up the ball and tossing it back to Lena. 'No.' Lena shook her head as if she could clear the memory. 'You weren't there.'

'I was, Lee. I saw the car backing up. I yelled, but she didn't stop. The bumper hit Sibyl's head. I saw her collapse in the driveway.' As she spoke, Lena saw it happening again. Sibyl running into the driveway, Charlotte screaming. 'There was just this thin line of blood.' Charlotte traced her finger along her own temple, down her jaw, exactly where the blood had been on Sibyl. 'You started sobbing, you were hysterical, and Hank came running out of the house and your mother just-'