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“You still hitting that?” Casey asked as Dan began to eat his pudding.
“Charming,” Dan said. “Very sensitive and New Age.”
“Thanks. Are you still hitting it?”
“We had a thing that lasted maybe four months, and that was three years ago, Case. Patty’s
engaged to a very nice boy from Grafton.”
“Grafton,” Casey said dismissively. “Pretty views, shit town. She doesn’t act so engaged when
you’re in the house.”
“Casey—”
“No, don’t get me wrong. I’d never advise a pidge of mine to stick his nose—or his dick—into an
ongoing relationship. That’s a terrific setup for a drink. But . . . are you seeing anybody?”
“Is it your business?”
“Happens it is.”
“Not currently. There was a nurse from Rivington House—I told you about her . . .”
“Sarah something.”
“Olson. We talked a little about moving in together, then she got a great job down at Mass
General. We email sometimes.”
“No relationships for the first year, that’s the rule of thumb,” Casey said. “Very few recovering
alkies take it seriously. You did. But Danno . . . it’s time you got regular with somebody.”
“Oh gee, my sponsor just turned into Dr. Phil,” Dan said.
“Is your life better? Better than it was when you showed up here fresh off the bus with your ass
dragging and your eyes bleeding?”
“You know it is. Better than I ever could have imagined.”
“Then think about sharing it with somebody. All I’m saying.”
“I’ll make a note of it. Now can we discuss other things? The Red Sox, maybe?”
“I need to ask you something else as your sponsor first. Then we can just be friends again, having a
coffee.”
“Okay . . .” Dan looked at him warily.
“We’ve never talked much about what you do at the hospice. How you help people.”
“No,” Dan said, “and I’d just as soon keep it that way. You know what they say at the end of every
meeting, right? ‘What you saw here, what you heard here, when you leave here, let it stay here.’ That’s
how I am about the other part of my life.”
“How many parts of your life were affected by your drinking?”
Dan sighed. “You know the answer to that. All of them.”
“So?” And when Dan said nothing: “The Rivington staff calls you Doctor Sleep. Word gets around,
Danno.”
Dan was silent. Some of the pudding was left, and Patty would rag him about it if he didn’t eat it,
but his appetite had flown. He supposed he’d known this conversation had been coming, and he also
knew that, after ten years without a drink (and with a pigeon or two of his own to watch over these
days), Casey would respect his boundaries, but he still didn’t want to have it.
“You help people to die. Not by putting pillows over their faces, or anything, nobody thinks that,
but just by . . . I don’t know. Nobody seems to know.”
“I sit with them, that’s all. Talk to them a little. If it’s what they want.”
“Do you work the Steps, Danno?”
If Dan had believed this was a new conversational tack he would have welcomed it, but he knew it
was not. “You know I do. You’re my sponsor.”
“Yeah, you ask for help in the morning and say thanks at night. You do it on your knees. So that’s
the first three. Four is all that moral inventory shit. How about number five?”