Page 63 of The 1 Lawyer

So I gave her a mocking grin and said, “Good afternoon, Nurse Ratched.”

She looked into the sunroom, where the circle had one empty, overturned chair. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Group right now, Stafford Lee?”

“I was invited to take a recess.”

She narrowed her eyes—a Nurse Ratched trick, though it didn’t diminish Amy’s appeal. “Our program can’t help you if you continue to fight it at every turn.”

“Can’t help me what?”

She looked at me with disbelief. “Help you overcome your addiction. Why do you think you’re here?”

“I’m here because my friends coerced me into it. They caught me in a moment of weakness, and you snagged my signature.”

Softly, so we wouldn’t be overheard, she said, “Have you forgotten about your condition a week ago? The shape you were in when you arrived? Because I haven’t.”

The reminder was unsettling. But a man’s got his pride. “Frankly, I don’t think I’m a candidate for rehab. I’ve been here for a week, but I haven’t seen spiders crawling out of the walls. No hallucinations, no delirium tremens. I had a few drinks too many the night before I landed here. That’s all.”

“Frankly,” she began—was she mocking me?—“I think you’re smart enough to know you have a problem. It’s called alcohol-use disorder. You’re resisting the diagnosis because you don’t want to deal with it.”

“Everybody around here—”

She interrupted me. “Everyone around here is trying to help you. You are the only person standing in the way of your recovery.”

She brushed past me without waiting for me to respond. I almost followed her, wanting to prolong the encounter.

But instead, I paced the hall, mulling over the punches she’d landed. I was familiar with the term alcohol-use disorder. AUD was a sanitized, modern synonym for alcoholism. I knew the signs of AUD listed in the DSM-5. Rehab was littered with pamphlets outlining them. There were eleven symptoms. I had nine.

I stopped in the hallway and stood there, working up my nerve. And then I walked back into the sunroom. Picked up the chair I’d knocked over earlier. Sat down on it.

Conversation had halted. Eleven faces were turned to me, exhibiting a variety of reactions to my presence.

I cleared my throat before I spoke so the words would come out clearly.

“I’m Stafford Lee, and I’m an alcoholic.”

CHAPTER 49

THEY DIDN’T keep me in rehab for the whole sixty days. I returned home after five weeks, feeling better, stronger, saner. When I landed back in Biloxi, I even got a part-time job. The perfect job. A job having nothing to do with the law.

When I got to work at nine o’clock on Saturday morning, the beach was deserted. Only a couple of seagulls greeted me as I unlocked the units where the rental chairs and umbrellas were stored overnight.

Before long, the resort guests would be stirring, emerging from hotel rooms and strolling down to the water’s edge. I started with the umbrellas, pacing off equal distances between them and planting the poles deep in the sand.

It was a young man’s job; during high season, you’d see athletic college kids doing the setup, not middle-aged guys like me. But I was in better shape these days. The resort paid my hourly wage by direct deposit, hitting my account with much needed income twice a month.

I unfolded the first pair of wood-framed beach chairs and brushed the prior day’s sand from the green fabric seats. A jogger passed me, running on the packed sand. I ignored him, but he stopped several yards away from me and turned to stare.

“Stafford Lee?”

The jogger was Glenn Fielding, a Biloxi trial lawyer about my age. Over the years, he’d been a frequent opponent of mine in court. For a long time, I bested him in our hard-fought legal battles. But not recently.

“What you up to these days, Stafford Lee?”

I wasn’t fooled into thinking his interest was friendly. Obviously, Glenn knew what I was up to. He wore a T-shirt and running shorts only on his days off. My work uniform of swimming trunks and flip-flops signaled that I had a teenager’s job, sticking umbrellas in the sand for minimum wage.

I clenched my jaw. I felt that old chip on my shoulder, heavy as a cannonball. Defensive comebacks ricocheted inside my head. I knew I could take that snarky guy down in a war of words, make him wish he hadn’t messed with me.

And then I recalled the techniques I had learned in Louisiana. With a conscious effort, I relaxed my muscles and gained control of my flaring temper. I tossed that injured pride out with the garbage.

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