Mary, Mary

Chapter 41

“SHE NEVER KNEW what she wanted, Sugar, and maybe she still doesn't. I liked Christine, but she was never the same after what happened in Jamaica. She has to move on, and so do you.”

Sampson and I were holed up at Zinny's, a favorite neighborhood dive. B.B. King's “I Done Got Wise” was wailing on the jukebox. Nothing but the blues would do tonight, not for me anyway What the place lacked in cheeriness, it made up for in Raphael, a bartender who knew us by name and had a heavy pour. I contemplated the Scotch in front of me. I was trying to recall if it was my third or fourth. Man, I was feeling tired. I remembered a line from one of the Indiana Jones movies: “It's not the years, honey It's the mileage.”

“Christine's not the point, though, is she, John?” I looked sideways at Sampson. “The point is Little Alex. Ali. That's how he calls himself. He's already his own person.”

He patted me on the top of my head. “The point is right here on your skull, Sugar. Now you listen to me.”

He waited until I sat up and gave him my full attention. Then his gaze slowly drifted up to the ceiling. He shut his eyes and grimaced. “Shit. I forgot what I was going to say Too bad, too. I was going to make you feel a whole lot better.”

I laughed in spite of myself. Sampson always knew when to go light with me. It had been like that since we were ten years old and growing up in D.C. together.

“Well, next best thing then,” he said. He motioned to Raphael for two more.

“You never know what's going to happen,” I said, partly to myself. “When you're in love. There's no guarantee.”

“Truth,” Sampson said. "If you'd told me I'd have a kid, ever, I would have laughed.

Now here I am with a threemonth-old. It's crazy And at the same time, it could all change again, just like that." He snapped his fingers hard, the sound popping in my ears.

Sampson has the biggest hands of anyone I know. I'm six-three, not exactly chiseled, but not too shabby, and he makes me look slight.

“Billie and I are good together, no question about it,” he went on, rambling but making sense in his way “That doesn't mean it can't all go crazy someday For all I know, ten years from now, she'll be throwing my clothes out on the lawn. You never know Nah - my girl wouldn't do that to me. Not my Billie,” Sampson said, and we both laughed.

We sat and drank in silence for a few minutes. Even without conversation, the mood darkened. “When are you going to see Little Alex again?” he asked, his voice softer.

“All. I like that.”

“Next week, John. I'll be out in Seattle. We've got to finalize the visitation agreement.”

I hated that word. Visitation. That's what I had with my own son? Every time I talked about it out loud, I wanted to punch something. A lamp, a window, glass.

“How the hell am I going to do this?” I asked Sampson. “Seriously How can I face Christine - face Alex - and act like everything okay? Every time I see him now, my heart's going to be aching. Even if I can pull it off and seem okay, that's no way to be with your kids.”

“He's going to be fine,” Sampson said insistently “Alex, no way you're going to raise messed-up kids. Besides, look at us. You feel like you turned out okay? You feel like I turned out okay?”

I smiled at him. “You got a better example to use?”

Sampson ignored the joke. "You and I didn't exactly have every advantage, and we're just fine. Last I checked, you don't shoot up, you don't disappear, and you don't lay a finger on your kids. I dealt with all that, and I ended up the second- finest cop on the D.C.

force.“ He stopped and smacked his head. ”Oh, wait. You're a lame-ass federal desk- humper now I guess that makes me D.C's finest."

Suddenly I felt overwhelmed by how much I missed Little Alex, but also byJohn's friendship. “Thanks for being here,” I said.

He put an arm around my shoulders and jostled me hard. “Where else am I gonna be?”