She walked back to the truck. Her hands were shaking so badly she dropped the keys in the gravel and had to crouch to find them, and when she stood up he was still standing in front of the liquor store with the bag in his hand and the neon turning his face red and then not red and then red again, and he did not say anything, and he did not follow her.
She forgot the prescription. She drove home and paid Mrs. Pruitt, who had been sitting with Lila, and told Lila that Uncle Tom had to go away for a while for work, and Lila said, "Is he coming Sunday?" and Nora said, "No, baby. Not this Sunday," and Lila looked at her face for a long time, a horribly adult look, and then went and got the pocket tin and took it into her room and shut the door.
* * *
He walked for a long time with the bag.
Down 9D in the dark, along the narrow shoulder, with the cars going by close enough to lift his jacket. Down the hill into Marlow Landing and along Ferry Street, past the house with the pumpkins, which had been carved now and had candles in them, grinning at him. He did not look up toward the top of the hill where her house was. He went down to the station instead.
The platform was empty. The 7:40 had come and gone. He sat on the bench under the shelter at the north end, the one Danny must have walked past every evening of his life for four years, and set the bag on the bench beside him, and took out his phone.
Ray picked up on the second ring. "Talk to me."
"I bought a bottle," Tom said.
"Okay."
"I haven't opened it."
"Okay. Where is it?"
"Next to me."
"Where are you?"
"On his platform."
There was a pause on the other end. Tom could hear Ray's screen door, and the night insects of Louisiana, which were louder than anything in New York. "What happened?"
What had happened? Nothing. That was the stupid part. He'd hauled four boats out and wrapped two. He'd gone back to room eleven and opened his wallet to count his cash and the index card had fallen out on the bedspread, and he had read it. He'd read it a thousand times. He read it again. If you ever want to see what that looks like, get on the train. I'll be the one getting off.
He'd thought: I could have. In August. I could have gotten on a plane in New Orleans and gotten on a train at Grand Central and gotten off here, and he'd have been standing on the platform with her. Nineteen days. I had nineteen days. And then he had thought nothing at all, and the next thing he knew he was standing in front of a shelf of whiskey under fluorescent lights with a bottle of Old Crow in his hand, because it was what he used to drink, as if it were important to be loyal to something.
"I had nineteen days," he said to Ray. "I had nineteen days, and I didn't call."