Lethal Trajectories - Michael Conley [25]
“As a matter of fact,” Veronica responded, “I do understand, because I was once in your shoes.” She could see Maureen was taken aback by her comment. “I started drinking when I was a teenager, and it became a larger part of my life as I got older. When my husband, Avery, a Marine Corps captain, was killed in Afghanistan in 2005, I went totally off the deep end. Thank goodness my parents were there to help raise my two kids, because I wasn’t much of a mom.”
Veronica could see Maureen’s interest pick up as she continued.
“At first, I would drink only in the evenings after the kids were in bed, but that quickly changed. I soon started to drink during the day, and before long I became an ‘item’ in town. I would drive my pickup into town and drive home in a blackout drunk, unable to remember anything. The blackouts were horrifying. Then one morning I woke up in a hospital with a broken arm and lacerations all over my face. It seems that I drove my truck through the window of Jeppson’s Hardware store in St. Peter, but I didn’t remember any of it.”
“What happened then?” Maureen asked. She seemed to relate completely to Veronica’s blackouts, a situation that worried the pastor.
“An old high-school friend of mine heard about my predicament and stopped by to visit me. She related her own dreadful experiences with booze, much as I’m doing here with you, and I was relieved to know I was not the only one with self-esteem problems and a basketful of fears. I no longer felt so alone. I told her, ‘whatever you’ve got, I want,’ and from that point on my life changed.”
“How did it change, Pastor? What did you do?”
“I joined Alcoholics Anonymous and began working with other alcoholics and addicts like myself. In helping them, I seemed to help myself even more. Over time, I began to develop my spiritual life and decided to become a pastor—an unbelievable development, I can assure you. I was ordained in 2014 and have been a pastor at Redeemer ever since. I love what I do, and I formed a self-help group I call Life Challenges to deal with the daily problems of life. It’s not a Twelve Step group, but it’s a place where people can help each other cope. There is hope and a good ending for you, Maureen, if you want it.”
After talking a while more, Veronica said her good-byes. She had planted the seeds and offered her hand, but the rest was up to Maureen. As always, she was in a grateful mood as she ended her visit, mindful of a saying in the program that “to keep it you need to give it away.”
Her glow turned to concern as she approached her driveway on Maple Lane. The conversation she would soon have with Mandy regarding her school suspension would be far more difficult.
10
Washington, DC
17 September 2017
Clayton McCarty felt an adrenaline rush on his ride to the studio as he contemplated the televised slugfest he would soon have with two of his administration’s sharpest critics: Wellington Crane and the mercurial Nelson Fitzwater. No novice to media interviews, he knew how to deflect questions and control the message, but still, these guys played hardball.
He had a message to deliver and knew Fitzwater’s Financial Issues and Answers show spoke to a target audience the administration most needed to reach: Wall Street and corporate America. His message was simple. America had a host of energy, economic, and environmental problems that could best be addressed in their entirety through the newly created Department of Energy, Transportation, and Climate-change, headed up by Peter Canton. His audience was hostile to the ETCC, and he had to make his case before them and their television viewers.
Arriving an hour before the on-air time, he sat patiently through the obligatory makeup application and lighting checks. He visited briefly