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out and walked around to the back door, gently lifted a baby out of a
     car seat. “Showtime,” I told Latisha, then cringed as she awkwardly banged the mike
     on the door before she got it propped up on the rolled-down car window. I showed her
     again how to activate video and sound. We both put our headphones back on.
    The front door opened and I saw the woman I recognized from the grocery store video.
     She was in her late sixties, slightly overweight. She walked off the porch stiffly,
     but with a smile. “Mama, you okay today?” asked the young woman holding the baby.
     “I know that look.” They hugged. The baby reached out for the older woman.
    “Grandma can’t hold you today, baby doll. I’ll have to love on you like this.” She
     kissed his chubby face and neck until he giggled and waved his arms.
    “You’re hurting,” the younger woman observed.
    “I can’t seem to get comfortable, that’s all,” the older woman replied. “They say
     it’s a compressed disc. It’s just going to take time.”
    “We’re going to make sure those people make this right,” the daughter told her.
    Latisha looked over at me. “This is depressing.”
    “No shit.” I tossed my headphones onto the seat. “Let’s go. We’ll upload it to Larry
     when we get back.”
    “That’s it? What if she didn’t get like that in the grocery store fall? What if she
     faked the whole thing ’cause she was already injured?”
    “Larry Quinn wanted to know if she was hurt. She’s hurt. Send him an invoice and let
     him decide what to do with her.”
    “Well, I don’t trust it,” Latisha grumbled. “That fall looked fake to me. I coulda
     faked a fall better than that.”
    “Yeah. I know.” I took the microphone out of her hand and put it in the backseat.
     “I don’t trust it either. But that’s not our problem. Not today anyway. Today we take
     her at face value because that’s what our client cares about.”
    “That sucks,” Latisha said.
    “Tell me about it.”

4
    I picked up a couple of dozen Krispy Kremes on the way to a meeting. It was my week.
     Lot of coffee and doughnuts go down at these things. I knew from experience not to
     show up without the sugar when it’s my week.
    I pulled up to a squat redbrick building about the size of my living room surrounded
     by the hulking silver towers from the Georgia Power station. A cloud of cigarette
     smoke burned my sinuses as I waded past a group of four hot-boxing cigarettes around
     the front door. Facing an hour without nicotine had put them in a spin. I don’t judge.
     We all have our crutches. I was holding mine, warm and sugar-glazed in a green-and-white
     box of pure happiness. I’ve been sober a little over four years and back in the program
     for only about six weeks. It’s a pain in the ass—AA. Seriously. Carving out the time,
     whining about the tricks my obsessive addict’s brain plays on me, slashing a vein
     for an audience. Not crazy about any of it. Way out of my comfort zone. Fortunately,
     the program works without love. It only requires my commitment. And to be honest,
     there’s something about the people, all of them so different, from every imaginable
     background, probably feeling as awkward and exposed and as vulnerable as I do standing
     up in front of a group of strangers and bleeding out weakness, guilt, shame, and secrets.
     Okay, so if the bloodlettinggoes on for too long, I tune out. Zero tolerance for complainers and me, me, me people.
     But when someone steps up there after their lives have been totally derailed by addiction
     and they’re not hanging on by the fingernails, they’re not complaining, they are kicking
     it in the ass, now that’s something to be present for. And if I’m lucky, I can duck
     out before the praying and hand-holding start.
    I didn’t speak at the meeting. A white chip was handed out to a newbie and I sat in
     a folding gray metal chair and sipped coffee from a small Styrofoam cup and