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called me melodramatic.
     

CHAPTER
    4

    I went on into the ranch house and hung around by the coffee table in the dining room, expecting at any moment to be summoned into Louise Crenshaw's presence to meet with the deputy, but that didn't happen. The deputy disappeared into thin air. Nobody bothered to come looking for me.
    Karen and the kids showed up a few minutes later. Kelly still wasn't speaking to me, which didn't exactly make me feel terrific. She had her mother relay a message to ask me where Joey Rothman was, and I passed along the information that I didn't have the foggiest idea and couldn't care less. On that happy note we all filed into the portable, a semi-permanent, classroom-sized building which was the site of my group's mixed session.
    I dreaded the morning's opening Round Robin when the counselors went around the room, calling on each person individually and inquiring after everybody's current state of mind. It was an exercise intended to bring out into the open whatever murky feelings might have surfaced overnight since the last session. During the course of family week, Round Robins often resulted in emotional fire storms.
    One thing I had already learned from my three and a half weeks of treatment was that everybody involved, family members and addicts alike, had long since learned to function by putting on as normal an outward appearance as possible while keeping their real feelings buried far beneath the surface. In chemically dependent families, nobody dares say what they really think or feel for fear the entire house of cards will come tumbling down around their ears.
    Living through Round Robins, "touching base exercises" as they called them in the Ironwood Ranch lexicon, is often a scary, treacherous process.
    That particular morning it was especially so, and not just for me. I glanced around the room. Naturally, Joey Rothman was nowhere in evidence. Kelly, sullen and pouting, sat with her arms crossed staring moodily at the floor. Just because she wasn't speaking to me didn't mean she would have any compunction about letting loose with a full pyroclastic blast in front of the whole group. That unpleasant prospect made me more than a little nervous.
    Directly across the open circle from Kelly sat Michelle Owens, still pale, red-eyed, and miserable. On Michelle's other side sat Guy Owens, tight-lipped and explosive, wound tight as a drum and waiting expectantly. Still searching for Joey, he eagerly scanned each new face every time the door opened and closed. I idly wondered if that little twerp of a Burton Joe and his female counterpart would be tough enough to handle the ensuing donnybrook if Joey Rothman was dumb enough to turn up in Group that morning. There were enough people present that Rothman probably wouldn't get hurt too badly, but Guy Owens would scare the living shit out of him. Of that, I was certain.
    So while part of me looked forward to the coming confrontation, relishing it, another part of me empathized with Michelle Owens and wondered what would happen to her if her father lit into Rothman and beat the crap out of him. I also worried how Michelle would take it if Kelly happened to mention that her quarrel with me was also about Joey Rothman, the father of Michelle's unborn child. So sitting in that room waiting for things to happen was very much like sitting on a keg of dynamite.
    But somewhere along the way, a little of the dynamite was unexpectedly defused. Before the session officially got under way, Nina Davis, Louise Crenshaw's personal secretary, hurried up to where Michelle and Guy Owens were sitting, said something to them in urgent undertones, and led them from the room. As the door closed behind them, I let out an audible sigh of relief. Unfortunately, Burton Joe heard it. As soon as the Round Robin started, he called on me. First.
    "I heard you mention at breakfast that you hadn't slept well last night, Beau. Is there any specific problem you'd like to discuss with the