16
The bedroom is a mess. Glass peppering the carpet. Girls on the edge of the bed and Josh on the floor, with his head on a folded-up towel.
Buck and the doc were round in a heartbeat. I was gonna call an ambulance. Buck said not to bother.
"It's not my first wake-up call," he says, as the doc gives Josh a dose of smelling salts. "And it probably won't be the last."
Buck sighs, resigned to his fate.
Josh comes around. Looks at the doctor, at Buck, the girls, the bedroom and me. "f**k, what did I do?"
Me and Buck pull him to his feet. We sit him in an armchair by the bed. I pour him a glass of water from a jug Christine brought up. Josh takes a sip, still fragile.
The doctor is in his sixties. A trim, tanned man with a white wisp of hair. He removes the stethoscope from his neck and
