Page 167 of Homeport

She saw Andrew come in, saw what he had in his hand. Her stomach took a slow nosedive, but she kept working. Replaced crowded ashtrays with fresh empties, mopped damp rings from the bar. Watched him walk to it, take a seat on a vacant stool, set the bottle on the bar.

Their eyes met over the brown paper sack. Hers were carefully blank.

“I didn’t open it.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“I wanted to. I still want to.”

Annie signaled to her head waitress, then tugged off her bar apron. “Take over for me. Let’s take a walk, Andrew.”

He nodded, but he took the bag with him when he followed her out. “I went to a liquor store. It felt good to be in there.”

The streetlights were shining now, little islands of light in the dark. End-of-the-week traffic clogged the streets. Opposing radio stations warred through open car windows.

“I walked to the park and sat on a bench by the fountain.” Andrew shifted the bottle from hand to hand as if to keep it limber. “Nobody much around. I thought I could just take a couple of pulls from the bottle. Just enough to warm me up.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“It’s hard. What you’re doing is hard. And tonight, you made the right choice. Whatever it is, whatever’s wrong, you can’t add drinking to it.”

“I saw Elise.”

“Oh.”

“She’s here for the exhibit. I knew she was coming. But when I looked up and saw her, it just slammed into me. She was trying to make things better, but I wouldn’t let her.”

Annie hunched her shoulders, jammed her hands into her pockets, and told herself she was insane even pretending she and Andrew stood a chance. That she stood a chance. “You have to do what feels right to you there.”

“I don’t know what’s right. I only know what’s wrong.”

He walked back to the same park, sat on the same bench and set the bottle beside him.

“I can’t tell you what to do, Andrew, but I think if you don’t resolve this and let it go, it’s going to keep hurting you.”

“I know it.”

“She’s only going to be here a few days. If you could make your peace with it, and with her, while she’s here, you’d be better for it. I never made peace with Buster. The son of a bitch.”

She smiled, hoping he would, but he only continued to watch her with those steady, serious eyes. “Oh, Andrew.” She sighed, looked away. “What I mean is, I never made the effort so we could be civil, and it still eats at me some. He wasn’t worth it, God knows, but it eats at me. He hurt me, in a lot of ways, so all I wanted to do in the end was hurt him right back. But worse. Of course, I never did because he never gave a shit.”

“Why’d you stay with him, Annie?”

She pushed a hand through her hair. “Because I told him I would. Taking vows at the courthouse on your lunch hour’s just the same as doing it in a big church in a fancy white dress.”

“Yeah.” He gave the hand that now held his a squeeze. “I know it. Believe it or not, I wanted to keep mine. I wanted to prove that I could. Failing at it was like proving I wasn’t any different from my father, his father, any of them.”

“You’re yourself, Andrew.”

“That’s a scary thought.”

Because he needed it, and so did she, she leaned forward, laid her lips on his, let them part when he reached for her. Took him in.

God help her.

She could feel the edge of desperation, but he was careful with her. She’d known too many men who weren’t careful. The hand on his face stroked, felt the prickle of a day-old beard, then the smooth skin of his throat.

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