Page 75 of A Taste of Chardonnay

Confusion twisted his brow. “Oh.”

“I have to make a call. I’ll be right back.”

I stepped into the cold night. My breath was barely visible beneath the moonlight. The phone only rang once before Char answered.

“Hey, where are you?” she asked.

I stared at the house that had once been my hell and now felt like a black hole I never fully got away from. “I’m at Ron’s. His nurse called. It was a whole thing. I’m stuck with him for the night.”

“Why don’t you bring him here? We can——”

“No.” I didn’t want him near her. “I’m going to stay here. Ray said he’ll come by in the morning. I’m sorry.”

Silence fell on the line for only a moment. “It’s all right.” The sincerity in her tone nearly undid me. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” She had so much on her plate now with the damn mess of Gold Crest, she didn’t need my problems overshadowing hers. “I’ll call you.”

“Okay. Night.”

“Night.” I ended the call and walked into the black hole.

Once I fed Ron and put the soup away, I found his pill bottles hidden behind the Tupperware. I shook the bottle, then opened it. Frustration flooded through me, and I tried not to rip my hair out as I ran my hand over it. I grabbed the bottle and marched into the den.

“When did you stop taking these?” I asked, holding up the bottle.

“I didn’t.”

“Don’t lie to me. There are barely any missing since the last time I checked.” The doctor told me they couldn’t reverse damage, but they could slow it down. If he stopped taking them, he could do more fucking damage.

“They bother my stomach.”

It was like dealing with a toddler. “Then take them with fucking food. You don’t stop taking them. No wonder you’re all fucked up.”

I shook a pill into my palm and thrust my hand at him. “Take this. You just ate, so it should be fine.”

He stared at the pill like a child looking at their least favorite food. Begrudgingly, he took the pill from my palm.

“You don’t take those, and your memory gets worse. Is that what you want?”

He sank into the couch cushion, looking smaller than ever. “Maybe it would be better for everyone.”

To forget the horrible drunk he was for a majority of my life? To forget how he put hands on me, verbally abused me. Treated me like scum on the bottom of his shoe. “No, it wouldn’t,” I said. “If I can’t forget, neither can you.”

His gaze met mine, filled with something I couldn’t quite decipher. Regret? Shame? Exhaustion, maybe.

“You think I want to remember?” His tone was quiet, almost completely lost to the hum of the heater kicking on. “You think I want to remember who I was? How I treated you?”

I crossed my arms, my fingers digging into my biceps. “You don’t get to run from this. Not when I never could.”

He let out a slow breath, his eyes fixating on the pill in his hand. I waited for him to refuse, but with a resigned sigh, he popped it in his mouth and swallowed. I should have counted it as a victory, but I didn’t feel victorious. I stared at the man who used to get off on tearing me down, and I felt nothing.

It wasn’t forgiveness. Not even close.

But it was something.

Jack and I headed down the hallway to a bedroom I hadn’t been in since the day I left. I eased the door open and stood in the doorway. It was exactly how I left it, like a sad moment frozen in time. The System of the Down poster Franc got me for my sixteenth birthday hung above the twin bed. The black comforter had been a gift from the Grassos for Christmas. I didn’t show up, but Franc brought it by the next morning. Somehow Mrs. Grasso discovered my only blanket was the Ninja Turtle sleeping bag she bought me when I was ten.

My economics textbook sat on the makeshift desk I made out of scraps from a construction job I had worked on. The desk chair I recovered from the neighbor’s garbage. It hadn’t been much, but this place had been my spot where I could hide from the rest of the world.

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