Page 91 of Family Bonds- Garrett & Justine

She laughed. “You’re so full of yourself.”

“Just a little,” he said, smiling and pinching two fingers. Whatever had happened with Elise couldn’t have been that bad because Justine was in a good mood.

“I’ll see you soon. I’m going to order Italian. Anything special you want?”

“Nope,” he said. “Surprise me.”

“Will do,” she said.

Garrett left and drove home. He got in the shower, changed, and twenty minutes later Justine was walking through the garage and into his kitchen.

“Smells good,” he said, taking the box out of her hand.

“I couldn’t decide. I got stuffed shells, chicken parm, and lasagna.”

“There are only two of us,” he said. “Good lord. I guess you are hungry.”

“We’ll have leftovers,” she said. “Or you will.”

“You can take some,” he said. “You have to work tomorrow night.”

“True,” she said. “These look like enormous meals. Let’s dig in while it’s hot and I’ll tell you what happened. If I fall asleep in twenty minutes, don’t hold it against me. I haven’t had a lot of sleep in over thirty-six hours.”

He listened to her recap the call from Elise and then after she talked to her sister.

“That’s crazy that she thought you’d just hand over money,” he said.

“She’s crazy,” she said. “I’m not sure what my father saw in her.”

He didn’t know if she’d want to talk about this since she rarely did. It might be helpful to her if she could though.

“Was Elise always an alcoholic?”

Justine helped herself to a slice of lasagna and then took some of the chicken parm, a small sliver of it. “I don’t think so,” she said. “She always liked her wine. I remember her having a glass with dinner all the time but just one glass. It’s not like I remember seeing empty bottles places either.”

“She could have hid it well,” he said. “Do you know what might have triggered it? It seems to me from everything you’ve said about your father, that he wouldn’t have married her if he knew.”

“He absolutely wouldn’t have,” she said. “Jordan and I were living there at that point. Elise wasn’t a horrible person when we met her. She was nice enough, but we weren’t looking for a mother. Jordan made it clear that they wouldn’t be getting close. I was a bit nicer to her, but didn’t listen to her either.”

“Daddy’s girl?” he asked.

“You know it,” she mumbled.

She had a sad smile on her face but didn’t seem like she was going to cry so he continued to talk to her about this.

“Do you remember when things changed?”

“No,” she said. “I think they did when I went to college. Jordan would have said something if it was when she was still living there, so my guess is, it was after she left too. It seemed like all of a sudden when we were home after that, Elise was drinking more. I didn’t always know she was drunk and then at night, we’d hear a bang and find out she tripped or broke something in the house.”

“So a closet drinker,” he said.

“That’s my thought,” she said. “Then they’d fight. My father acknowledged Elise drank too much, but she didn’t want to get help. She said there was nothing wrong with her and she’d go days without drinking to prove she could.”

“Hmm,” he said. “She was a functioning one.”

“Most alcoholics really can’t go days without a drink, but Elise could. But when she was drinking, she almostalwaysgot drunk. I think that is why I don’t use the word alcoholic with her and just call her a drunk. She’d get plastered on the weekends more than anything that I can remember.”

“But had wine with dinner every night during the week?” he asked.

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