Page 34 of Recipes for Life

I sighed, knowing I wasn’t going to win this one.

“After I signed the divorce papers…well, you know.”

“I do, but I’d like you to explain it to me. Again.”

I looked at him wearily. “I don’t want to.”

“I know.” His reply was short, yet comforting in a way I’d grown to know and trust.

My mind went back to the morning I signed the divorce papers, the morning after my first panic attack in the car.

I’d woken up in my childhood bedroom, my mouth was bone-dry and quite frankly tasted like ass, and Jim Beam. The unrelenting pounding in my head reminded me of a woodpecker. I reached beside me, hoping like hell I’d find Odette there and this would all be a dream.

It wasn’t.

I stumbled out of bed and made my way to the bathroom, first rinsing my mouth out and letting the events of last night wash over me.

Odette, Wynn, my dad.

What had I become?

Who had I become?

Seeing the disgust and outright hatred that was shown in their eyes sent me down a path of self-loathing.

What had I done?

Why had I done this?

I felt the bile rise and coat my tongue before promptly tossing everything I had drunk in the last twenty-four hours. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and studied myself in the mirror.

My eyes were bloodshot and somewhat sunken in, my normally tanned skin had a pale and greenish tint. My cheeks looked hollow.

I looked exactly how I felt, like a man who lost it all.

I couldn’t breathe. I gripped the granite countertop in a panicked gesture, trying to control my breathing, but that only knocked over the hand soap and other trinkets my mother had used to decorate the bathroom since her boys had moved out.

I couldn’t breathe, and even though I didn’t have much awareness, I felt my knees hit the floor.

“Murphy? Murphy!”

I heard a muted voice call for me.

Odette?My mind reached out, hoping it was her.

“Murphy, look at me son.”

The rough shaking of my shoulders brought me back to the bathroom floor, and I was looking into my dad’s disappointed eyes. I wanted to disappear; he should have just left me to parish on the floor.

“Not an option.”

I must have said that out loud, and my dad’s disappointed look turned into one of pity, and I’m unsure which one was worse.

“I lost her.”

“Yes,” he said sadly. I couldn’t help the tears that flowed—not that I had the strength to try, anyway—so my dad sat on the bathroom floor, holding his grown son as I cried.

“You signed the papers after that.” Dr. Rold’s voice brought me back to the present.

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