Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,15

to put on mascara, pose for a photo, and write some inspiring caption about how I knew David would want me to carry on. Or some spiritual crap. I was meant to monetize my grief.

Of course I didn’t. I was too busy with a mental breakdown.

We were still in a more than comfortable position. David was a partner at the law firm, had earned great money, had been good at saving, investing. He also had a trust fund that his mother had been sure I was after when we first starting dating. She’d wanted a prenup, and I’d been more than happy to sign as a middle finger to her, but David refused. He stood up to his mother regularly, eschewing the stereotype of the rich son brought up by a beast of a mother and bowing to her demands.

So we’d be okay with bills, the boys’ tuition, their college funds. I didn’t have to work if I didn’t want to. And I really didn’t want to. I wanted to curl up in my bed for the rest of my life and sleep. I wanted to go crazy. There was a comfort that insanity brought. You weren’t plagued by the problems of reality.

But there were two people that couldn’t go insane. Poor people—you needed money for the luxury of insanity.

And mothers. Single mothers did not have that luxury either. Abandoning two boys I loved more than life was not something I would ever do, no matter how fucked up I was.

So I had to figure out how the fuck I was going to carry on. No way would I be able to pose for Instagram photos, post the links to my ‘must haves’ in the Nordstrom sale.

I’d have to pivot.

“Bridget?”

I jerked, spilling the milk I’d been pouring into Ryder’s cereal. Alexis was looking at me in that slightly worried way that had been constant in the first months after David’s death and more sporadic now.

I opened my mouth to say something that might reassure my sister I was not going crazy—who knew what the fuck that would be—but luckily, my son entered the kitchen. He was wearing a white, pressed shirt—which he obviously had pressed himself because I sure as shit didn’t—suspenders, and chinos.

He glanced down at the mess I was trying to clean up. “I don’t want cereal,” he declared.

My youngest, as a rule, was not terribly picky or bratty. Neither of my boys were, in fact. Which surprised the ever-loving shit out of both David and I since we had both been brats of the highest degree in our respective childhoods.

“Well, what do you want, then?”

“A cigar and a strong cup of black coffee,” my eight year old answered with a straight face.

Had I not been used to such statements paired with such outfits, I would’ve spat my sip of coffee all over our white marble kitchen island.

I had been hearing such requests for a year now, so I was able to hold my coffee down, but I did smirk at Alexis delicately choking on her green juice.

A sharp and blinding pain erupted in my stomach with the moment, with how much I wished David were here to try to keep a straight face, to marvel at our little weirdo.

“Well, I’m all out of cigars, so it’s a no on that one,” I said, forcing my voice to be even. At this point, Ryder stumbled in, his midnight hair a mess, his shirt on backward, and a scowl on his face. My oldest was not a morning person. He got that from me.

Ryder didn’t speak to anyone as he reached for a mug and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“I do have coffee,” I told Jax. “But I think I’ll get in trouble with the mom police if I let my eight-year-old son have any. Sorry, buddy.”

Jax frowned. “There’s a mom police?”

“Sure. They hang out in front of the school wearing expensive leggings, sunglasses, and holding almond milk lattes.”

Alexis chuckled.

“Why is Ryder allowed coffee?” Jax asked. It was not a whine—he didn’t do that either—but a serious question.

I glanced over to my zombie son. Or more accurately, glanced up at him. At some point, he’d gotten taller than me. Teenagers did that. Lost whatever awkwardness that came with long limbs, and turned muscled, handsome, and far too manly for their mother’s own good.

Did David get the chance to look up at his son and think about what a man he was becoming? I couldn’t remember how tall David