Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,5

my unease. Something moved in his eyes. He glanced toward the building, students milling around with their neatly pressed uniforms and designer school bags. “Mom, you don’t have to go.”

My eyes snapped to my son. My strong, empathetic, beautiful son. Staring at me with softness, love, and too much knowing for a boy his age.

“Of course I have to go,” I said, forcing strength into my voice. “I have to figure out which teachers to bribe to get you into college.” I winked.

“Ah, you can save the bribes to pay for the private security you’ll have to employ once Grandma finds out I’m not going to college,” he returned.

I grinned, thinking of the absolute displeasure she would have at knowing her brilliant grandson would not be attending an Ivy League in a year.

A year.

My beautiful boy would be old enough to enlist in the army—he was a pacifist and a free spirit—and to vote—which he was extremely excited about. Already he was a political activist and I’d stood next to him at many pride parades and protests.

He would leave me. Well, he wouldn’t if he thought I still needed him. Which I totally fucking did. But that wasn’t what being a mother was about, selfishly holding on to your children, keeping them from seeing the world and realizing their potential.

“I’ll handle your grandmother. Don’t you worry,” I told him.

David and I had just ignored his mother when she talked about her relationship to the Dean at Yale or the Admissions Council at Princeton. Me, because I couldn’t be bothered with the bloodbath when I could’ve been drinking martinis, and David because he was still holding out hope that Ryder not wanting to go to college was a ‘phase.’

That was the first time he’d used that word in regards to our son. He’d trusted his judgment and self-assurance when he came out to us at fourteen, and he’d been alongside us at every march. But the college thing was something ingrained in David’s blue blood, and it had been proving hard for him to let go of.

So now that David had gone and died before he could tell his mother that Ryder would not be going to college, I got the delightful task.

“Just as long as you know you’re not allowed to physically assault a sixty-year-old woman,” Ryder said, gathering his backpack. Designer too, because I was caught up in it all.

I sighed. “I would never,” I said with faux innocence.

He grinned his father’s grin, the one that cut through my heart, and leaned forward to kiss my cheek. “I’ll see you later. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” I replied, trying to keep my voice steady.

Trying to keep my life steady.

“Do you want me to come with you?” my sister Alexis asked, leaning against the doorjamb to my walk-in closet, watching me finish my makeup.

The closet itself was a dream, larger than most en suite bathrooms, custom designed for me for my thirtieth birthday. Everything was white, and an entire wall at the back was dedicated to handbags. There was another wall for shoes. The island in the middle had drawers for jewelry, designer sunglasses, and scarves.

In a small corner sat a plush chair and a vanity with a gold-rimmed mirror and marbled surface covered with expensive makeup, perfumes, and lotions that cost enough for a deposit on a sensible car.

Items a thirteen-year-old me from a working-class background could never have dreamed of. Things I’d been certain would bring me happiness. But it wasn’t the presence of beautiful things that brought happiness. It was the absence of the one integral thing in my life that made happiness impossible.

Before David was gone, I’d tricked myself into thinking that beautiful things could make a beautiful life. A carefully curated Instagram would mean something. The perfect sample size would bring something. A gleaming white smile would reach the inside. I was very good at it all, curating my life so it looked flawless to everyone, even me, as long as I didn’t look close enough and see the cracks.

But now there was nothing but cracks. Fragments of a beautiful lie.

“No,” I said, leaning forward in my chair to apply my lipstick. A mauvy nude. The perfect shade for my filler injected lips. I’d had them touched up just yesterday, on the morning of the first anniversary of David’s death. That was my deadline. I’d given myself this year. To fall apart. To not wash my hair for two weeks. To be rude to neighbors. Not