Last time I went to the library was on a fourth-grade field trip.
Why couldn’t he just answer her? It was yes or no—that simple. Everything had to be a snarky little game with him. If she’d said that to her own mother when she was Samuel’s age...
And then all of her anger evaporated. She was lucky he’d even answered; lately, he wanted nothing to do with her. That was the essential difference between her mother’s parenting and her own: her mother didn’t care what her kids thought of her. Winnie tried not to think about how much she cared as she got up from the desk to check the junk drawer for her library card. She rifled past a hairbrush with a broken handle, a jump rope, and a box of press-on nails before she found it. It was under the stack of instruction manuals and receipts, pushed to the far corner of the drawer. She held it in her palm, staring at it hard. The library must have made a mistake; she’d sort it out.
But when she called the library, they said she had indeed checked out Child Abduction: A Theory of Criminal Behavior on October 5.
“It wasn’t me,” she said firmly. “I haven’t been to the library in years. I don’t even know where my library card is!” She glanced guiltily at the junk drawer.
“Well then somebody else has your card,” said the guy on the other end of the line. “And they owe five dollars and seventy-two cents in fees. Will you be paying it? I can take your debit card right over the phone.”
When Winnie ended the call, she cried. She hadn’t cried in a long time and it felt good to let the drama loose, as her mother used to say. She’d been too busy to be scared lately, but here it was: a library book, reminding her that at any moment her entire life could be torn apart.
If she told Nigel about this, he’d just blow it off, and then it would end up in another big, fat fight. She was tired of those, obviously, since she even refused to fight about his infidelity. She was desperate for peace and for her son to like her again, and for her secrets to stay secret.
She went to look at the library card again, really examine it under the light. There was chocolate melted on one corner and most of the writing was scratched away.
She walked straight to the pantry and pulled out Nigel’s secret bottle of Jack Daniel’s—this time hidden in the bread box. Without bothering to get a glass, she unscrewed the cap and drank directly from the lip. A trickle of whiskey ran down her chin as she coughed and sputtered. Her eyes burned like she’d poured the whiskey straight over her pupils, and she squeezed them closed as her stomach lurched in protest. Better, Winnie thought. When I’m retching my guts up, I don’t think about the scary shit.
No wonder her husband liked this stuff. She held the bottle up to the light, swirling it around. Her father had been a whiskey drinker, and when Nigel ordered it stiff on their first date, just as her father would have, she’d fallen for him right then and there. And then of course she’d banned him from drinking it (after the death of her father, due to said whiskey), but that was only to put the fear of God in him. Winnie knew he drank, but because he wasn’t supposed to, he watched how much, and where, and who with.
She wandered around the rooms downstairs, holding the bottle of whiskey by its neck and occasionally taking tentative sips. By the time she walked through the kitchen for the second time, the bottle was considerably lighter, and Winnie could feel every single ounce of alcohol chortling through her system. It was awful and wonderful at the same time. She made a right out of the kitchen and found herself swaying near the computer, and all of a sudden she remembered everything she was trying to forget, only now she was drunk. It was worse drunk than sober. Winnie was a sad drunk, a dark drunk; she thought of bad things when there was alcohol in her. It had been like that since before her dad died, the nature of his death only solidifying her distaste for the foul stuff.
She leaned her hip against the wall and a few seconds later, her head.