The Cabin - Jasinda Wilder Page 0,58

Withdraw a bottle of Josh, slowly uncork it. I haven’t had red wine since before Adrian died—it was our thing. He liked whiskey and I hate it; I like vodka and he hated it. The one thing we could agree on was red wine.

I pour a glass, swirl it, watching the ruby liquid smear down the glass in receding waveforms. Take a tentative sip.

I’m hit with a tidal wave of memories. Sitting on our couch, two bottles in, a giant bowl of popcorn on his lap, marathoning LOTR, which was a yearly thing for him. It bored me to tears, so he’d get me tipsy and then I’d fall asleep. Or, sitting in bed with the iPad and a bar of chocolate, him reading while I binged Vanderpump Rules. Italy, getting drunk on red wine in a street-side cafe in Florence, telling the server to choose the wine for us because who the hell knows anything about all those weird, obscure, Italian name wines anyway? It’s all good, especially once you’re four glasses in and the world is topsy-turvy and beautiful with that golden Italian sunshine.

All that, in one sip.

I take the bottle with me as I head outside to the little dock. It’s maybe twenty feet long, with four shoulder-high posts weathered gray and stained with bird poop. There’s an Adirondack chair and a small table, handmade by whoever built the cabin and a lot of the stuff in it. It’s deep, and comfortable.

The sunset is breathtaking.

I hurt, all over. Grief and anger are physical. I can taste them. Feel them in the tension in my shoulders. Relax? Ha. I have to think about breathing. Each breath, I have to tell myself to suck it in, and let it out. Take another breath. Keep breathing.

The wine rolls in my mouth, tumbles in my belly. I should have eaten first. But then, I haven’t been properly drunk since my bender after the funeral. I know I should go slow, take it easy. But…how?

I think the alcohol does something to the anger. Metabolizes it, somehow. Half a glass, and I’m feeling it. I’ve not been a teetotaler the past year, but I’ve not gotten drunk. I’d rather work. If I were to get drunk, I think I feared I’d end up feeling things I was trying to hide from.

Well? Here we go.

The bottle lightens, and so does the pressure in my skull.

I miss you, Adrian.

I hate you for leaving.

Come back, goddamn you.

Hold me.

I’ve cried myself out, I think. I don’t weep. I sit on the dock and slowly get drunk, watching the sun impale itself on the pines. A fish leaps, sending ripples skidding across the surface. I think about him. The good times, for now. I can’t go back to the horrors of his death, not yet. For now, I just have to let myself remember him.

Start there.

The sunset fades into a purple sky, and the air cools. My feet are bare, and my toes are cold.

The bottle is empty, and the stars are making their first appearance.

I think of our one and only attempt at camping.

We took a weekend trip…actually, probably not far from here. It was early in our marriage. He wasn’t a camper, and neither was I; he was more of a road trip person, and I was a homebody who rarely left my hometown. He went out and bought all the gear, the tent, the cooler, the lantern, the bug spray, the camp stove, all of it. He had enough gear for us to camp out for a month. It was a disaster. He pitched the tent in the most uneven, rocky area he could find. Mosquitoes ate us alive, rabid, bird-sized swarms of them. He couldn’t get the fire going, and by the time he did, it was nearly midnight and we were snapping at each other. He brought a bunch of canned beans and fruit, but no can opener. A camp stove, but no propane. One sleeping bag each, and it was the coldest weekend of the entire summer, and we froze all night.

The most magical part of it was the last night. We were cold, miserable, hungry, and ready to go home and live like civilized people. We couldn’t sleep. We were too frigid and miserable to even fuck, which says something. So, we abandoned the notion of sleeping and left the tent. Wandered down by the lake, where the moon was high and full and silver and bright, and we sat on