Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,1

formal wear.

I was the bad person because I couldn’t hold on to social graces in the midst of my anger and sorrow. Not that I let the latter hit. That’s what the anger was for. That’s what kept me going. It was much easier to be mad at the Lululemon moms bearing casseroles than it was to be grief stricken over the fact I’d just buried my husband and my boys no longer had a father.

Yes, that was much easier.

“Mom?”

I jerked at the word like every mother did. Stood at attention. Stopped acting like a flawed human with anger issues. Put on my mom face.

I tried my best, but my oldest, Ryder, was far too emotionally smart for his age and gender. Most of the time I was proud of us for raising him so well, but right now, I wished for the surly, selfish sixteen-year-old he was supposed to be. The probing softness in his gaze and voice could possibly tip me over the edge.

“I was just checking the door for termites,” I said, trying my best to sound normal. What did normal sound like with David’s side of the bed empty? With his toothbrush sitting next to mine but never to be used again? With him rotting in a fucking coffin while I walked around topside?

Ryder raised his brows, obviously not believing me. But he was going to cut me a break because that’s the kind of kid he was.

“Termites,” he repeated.

I nodded.

“Ah, well ... as you were. But you know, termites aren’t going to eat away at anything, Mom. Our home is solid. I’ll make sure of it.”

He smiled, tried to keep his tone light, teasing. My beautiful boy. He was getting good at that. Pretending he wasn’t bleeding inside. Broken. Grieving for a father that would never again walk down the stairs he was standing on.

He was getting good at concealing his broken heart.

Better than me.

And it terrified me.

One Year Later

“What’s for dinner, Mom?” Jax asked me.

He was wearing a tuxedo.

“What do you feel like, 007?” I asked, grinning at him the best I could. It wasn’t the Botox stopping me, it was the world-crushing sorrow that made it impossible to stretch my features into anything even resembling happiness. Even though I knew better than anyone that happiness was just a farce for stupid people yet to experience anything truly horrible.

“I’m not 007. I’m Rick Blaine,” he said, furrowing his little brows in cultured disgust.

I nodded as if such a thing were obvious. “Casablanca, of course. A true classic.”

That was my son. Lover of classic movies. No Looney Tunes, Toy Story, or whatever the fuck kids watched these days. He was into The Maltese Falcon, It’s a Wonderful Life, Baby Face.

Before our world imploded last year, he’d watched them with his father. Quoted them regularly. It was their thing. But it was after the debris cleared that he started personifying such characters. Suits. Hats. Canes.

About two months after. Everything is categorized to before and after these days.

My mother-in-law thought he needed a therapist. Because, of course, old money didn’t like anyone conveying grief in such outlandish ways. In fact, you did not convey grief at all. You cried delicately at the funeral. You let all the well-wishers regurgitate empty sorrowful lines. Then you wore black for a year or so, never shed another tear, and only mentioned your loss in a cold, distant tone.

Well, fuck that and fuck her.

I did none of those socially appropriate things. I didn’t cry at the funeral. I just stared at the casket, clutched my boys, and waited to wake up from the nightmare. But at the wake, drinking vodka out of a water glass and hiding in my mother-in-law’s butler pantry, it became clear that this, in fact, was a living nightmare. And then I commenced my one-woman crusade to insult everyone who tried to express sympathy, stopped attending any and all social gatherings, and pretty much checked out of the life I’d once shared with my husband.

No way in hell would I make my boys swallow down pain like that, most likely stunting them emotionally at best, or turning them into some kind of psychopath

at worst.

So, if Jax wanted to wear a fucking tuxedo, he’d wear a fucking tuxedo.

My heart swelled and then broke at how much he looked like his dad. I loved and hated my son in that moment. I loved him because he was my son, and he taught me that real, unconditional love didn’t exist