“Because that’s how I feel. Every time you show me you prefer vodka to me, you cheat on me.”
“You showed me the best clubs in Manhattan. You’ve matched me drink for drink and laugh for laugh. We’ve had a good time. Maybe it was just fun at first, but you matter more than...”
“You are vital to me, Owen, so I’m begging you...” He’d never heard this tone before, so earnest, so broken. Where was the woman who’d survived a childhood kidnapping to step bravely out in the world as a successful gallery owner? “I am literally begging you to promise you can stop drinking. That you will stop drinking.”
“I can’t.” Every last moment in that place had been like marching through a desert, his mind always fixed on a glass of the only relief for the thirst that owned him. It was painful to acknowledge, but he’d needed that drink more than he’d wanted Lilah.
“I came back because I missed you.” He could barely look at her as he said the words. “Why can’t that be enough? Maybe it’s time we stopped doing this long-distance relationship. I could move here.”
At least then he could lose the title of town drunk, transferred from his father’s head to his.
“No.” She turned her face away, and strands of her hair stuck to the tears on her cheeks, making this whole mess worse. “I need you to commit to being sober.”
He was sober now. The vodka he’d sipped all the way from rehab on a bus that had smelled like unwashed humans had long since vanished from his system.
He licked his lips. What he’d give for another fifth.
“I will not lie to you,” he said.
“I don’t want you to lie. I want you to be the decent man I believe in, not a man who terrorizes his family and wastes his life.”
He laughed as if that were funny, but he headed for her door. “You don’t believe I’m decent.” He didn’t believe it. “I’ve made my choice. When you get bored with being reformed, give me a call.”
SOMETHING PRODDED Lilah Bantry’s face. Something small and pointy and insistent. She woke, felt the smooth weave of the couch beneath her and peered through the tangle of her hair. Her son’s tiny index finger poked gently at her arm this time as he leaned over her.
“Mommy?”
“Ben.” She gathered him close. “Morning, buddy.” She’d doubted her ability to be a good mother until she’d seen his red, scrunched-up face in the delivery room four years ago and realized she would do everything she could for this little guy. “Hey, buddy.”
“Are you awake?”
“I fell asleep waiting for the ball to drop.” She hugged him tight and relished the grip of his little arms around her. “Happy New Year, baby. Are you hungry?”
He nodded. “Blueberry pancakes?”
“Perfect, from the blueberries we picked last summer.”
“I can stir.” He tugged at the quilt.
She stood, pushing it off her legs until it fell to the floor. Her son grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the kitchen. Solemn and intent, he pushed the stool he usually sat on while she did the prep work for their meals, until it bumped into the granite island.
“Flour, Mommy.”
First, she took the blueberries out of the freezer. Then she carried the baking powder, sugar, milk and an egg to the island. She ran the blueberries under water to thaw them slightly and then mixed up the batter. When she added the blueberries, and the batter turned purple, Ben clapped his hands. She’d never been a big fan of purple food, but her boy was.
“Blueberry pancakes. Yummmm.”
She’d broken their griddle at Thanksgiving, and she hadn’t found time to replace it yet, so she heated a frying pan and poured small pools of batter, just the size Ben liked best.
“I can eat more than three.”
“I’ll make you more.” She grinned at him over her shoulder. His dad was allergic to blueberries. She hadn’t remembered that the first time she’d given them to Ben, and she’d followed her son around for an hour before she realized he was going to survive her mistake. “Want to make a snowman on the green in town after we eat?”
“Why do they call it green, Mommy? It’s white, and when the snow melts, it’s brown.”
“Excellent work on your colors, buddy, and I don’t have a clue. I’ll have to look that up for you.”
“You said you know everything.”
She probably had. She did that sometimes. “I will know after I look it up.”
Their doorbell rang. She glanced at the frying pan. Her pancakes were puffing a little steam just around their purple, bubbling edges. She flipped them, moved them off the heat and turned off the stove.
Ben had already hopped off his stool. He hurtled down the hall in front of her while she plucked at the collar of her pajama shirt. She was decent enough. Someday, she should buy a robe.
She peeked through the sidelight, and almost stopped breathing.
Owen.
Haggard, unshaven, leaner than she remembered, but at least he hadn’t been drinking. She knew him well enough to be certain with one glance.
For a moment she couldn’t think. She just jerked back, out of sight.
She wished with all her heart she could magically transport her son and herself somewhere far away.
He was bound to find her someday. She hadn’t tried very hard to hide. She glanced at Ben, who was staring at her as if she’d grown an extra head.
“Mommy?” His voice restored her composure immediately.
“Company.” She tried to sound as if Owen Gage’s showing up at her door was no big deal. “I haven’t seen my friend in a long time. I didn’t expect him.”
Ben put one finger in his mouth and stared at her.
He would take his lead from her. If she panicked, he would be afraid, and she was smart enough to know that Owen would not just go away. Somehow, Ben’s father had discovered he had a son.
Forcing herself to smile at her little boy, she turned and opened the door. A firing squad would have looked less threatening than Owen. She’d wanted to give him a chance to be a good father, but he’d been too in love with the bottle. Still, she couldn’t blame him for the anger that turned his pale blue eyes to ice and thinned his already sharp features.
“What the...” he began, but Lilah stepped aside so that he’d see Ben.
So that the first words Ben heard from him wouldn’t be angry swearing.
Owen sputtered to a shocked halt. His gaze softened, warmed. “I can’t believe it.” He squatted, still outside the door. Snow glistened behind him on the trees, the sidewalk, the pond across the street and the granite-colored roof of his car.
He was leaning toward his son, and his eagerness made her feel uncomfortable. If she could have turned away, she would have, because the moment felt too personal, and his vulnerability hurt her.
“Hi,” Owen said, but then looked up at her, and the anger came back into his eyes.
He didn’t know his own son’s name. “Ben,” she said. “I called him Ben.”
“Hi, Ben.”