Everything You Are(48)

“I’m not going to charge you,” the cop says. “This time. Because of what you’ve been through.” His gaze drills into Braden. “The least you could do is be sober.”

There’s no response for that.

“Are you driving?”

Braden shakes his head. “Got an Uber. It’s waiting.”

The cop grunts. “Well, at least there’s that. Kid deserves better, you ask me.”

Braden agrees. Wants to thank him, but his throat has constricted into a knot.

“C’mon, little bird,” he manages. “Let’s get you up.”

In slow motion, every movement exaggerated, Ethan gets on the other side of Allie, and the two of them haul her up onto her feet. She sways a little, but she’s able to stand, to walk, with support.

“You,” the cop says to Ethan. “Sit down. You’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m just helping her out to the—”

“You are going to sit right back down, and then I’m taking you in.”

“I’ll call you, Allie,” Ethan says. “As soon as I make bail.”

Braden keeps moving, an arm around Allie’s waist, holding her up, guiding her toward the door. She doesn’t resist. The Uber is still there, waiting, for which he supposes he’s grateful.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Val clucks, getting out and opening the door to the back seat. “Can I help?”

“We’re fine.” Braden buckles Allie’s seat belt, assailed by memories of settling her into a car seat, of her first time in a lap belt. He climbs into the back beside her.

“Is she going to puke, do you think?” Val hovers beside the still open door. “I’d have to charge you the cleaning fee . . . Here. I have a grocery sack somewhere . . .” She disappears for a moment. The trunk opens, closes, and she comes back with a plastic bag. “Just in case.”

“I’m fine,” Allie says, but she takes the bag, anyway, clutching it in both hands when the car starts to move.

“Teenagers, right?” Val chatters. “Went through this with all three of my boys. Don’t worry about the MIP, it’s not a big thing. Won’t go on her record. More of a hassle than anything, but she has you to help her through it. Scary, though, isn’t it, when they get old enough to just go off and do things on their own?”

He lets Val drone on, her voice almost a comforting backdrop to the tangled weave of his thoughts and emotions. Allie dozes, her head on his shoulder, and he lets himself pretend, just for the moment, that she’s happy to have him here, that she takes some comfort in his presence. When the car finally pulls up in front of the house, he wants to pick her up and carry her like a child, her head resting against his chest. He wants to ease her misery.

But he’s had enough time to think on the way home to know that this is not the time for comforting.

“We’re home, Allie. Time to wake up.”

She stirs, blinks at him, bleary eyed and disoriented.

He walks around to her door. “Come on. Out you get.”

“S’all spinny.”

“That’s what happens when you’re drunk. Come on.”

“Well, goodbye, then,” Val calls after them. “Good luck!”

Braden waves but doesn’t answer, keeping pace with Allie as she staggers up the sidewalk. She’s shivering. Braden is shivering. A cold wind is blowing, and neither of them is wearing a jacket. Braden turns Mrs. J.’s key in the lock.

Lilian and the cello are waiting when the door opens.

“Really, Braden? I’ve been dead what, three weeks, and already you’ve let this happen?”

The cello underscores her words with a melancholy tune, not Bach anymore but an unknown melody in a minor key.

Allie’s wavering feet stop, right at the edge of the stained white carpet.

“Make it stop.”

“Best way to stop the room from spinning is to lie down and sleep it off,” he says.

She shakes her head. “Not that. The music.”

She makes a choking noise, presses both hands over her ears, and lurches up the stairs toward her room. Braden follows. Helps her off with her shoes, covers her with the blankets. He’d tucked her in this way as a child, only that was so very different. Her arms around his neck, the kiss on his cheek.

“I love you, Daddy.”

She’d smelled then of soap and clean pajamas, not beer and smoke and sweat. Braden longs to smooth her forehead, to tuck her hair behind her ears, but she pulls the covers over her head and rolls onto her side, away from him.

Her breathing is fine, he reassures himself. She isn’t unconscious. This isn’t alcohol poisoning. Tomorrow he will talk to her about alcohol and genetics and why she must not go further down this path. For now, there’s nothing he can do but keep an eye on her, let her sleep it off.

But worry trails after him as he moves like a sleepwalker through the house that is his, but not his, cello music swirling around him, heavy with memories.

The bottle waits on the kitchen counter where he left it, half empty, after Alexandra’s call.

You might as well finish it. Your daughter hates you and you’ve already ruined her. What hope is there for either of you?

His hand closes around the bottle.