The Other Side(48)

I should’ve been expecting the question, but it catches me off guard. I slip my hand from hers and reach for the bottle on the nightstand and take in so much that it requires two swallows to get it all down.

“I could use some more of that. Pass it here, please,” she says, motioning with her fingers.

I do and my eyes fall absently on the patchwork quilt underneath me and on top of Alice. “My mom is an alcoholic,” I say with little emotion. I’m drunk and it’s having a lovely numbing effect on just about every part of me. I don’t know why I said it, but it seems the best place to start when it comes to my family.

Alice hands me the bottle, and I don’t miss the irony of both of us getting sloppy drunk when alcoholism runs in our families. Like she can feel my instant guilt, she says, “Do you ever fear you could be someday, too? Because it runs in families?”

“No.” I won’t live long enough. “Do you?”

“No. At least, I hope not. I honestly don’t like the taste of it. I don’t think I ever will. And being around Taber I never drink, to be supportive of his choices and his health. That’s why I’ve had this bottle hidden away for so long. I’ll throw it in the dumpster outside before he gets home tomorrow so he’ll never know.” She pauses and circles back to the conversation I’d like to avoid even though my drunk mind won’t let me. “Is that why you don’t live with her, because she drinks?”

“I don’t live with her because she left.” I don’t sound angry. I don’t sound sad. I sound indifferent because right now, I am.

“She left?” Alice sounds confused and shifts on the bed until she’s lying perpendicular to me and her head is in my lap. I love how comfortable she makes herself.

I brush the hair back from her forehead absentmindedly. “Yeah. Johnny evicted her. She left and I stayed.”

“Wow.” I see her lips move more than I hear it. “What about your dad? Couldn’t you go live with him?”

“I don’t know who he is. My mom always said he was a deadbeat and never told me his name. She just told me he didn’t want anything to do with us.”

“I’m sorry,” she says sincerely. “He missed out on you. Maybe not on her, but definitely on you.”

“That’s debatable.” I shouldn’t have said that out loud.

She reaches up and presses her palm flush against my chest so I hear her words. “No, it’s not. You’re a good person, Toby.” She then clasps both of her hands over her stomach. “Do you have any siblings?”

I clam up. Despite the alcohol, I clam up.

She must feel me tense. “Toby?”

“A sister,” I force out.

“Older or younger?” Her voice is quieter, like she knows we’re heading into uncharted territory.

“Fifteen years older. We didn’t really grow up together because she wasn’t around a lot, but she’s the only person I’ve ever loved. She was great.” Now that I’m talking, I can’t seem to stop. “She had the best laugh. The kind of laugh that sounded like it bubbled up from somewhere deep inside, and once it started, she couldn’t stop it. Hearing her laugh always made me laugh when I was little. And she was an incredible artist. She could draw anything I asked her to draw. She also loved music. When I was nine, she brought home an album and played it for me and it was like someone flipped a switch inside me. I didn’t just hear the music, I felt it. It was like everything else in life blurred in comparison. Music was clear and precise and dauntless and honest, its message and soul intact despite everything else fading into oblivion. It made me feel connected to it. To her.”

Alice hasn’t missed the fact that I’m talking about Nina in the past tense, but her smile is warm. I think she likes that I’ve opened up and that I’m sharing myself with her. “Physical Graffiti?” she asks knowingly, remembering our first trip to Wax Trax.

“Yeah,” I answer, lost in all the good that was Nina, and for a moment, blocking out the rest.

“It sounds like you had the best big sister in the world.”

I nod. “I did.” She wasn’t perfect, nobody is. Her demons were many and she fought them daily: drug addiction and an abusive mother. On the good days, she won. And on the bad days, they won, but she tried to hide it. “Nina was one of those people who hid her hurt when you were around her and all you felt was the weight of her love instead. She put all of the attention on others, even if she never received it back in equal doses. She was great at asking questions and really listening to the answers. I loved that about her.” It’s one of my favorite things about Alice too.

“When did you lose her?” The words are support, pure and simple.

“Almost two years ago,” I whisper. I’m suddenly tired. So damn tired, like the past two years have caught up with me. Again.

Alice looks tired too, her eyelids are droopy.

I maneuver around on the bed so that I’m lying on my side behind her, my front pressed against her back. She’s wrapped up in my arms, and we’re both wrapped up in the quilt. “Who made the quilt?” I ask. It looks old and handmade.

Covering my hands on her belly with hers, she answers, “My grandma. It was a wedding gift to my parents. My mom threw it away after the divorce and I pulled it out of the trash and kept it because I liked it. And my grandma. She’s gone now.”