The Wrong Family(44)
She went to look at the library card again, really examine it under the light. There was chocolate melted on one corner and most of the writing was scratched away.
She walked straight to the pantry and pulled out Nigel’s secret bottle of Jack Daniel’s—this time hidden in the bread box. Without bothering to get a glass, she unscrewed the cap and drank directly from the lip. A trickle of whiskey ran down her chin as she coughed and sputtered. Her eyes burned like she’d poured the whiskey straight over her pupils, and she squeezed them closed as her stomach lurched in protest. Better, Winnie thought. When I’m retching my guts up, I don’t think about the scary shit.
No wonder her husband liked this stuff. She held the bottle up to the light, swirling it around. Her father had been a whiskey drinker, and when Nigel ordered it stiff on their first date, just as her father would have, she’d fallen for him right then and there. And then of course she’d banned him from drinking it (after the death of her father, due to said whiskey), but that was only to put the fear of God in him. Winnie knew he drank, but because he wasn’t supposed to, he watched how much, and where, and who with.
She wandered around the rooms downstairs, holding the bottle of whiskey by its neck and occasionally taking tentative sips. By the time she walked through the kitchen for the second time, the bottle was considerably lighter, and Winnie could feel every single ounce of alcohol chortling through her system. It was awful and wonderful at the same time. She made a right out of the kitchen and found herself swaying near the computer, and all of a sudden she remembered everything she was trying to forget, only now she was drunk. It was worse drunk than sober. Winnie was a sad drunk, a dark drunk; she thought of bad things when there was alcohol in her. It had been like that since before her dad died, the nature of his death only solidifying her distaste for the foul stuff.
She leaned her hip against the wall and a few seconds later, her head. Winnie was dizzy and she wanted to hurl. That’s what her dad used to say—hurl. She started to cry, and then she did hurl.
20
WINNIE
As it turned out, the alcohol wasn’t the only thing swirling around Winnie’s stomach. The following day unearthed the virus. It hit them in tandem, so it was hard to know who to blame. At first Winnie thought she was being punished with a hangover the size of Kilimanjaro, but when she heard Nigel stumble through the door at noon, heading straight for the downstairs bathroom, she knew Samuel would probably soon follow. Winnie, who had never left for work, was upstairs in a similar position, her face noticeably green as she leaned over the toilet, expelling her bad choices along with the virus. They met in the kitchen accidentally, both in search of water. It was an awkward standoff, one in which Winnie felt like the victor when Nigel looked away first and skulked toward the fridge. It was as she watched the back of his head that it occurred to her that he had brought home this sickness, brought it right from Dulce fucking Tucker. Winnie and Nigel had both shared the same almost empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s, slurping after hours to hide their sin. It was the insult that sent her over the edge, the audacity of Nigel to humiliate her by entertaining another woman. How he hid his bottle all over the pantry, too drunk to put it in the same place as before. Was life with her so unbearable? It wasn’t like she’d let herself go, or that she ignored her husband. He’d just chosen to do this to her and now she was sick as a consequence, sick as a dog. She couldn’t wait her turn for the water, her stomach was rolling. Winnie ran for the stairs angry as all hell.
She came out of the bathroom a good deal later and stumbled over to her side of the bed, feeling moderately better. She’d glanced at herself in the mirror on the way out of the bathroom and had seen a gray waxy face bearing two dark holes instead of eyes. Her hair was matted down and stringy, stuck to her face. She swept it back into a low ponytail as she walked slowly toward the bed. Her phone lit up on the nightstand and she grabbed for it as she pulled down the covers, hesitating briefly when she saw that it was Dakota who was texting her. Dakota, who’d been staying with their mother, was getting worse instead of better. Despite all of her brother’s grandiose efforts to win back his wife, Manda wasn’t having it this time. He’d left message after message, begging each of his sisters to reason with Manda. Winnie set the phone facedown on the nightstand and crawled into the bed, already beginning to shake from fever. It was as she gazed longingly toward the bathroom, wishing she’d drunk straight from the faucet, that she spotted the sweating glass of water next to the bed. At the sight of it, Winnie started to cry. Nigel had brought it to her; Nigel had not abandoned her despite how cold he was being. She lifted the glass to her lips and drank it all.
Nigel, who’d been sleeping in his precious den, hadn’t apologized as much as he’d shown concern. He brought her toast once, carrying it into the room on a tray with a glass of water and tea. Winnie had only been able to stomach a few bites of the toast, but felt soothed. There was no room for grudge-holding when it came to their marriage. Nigel had stuck it out with her and she would stick it out with him. They may not have signed on for the type of marriage that turned up, but here they were, somehow living it.
The virus worked its way out of the house three days later. Sam took the least of it, though he spent a full twelve hours in front of his own toilet and the other twelve in his room, playing on the computer. Winnie still wasn’t feeling herself when she accepted Shelly’s invitation to join them at their cabin for Christmas break. But before the plague hit, she vaguely remembered deciding that they needed a vacation. She also vaguely remembered other things she didn’t want to think about at the moment. Being anywhere with Shelly immediately eliminated the possibility of relaxation, and that’s exactly what she needed—to be distracted, to keep her mind off things. Mixed with the holiday mania and a house full of loud kids, it was exactly the type of distraction she needed. She accepted with forced gratitude, then texted Nigel to tell him the plan.