Second Chance(40)

“Hi, Cass,” he said.

Her smile back was cautious, but not unfriendly. “Yes of course I remember. Hello again.”

“Right, sit down everyone! Food’s coming.” Sue’s interruption was a welcome distraction.

Finally they were all seated with food in front of them, and they started digging in as one.

“This is delicious,” Jack said politely. It was true though.

“Gosh, am I the only one drinking wine? I know it’s midweek but now I feel like a reprobate. Are you sure you don’t want any?” She looked at Nate and then Jack.

“I’ll have some.” Cass grinned hopefully at her grandmother.

Sue raised her eyebrows at Nate in question.

“You can have half a glass,” he said.

Cass rolled her eyes as she stood up to fetch a glass. “Yeah. Yeah. Anyone else need a wine glass while I’m going? Jack? Dad? It’s not like you to turn down wine.”

Nate hesitated, glancing at Jack.

“I don’t mind if you do,” Jack said, nudging his knee under the table. Then to Cass he said, “Not for me thank you. I don’t drink anymore.”

“I’ll stick with water tonight.” Nate returned the pressure of Jack’s knee, and Jack smiled gratefully. He really didn’t mind other people drinking around him that much, but Nate’s support meant a lot.

Cass came back with another glass and poured a rather generous half glass for herself. Then she fixed her gaze on Jack. “Why did you give up?”

“Cass!” Nate said reprovingly. “Don’t be nosey.”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind.” Jack put his fork down for a moment, glancing at Sue who was listening raptly, and then turning his attention back to Cass. “I had a problem with alcohol. It started as a stress relief but I got dependent on it, and it resulted in me making some bad decisions. I’d never had much success with cutting down, so I decided it was better to stop completely—at least for a while.”

“Do you miss it?” Cass’s brow furrowed.

“Sometimes. I miss the initial buzz of it and the taste of some types too. But I don’t miss feeling crap the next day, and I don’t miss waking up wondering what mistakes I made the night before.”

“Fair enough.” She started eating again, seemingly done with the conversation.

“Good for you, Jack,” Sue said quietly. “That can’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t. It isn’t. And it’s still relatively early days. It’s only been a little over a month since I stopped. But I’m feeling good about it, and pretty determined.”

“I hope you manage to stick with it. Lots of people do.” Sue pressed her lips together and caught Nate’s gaze. Regret showed in her expression, and something that might have been guilt too. “I wish Jonathan had been able to.”

Nate’s cutlery scraped loudly on his bowl and he shovelled in another mouthful, rendering himself unable to reply to his mum. Jack looked sideways at him and saw the tension in his face. Memories of their teenage years flooded back. Nate’s dad had always had a short fuse, and he was even worse when he’d been drinking. Jack had heard him yell at Nate countless times, Sue too occasionally. They’d trodden on eggshells around him, treating him like a bomb that could go off at any minute. At the time it had just been their reality, and through the self-centred filter of youth, Jack hadn’t really thought too much about how hard it must have been for Nate to live with that day in, day out.

An uncomfortable silence persisted, and Jack felt bad that he was the cause of it—albeit unintentionally. He hadn’t meant to touch a nerve by talking about his alcohol problems; he should have thought before he opened his big mouth.

“So, Jack,” Sue finally rallied, her tone artificially bright. “Nate tells me you’re working at Marlham High School? What exactly are you doing there?”

Relieved to have a change of subject, Jack started explaining his role and the conversation moved on. Cass joined in, bitching about supply teachers and how crap they’d been at her old school. “They couldn’t control the classes at all. It was mayhem when any of our normal teachers were off.”

“To be fair, your normal teachers could barely control your classes there half the time,” Nate said.

“Yeah. That’s true.”

“So, do you like being at Marlham High?” Jack asked Cass. “Is it an improvement?”

“I guess.” She wrinkled her nose, and Nate raised his eyebrows sceptically. “Okay. Yes it is. I do actually want to learn so it’s nice being at a school where they have time to teach us stuff instead of yelling at us all the time. I think being in sixth form helps with that too though, because the kids who didn’t want to learn have left already.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” Jack said. “It was the same even in our day wasn’t it, Nate? By the sixth form we were all more engaged, so it was probably easier for the teachers.”

“We were more likely to bunk off than be disruptive,” Nate said.

Cass gasped in mock horror. “You bunked off school? Dad. I’m shocked.”

Nate grinned at her. “Occasionally. But just because I did it doesn’t mean you should. I didn’t do it very often anyway.”