Black Rose - NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

He heard her laugh, a long, lovely roll, and gave up even the pretense of working.

He heard the music and banging of toys, the child’s burbling and giggles, and the undiluted pleasure in the woman’s voice. Later, he heard her singing as she rocked the baby to sleep.

Soon after, he heard her murmured words, her quiet sigh, then the monitor was silent.

He sighed himself, sorry the interlude was over. Then reaching for his coffeepot, found it empty. Again.

He carried it into the kitchen to brew another pot, and was just measuring out the coffee when Roz came in.

“Hi,” he said. “Be out of your way in a minute. David said I should just make myself coffee whenever.”

“Of course. I was about to make use of the cold cuts he put together earlier, if you’d like something to eat.”

“I would, thanks. He mentioned there’d be makings when he showed me where I could find what I needed for coffee. And . . .” He widened his eyes as Roz took out the tray, the bowls. “I see he meant it.”

“He’s constantly afraid I’ll starve to death if he doesn’t leave me enough food for six people.” She glanced over. “And?”

“Sorry?”

“You started to say something else? Regarding David?”

“Oh well, just that I think he was hitting on me.”

She got long, fresh rolls from the bread drawer. “Not very hard, I’m sure.”

“No, not hard. Just . . . charmingly actually.”

“I hope you weren’t offended.”

“No, I was, well, sort of flattered, really. Considering the age difference.”

“He likes the way you look in your glasses.”

“In my . . . what?”

“Horn-rims. They just turn him to mush, apparently. You want me to just pile everything on here, or would you rather pick and choose?”

“Just pile, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“It’s no trouble as I’m making some for myself as it is.” She looked up sharply, as a voice, Amelia’s voice, began to sing through the monitor.

“It’s a jolt, isn’t it?” Mitch said. “Every time.”

“She doesn’t go into Lily’s room every night, not like she did with the boys. She favors boys. I suppose she knows Hayley’s out, and wants to . . .”

She trailed off, her fingers fumbling, as they rarely did, with the sandwiches as she recalled the monitor in the library. And her own session with Lily.

“I hadn’t thought about the monitor where you were working, disturbing you.”

“It didn’t—you didn’t—in the least.”

“In any case, feel free to switch it off in there when you’re working. God knows we have them everywhere. Hayley went out and bought one that has video, too, for her room. Amazing the sorts of things they have now, to make life a bit easier for new mothers.”

“You must’ve been a good one. It came through,” he added, “when you were up there with her.”

“I was. Am. It’s my most important job.” But her interlude with Lily had been private—or so she’d thought. Just how many times had she sang the hokeypokey along with Elmo?

Best not to think about it.

“Would you like to take this back in, eat while you work, or take a break, and eat in here?”

“In here, if it’s all right with you.”

“That’ll be fine.” She hesitated, then opened the refrigerator again, took out the champagne. “Seeing as it’s New Year’s Eve, I’m going to open this. We can have something a little more festive than coffee with our poor boys.”

“Thanks, but I don’t drink. Can’t.”

“Oh.” She felt abominably slow and stupid. Hadn’t she noticed herself that he never took alcohol? Couldn’t she have used her brain to put two and two together before embarrassing a guest? “Coffee it is, then.”

“Please.” He stepped over to lay a hand on her arm before she replaced the bottle. “Open it, enjoy it. It doesn’t bother me when other people have a drink. In fact, it’s important to me that they’re comfortable. That you’re comfortable. Here, let me do it.”

He took the bottle. “Don’t worry, opening a bottle of champagne isn’t backsliding.”

“I certainly didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I should’ve realized.”

“Why? I’m not still wearing that sign that says Recovering Alcoholic around my neck, am I?”

She smiled a little, walked to the display cabinet for a flute. “No.”

He released the cork, a quick, celebrational pop. “I started drinking when I was about fifteen. Sneaking a beer now and then, the way boys often do. Nothing major. I did love an ice-cold beer.”

He set both their plates on the table, then poured his coffee while she arranged the rest of the simple meal. “Went through the drinking insanity in college, but again, plenty do the same. Never missed a class because of it, never caused me any trouble, really. My grades stayed up—enough I graduated with honors, top five percent of my class. I loved college nearly as much as I did an ice-cold beer. Am I going to bore you with this?”

“No,” she said, her eyes on his. “You’re not.”

“All right.” He took his first bite of the sandwich, nodded. “Miz Harper, you make a hell of a po’boy.”

“I do.”

“So I went to grad school, got my master’s. Taught, got married, worked on my doctorate. Had myself a gorgeous baby boy. And I drank. I was . . . an amiable drunk, if you know what I mean. I was never confrontational, never abusive—physically, I mean, never picked fights. But I can’t say I was ever completely sober from the time Josh was born—a bit before that to be honest, until I set the bottle down the last time.”

He sampled David’s potato salad. “I worked—taught, wrote, provided my family with a good living. Drinking never cost me a day’s work, any more than it had cost me class time. But it cost me my wife and my son.”

“I’m sorry, Mitch.”

“No need to be. Sara, my ex, did everything she could do. She loved me, and she wanted the life I’d promised her. She stuck with me longer than many would have. She begged me to quit, and I’d promise or reassure, or fluff her off. Bills were paid, weren’t they? We had a nice house, and we never missed a mortgage payment. I wasn’t some stumbling-down, sprawled-in-the-gutter drunk, was I, for God’s sake? I just had a few drinks to take the edge off. Of course, I started taking the edge off at ten in the morning, but I was entitled.”

He paused, shook his head. “It’s easy to delude yourself that you’re entitled, that you’re just fine when you’re in a haze most of the time. Easy to ignore the fact that you’re letting your wife and child down in a dozen ways, every single day. Forgetting dinner parties or birthdays, slipping out of bed—where you are useless to her in any case—to have just one more drink, dozing off when you’re supposed to be watching your own baby. Just not being there, not completely there. Ever.”

“It’s a hard thing to go through, I imagine. For everyone involved.”

“Harder for the ones you shipwreck with you, believe me. I wouldn’t go to counseling with her, refused to attend meetings, to talk to anyone about what she saw as my problem. Even when she told me she was leaving me, when she packed her things, and Josh’s things, and walked out. I barely noticed they were gone.”

“That was tremendously brave of her.”

“Yes, it was.” His gaze sharpened on Roz’s face. “Yes, it was, and I suppose a woman like you would understand just how brave it was. It took me another full year to hit the bottom, to look around at my life and see nothing. To realize I’d lost what was most precious, and that it was too late to ever get it back. I went to meetings.”

“That takes courage, too.”