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I just march out.
* * *
Reese comes trotting down the stairs about half an hour later. We’ve swapped places. He’s freshly washed, hair damp. I, on the other hand, am sweaty from cleaning up and I probably smell rank because of it.
“Oh, shit. You didn’t have to—I was gonna clean up—” The look I give him stops him in his tracks. He lets out a shaky laugh. “You know what? Never mind. Thank you.”
“Yeah, ‘never mind’ indeed.”
I plop my weary bones down on the couch. Silence thickens between us before I finally speak again.
“You can’t do this, Reese,” I tell him. I look him directly in the eyes when I do, forcing him to give me his gaze and his attention. “You have a daughter. You can’t just turn up the music and drown her out, drinking yourself into a stupor. This can’t happen again.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Reese, we’ve had this kind of conversation before.”
“I know!” Reese shakes his head. “I fucked up. I’m a fuck-up. I just… I couldn’t get her to stop crying; I didn’t know what was wrong with her. Grams wasn’t around, didn’t even answer my call. And you… you were gone. I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t ready for this! The only thing that ended up helping her was the music being on.”
There he is. Wobbling at the edge of the cliff.
I draw in a breath. I need to be patient just as much as he needs to step up.
“You’re not a fuck-up, Reese,” I say. “You even learned something. The music—it helped? That means you tried and you found something that works when it’s just you and Violet. And, when I checked on her, she was fine—but that doesn’t mean that this little bender situation can happen again.”
“I know that.”
There’s a fragility in Reese that has me wanting to comfort him more. But I don’t know if we’re there yet, especially since I still haven’t finished processing everything that happened before I left to look after my mother.
I push the feelings down.
“Just… get some rest today. I’ll finish cleaning up and things will be back to normal.”
* * *
After my conversation with Reese, there’s a shift in him. He doesn’t drink the entire week after—which, while a low bar to clear, is miles better compared to what he was doing when he came back from the Detroit game. He even takes more time to care for Violet when he’s home.
But we don’t talk.
I mean, yeah, he says things to me in passing, but while we reconciled with his behavior while I was gone, I don't think that we reconciled us.
Which mostly just leaves me with questions. Should I just give up? Do I put myself back in the “professional relationship only” box?
“Oh, Violet, your dad is such a pain in my ass.”
The little girl doesn’t stir in her bassinet. I heard offhand in passing from Paula that she had been a spitfire while I was gone. But now, she sleeps for me just like she ought to. “Snug as a bug in a rug,” as my mom would say. I shake my head. These growing pains with Reese are keeping him from really learning about what a little miracle he has.
Buzz… buzz… buzz…
My phone lights up with Quinn’s picture. I hiss guiltily. Shit, I haven’t talked to her in ages. Hadn’t even updated her about Mom’s latest episode.
I push the bad feeling away as I answer. “Hey, Q-Tip,” I chirp. “What’s up?”
“Too much and somehow not enough.”
Quinn’s voice is distant. That makes me sit up a little straighter. Something is wrong.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “You know you can tell me anything.”
