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Nathan frowned at her, looking confused and heartbrokenin the way only a kid with hurt feelings could be at the same time. “What did I do?”
Harris picked that moment to walk into the kitchen. He’d stayed home this morning, hung around when this one time she’d wanted him to get to the office.
He glanced at Nathan and shot across the kitchen. He had the pill bottle out of Nathan’s hand within seconds.
Nathan shoved away from the table. Angry tears came next.
She guessed he was more stunned or embarrassed than anything, but she hugged him from behind. “It’s okay.”
“It is not.” The fury in Harris’s voice suggested he wasn’t in the mood to be questioned. “Where did you get this bottle?”
Nathan hiccupped and swallowed deep breaths. “The table.”
Harris’s gaze switched to her. “Why are these out? What the hell were you thinking?”
She looked at the label. The pain pills she’d gotten after the shooting. She’d stopped taking them but never threw the bottle away. She still took medicine for anxiety and had ever since the shooting. They had a special lock safe in her nightstand drawer. That’s where she kept the bottles specifically so that Nathan couldn’t accidentally find them.
“I don’t...” She’d agreed to stop taking them more than a month ago and felt proud that she could refrain. “I thought...”
“You told me you weren’t taking those.” Anger still ran through his voice. “You promised.”
“I did stop.” She’d fought an internal battle over those pills. She wanted to take them. They helped her drift away. How much she needed them, how quickly she’d reached for them, had panicked her. Panicked Harris. So, she stopped usingthem. The anxiety meds were a different story. “That bottle should be upstairs. Locked away.”
“Then what happened?”
Nathan shrank with each word Harris shouted. “Dad?”
She understood the tentative tone. Harris rarely raised his voice, so when he did the entire household’s mood plummeted and the tension rose to catastrophic levels. Even now, with her mind spinning and her memories fizzy and out of focus, Harris’s anger penetrated.
“I must have brought them down.” But she didn’t remember doing that at all. There wouldn’t be a reason for her to do that.
“Why?” Harris demanded to know.
She had no idea. There was no explanation that made sense.
“Daddy?”
Something about the pleading tone of Nathan’s voice, probably how young and vulnerable he sounded, got through to Harris. His shoulders relaxed and the tight lines at the corners of his mouth eased. “It’s okay. Yeah, it’s fine.”
His rough voice sure didn’t sound fine.
“I made a mistake, honey. Daddy is right to be upset.” She looked across the table at Harris, willing him to calm down. “But he’s upset at me, not you.”
Harris held her gaze for a few seconds before looking at Nathan. “Go upstairs and get dressed.”
Nathan looked down at his bowl of half-eaten cereal but didn’t argue. “Okay.”
“Hey, buddy?” Harris waited for Nathan to look at him. “This is your mom’s bottle and you shouldn’t have it. Leave it alone in the future, okay?”
“Why?”
“It’s grown-up stuff.”
Nathan smiled but his eyes remained watery. “Okay.”
Elisa watched the scene as if she weren’t a part of it. Then Harris looked at her, anger banked but just barely.
“He’s gone, so explain.” That was it. A few words, and more of a demand, and then he stopped talking.
