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‘Anytime, sweetheart.’ Mum stabbed her fork into her potato and plonked it into her mouth as she ate in slow chews.
Carlos said nothing as he took it all in and continued to eat, but his eyes and furrowed brows showed he was hurt.
An intruding thought of Daniel in his annoyingly tight shirt entered my mind as I nibbled on a piece of broccoli.Thanks, Daniel, for ruining my dinner with an image of your nipples. Ugh. Everything about him screamed creepy sleazebag.
Minutes later, Carlos finished his dinner before Mum and I were even halfway through ours. He sat there staring at his plate, and I could tell he regretted eating so fast. He finally got up and walked over to the couch to lie down and rested a hand on his bloated belly. It usually took ten minutes for his tummy to settle before he was back to normal. Funny boy. That was a trait he developed all on his own. Dad was a slow eater.
Mum didn’t finish her dinner. Her plate still had most of her lamb and potatoes on there. I couldn’t tell if she just hadn’t much of an appetite or if she was too worried to finish her plate, but I guess not eating much was one of her secrets to keeping so slim. Whenever Daniel and my work situation came up, she always seemed to get distracted. He seemed to have a knack for upsetting everyone, and with the emotions of grief and worry in the room, I wasn’t sure how the rest of the evening would pan out.
10
The Devil’s Nectar
After dinner, we moved to the lounge room, where Mum had placed huge bags filled with old family photos on the floor. Carlos and I sat at opposite ends of the shaggy, red rug with all the lights on. I rummaged through the photos as delicately as I could, and as I flicked through them, I put the ones I’d looked at into a pile for Carlos. He grabbed a stack of photos and analysed each photo carefully, then placed the seen ones back into the cotton bag. One particular photo of Dad holding a flathead caught Carlos’s eye, and he stared at it longer than all the others. He was transfixed by it, his eyes not blinking even once.
‘Dad would always say nothing beats cooking and fishing, hey, Carl?’ I let out a weak laugh. ‘He looks so handsome, doesn’t he? Look at his curly hair and blue eyes and the way the sun is shining around him like a golden aura. God, I miss him.’ My throat began to burn, and each swallow felt like razors.
Carlos nodded in agreement, then placed the photo on his thigh and looked at me. ‘I miss him every second, Naomi, every single second. I don’t think I can go back to work like this.’
I nodded in sympathy as my eyes filled with tears. ‘I understand, Carl. Take all the time you need. Are you going to start your counselling appointments this week?’
‘Yep. Booked in for Thursday.’ He cast his eyes back to the photo.
‘Maybe we should frame that one. Carl, it’s your favourite, isn’t it?’ Each word I spoke made my throat hurt more, and I used all my mental strength not to break down and bawl my eyes out.
‘All good, Naomi. I’ve already got one in my room of all of us.’ He picked up the photo again and stared. ‘It’s a good photo, though, and I guess looking at it reminds me of the good old days when he took me fishing.’
‘You both loved fishing. I remember you’d be out all night and not get back until sunrise.’
He nodded with slumped shoulders. I could see the heaviness in them. It was like a rock was weighing them down.
Mum sat on the Chesterfield lounge, sipping peppermint tea while staring at the orange corner lamp. She didn’t utter a word, and I could tell by her eyes she was holding back tears too.
I tried to lighten the mood with a smile but noticed my lip was trembling and so were my hands. My breathing got heavier the more I tried to fight off my emotions. The grief was stronger than me and wrestled me down until I could no longer fight it. The aftermath left me with rapid breaths, a pounding heart, and hot tears streaming down my cheeks. A tear travelled down my lips, leaving a salty taste in my mouth.
Our family wasincompleteand would always be incomplete without Dad. I was in a state of remembrance of the good and the bad. But the bad was dominating my mind as images of Dad’s heavy drinking came flashing back like ambulance lights.It started when I was sixteen – the constant fighting with Mum because he was drunk with no self-control. From then on, that damn wine always got the better of him, possessing him, giving him bloodshot eyes, and filling him with rage. He tried to give it up, and successfully managed to for a year, but on and off, he’d have slip-ups, and the fighting would resume. Mum eventually grew tired of it, and they got divorced five years ago, and then his drinking got its heaviest.
When Dad was drunk, he’d become a stranger. His warm-hearted ways disappeared, and he didn’t seem to be fully aware of what he was doing. He even nearly burnt the house down by falling asleep, leaving a fish frying on the stove. I was the one who awoke to the smoke and turned off the dial. That night was his worst; he drank four bottles of wine and smashed all the plates in the cupboard. At the time, I was more frightened than angry, and I was glad he was sleeping because that meant the devil’s nectar was wearing off and he’d be him again soon.
‘The more I think about it, the more I hate alcohol. It never does any good for anyone. It broke Mum and Dad up and then killed him. I bet if he wasn’t such a big drinker, he would’ve lived until his eighties,’ I said in an outburst.
‘He drank way too much. It got to the point he was drinkingat leasta bottle a day. I never expected him to go so young. Fifty-four is only half a life lived. It was way too soon,’ Carlos said with a sigh into his palm as his elbow dug into his thigh. He put the photo back into the sack.
‘It’s absolutely devastating. I think what hurts the most is he won’t be there for the most important moments in my life.’
‘Yep.’ He nodded with a blank face.
‘Kids, you’ve got to look after your body and not abuse it. You’ve only got one body in this life, and it should be treated like a temple,’ Mum added as she looked at us both with tears in her eyes.
Carlos and I agreed. It was scary how often people abused their bodies with substances to mask the pain. I couldn’t talk – I abused my bank account by shopping for makeup and skincare. Doctors always seemed to blame it on stress. I wasn’t sure. All I really knew for sure was that alcohol had gotten the better of my dad, and the ironic part was he died with a bottle of shiraz in his hand. That was the last thing he touched while he was still alive. Notus– damn devil’s nectar.
Mum stood and wandered over to her laptop, which was sitting on the lowline unit beside the television. She crouched down and searched the web for music. After some contemplation, she decided on a seventies music channel to lighten the melancholy in the room. Once the music was on, she unravelled her bun so her hair was out.
She wiped her eyes, then stood to face us. ‘Your father loved you both so much, and he was very proud.’ Her voice was breaking. ‘I know both of you get upset that we didn’t stay as one happy family, but that’s life, and your father’s drinking was out of control. He was a good man, but he chose a different path.’
Carlos excused himself and went to the bathroom, holding his blank face as he walked out. I nodded in agreement with Mum, distracted by a vision of Dad. As I closed my eyes, I saw Dad and me, working side-by-side again, but this time, running our lavish dream café. We planned to serve plump quiches, sweet pies, pizzas, gourmet sandwiches (all made with our dough and pastry, of course), vibrant salads – oh, and coffees.Butwhat would it really have been like?Would he still have died, leaving me alone to run the business?Just the thought made me shudder. Things were tough, but a part of me felt like maybe not getting the café had turned out for the best.
I opened my eyes. ‘Yes, I know. The alcohol was the worst thing to happen to Dad. It got a strong grip on him and dragged him down and made everything worse for him. You know itmakes me so mad when I see people constantly glamorising alcohol like it’s such a wonderful experience, so euphoric. It’s just commercialised bullshit, and I drink it sparingly.’ I stood and took a seat next to her on the couch. The soft velvet pressed against my legs.
