CHAPTER1
Startled awake, Fiona blinked several times, frowning as she tried to figure out what had disturbed her sleep. She winced at the crash of a vase shattering against the floor downstairs. Instead of being alarmed, she relaxed and sighed, a deep heaviness overcoming her. She wasn’t afraid of the sounds that disturbed the otherwise stillness of the night. She had replaced that vase, twice this week already, and the familiar crash had become a wakeup call that dearest dad was home.
After another crashing sound followed by swearing, she gave up the idea that she could roll over and go back to sleep. She was afraid if she didn’t get to him in time, he might cut himself trying to clean up. At least, that was one thing he was always keen on, cleaning up his messes. If only he wouldn’t make such a mess in the first place, then their life would be much easier.
Sickened by the constant need to be the adult in their family, she pulled back the covers and slid out of bed. She turned on the bedside lamp and reached for her robe. Stuffing her feet into a pair of slippers, she hurried from the room, while pushing her arms through the holes in the robe. By the time she was halfway down the stairs, she had the robe righted on her small frame and the band tied around her trim waist.
“Shit!”
At the swearing, Fiona took the stairs two at a time. Her father could be a pain in the ass, but he was her pain in the ass. She loved him despite his weakness for the bottle. In some ways, she understood. He had loved and lost and had turned to the bottle to numb himself to the memories. He had no idea how his actions had impacted her. Not only did he steal her own right to grieve her mother, but Fiona had to be focused on him and ensuring that he didn’t break his neck climbing the stairs when he returned home drunk.
He had turned on the ceiling lights in the hall and, as she rounded the corner, she paused and swallowed hard. Her throat bobbed with emotion, trapping the sob that automatically rose within her. He was on his knees on the floor amidst the broken pieces of the beautiful Oriental vase she had found this time. She wondered why she kept buying one vase after another to replace the ones he was always breaking. She could solve the problem by removing the vase altogether. But, all her life, a vase had been placed on the table in the hall. That was the way her mother had done it, replacing the flowers with fresh ones from the gardens each time they wilted.
In some ways, she kept up the tradition in the hopes that the next vase would be the last. Then he would have overcome his grief and be ready to move on with his life. And then, maybe she would get the opportunity to grieve for a mother she had loved more than life itself.
“Dad, let’s get you up to bed,” she said and reached for him.
Fiona tucked her arm around his frame and eased him to his feet. The stench of alcohol hit her, and she wondered which good Samaritan had driven him home this time. She’d started making it a habit to hide his keys on the nights when he was going out. One car crash in the family was enough. Even a drunken father was better than none. He was the only person she had left in the world.
He hung his head in shame and said nothing to her as he leaned on her. His weight was nothing to scoff about, and he weighed down her small frame, but she supported him just the same. She walked him over to the stairs then took her time, climbing the steps, ensuring he had his feet firmly planted before she took the next. The trek was slow and tiring, but her shoulders were now used to his burden. Still, by the time she got him to his bedroom, and they crossed the threshold for her to place him on the bed, she was out of breath.
“Here, let me help you take off your shoes.”
She knelt on the ground and slipped off one shoe, then the other. Her heart clenched, and icy tentacles of fear snaked through her soul when she heard his soft weeping. This was new. She couldn’t remember him crying before during his drunkenness. When he was inebriated was probably the only time he smiled anymore.
She suddenly wanted out as fast as possible. She didn’t want to know. By God, she didn’t want to know what he had done. She pushed his shoes under the bed and without looking at him, rose to her feet and began to walk backward to the door.
“Try to get some sleep,” she whispered, afraid if she spoke any louder, she would shatter the calm she’d found for herself. The peace was already so fragile, the shreds fastened together by denial.
“I lost it.”
She was almost at the door when he spoke for the first time. Her hand on the doorknob, she pleaded with herself to leave and close the door behind her. She could shut out whatever it was that he wanted to tell her. But still, she waited, her back turned to him, her nose flaring from her heavy breathing.
“I lost everything,” she heard him say. “The house, the lands. Everything.”
Fiona’s breathing became labored, and she turned to stare at him, her eyes roaming his penitent figure with head bowed. And, just for a miniscule second, she hated him. Hated him for being selfish and stripping away her right to mourn her mother, her right to have a normal life.
“What do you mean you lost everything?” she asked, her voice strangely calm for the news her father had just divulged.
He raised his head then to look at her. His face was etched with haggard lines, his eyes dull and lifeless. “It’s not just the drinking,” he said, gripping his head in his hands. “It’s also the gambling. And this time, I lost everything.”
As calmly as she could, Fiona left the bedroom and closed the door behind her. She walked, her legs moving but her mind far away, not paying attention to where they were carrying her. She walked down the stairs, her steps jerky. She walked past the broken vase in the hall, stepped over the fragments as her father had stepped over the fragments of her heart in his own grief. She walked through the front door, leaving it hanging as she made her way down the porch. And she continued walking for a few minutes until she came to the poinsettia tree that her mother had loved so much.
In the dark of the night with the moon as her witness, Fiona sank to her mother’s grave and cried.