Childhood Lost

A couple of hours later we returned to the kitchen to clean up the mess.  I held the dustpan for Bryan as he swept up the large fragments of glass; he then brought out the vacuum, to suck up the tiny shards that might otherwise lodge themselves inside of cats’ paws.  Once we were certain the floor was safe, I freed the cats from the study.    

When I returned to the kitchen Bryan was having a go at the wall.  I figured one or two wipes with a wet cloth would clean it, but the wall seemed to have soaked up the whiskey exactly how Mr. Kelly used to at the annual Christmas Eve party.  We scrubbed it with everything from dish soap to Mr. Clean, with no success.  “It still smells like a saloon in here,” I complained to Bryan.   “Yes, it does,” he agreed.  “I don’t know what else to do.  Hopefully Sandra will have some ideas next week, or else the room will need to be painted again.”

“What are you going to tell her?”

“The truth—that I had a temper tantrum,” Bryan answered, and flashed me a self-deprecating smile.  We both stood there for a minute, surveying the damage, before he turned toward me again.  “About Melissa,” he said.  “Maybe you were right.  Maybe it’s not a good idea for you to see her right now.”

“Yeah,” I answered quietly.  When I handed him another cloth he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.  

*From my free serialized novel, A Slow Twisting Place, available to read here.