Walking on Broken Glass - Christa Allan [110]
“I don’t get why the two of you aren’t talking,” I said, temporarily distracted by the two seafood platters topped off with fried softshell crabs delivered to the next table.
“We’ll order appetizers. Are you listening?” Peter continued. “Dad called and asked me to help move one of his friends. When he said the place was his and the friend was Dani, I decided it was time to visit.”
Peter said he saw an American Express bill on the coffee table, and he “happened” to see over five hundred dollars of it was from four restaurants. Peter confronted Dad, who said where he ate, with whom, and how much money he spent was none of Peter's business.
“Basically, that was the end of that. We haven’t spoken since then. And she's moving in this week.”
The waiter set my plate down. I was in boiled shrimp heaven.
“And you want me to play peacemaker?” I asked between peeling, dipping, and eating.
“If you could play sense-maker that would be enough. I’m not happy that Dad and I aren’t talking. But I know this woman is bad news. This is going to end badly. If he could just see that and be smart about it, then I’d be able to live with not talking to him. At least then I’d know he's fine, and he's doing what he needs to do to protect himself.”
“How is this supposed to happen? Plan an intervention? We go to his house, tie him to a chair, stuff a handkerchief in his mouth? There's always an involuntary admission to the psych floor.”
“How about something simple—like lunch? Did you already forget it's all about the food?”
I looked at the shrimp po-boy Nick just dropped off. “Nope. Haven’t forgotten.”
“When I heard you were pregnant, I was excited—for myself. I loved being Alyssa's uncle. Selfish, but I didn’t remember if I’d ever told you that. She changed my life too. I think she was the first newborn baby I’d ever held for 6.2 minutes that day.” Peter knew I would laugh about the timed baby-holding. The first grandchild and everyone jockeyed for arm rights. We had a button made for Mom, “I’m the Grandmother. Back off. I’m always next.”
“I don’t remember either. If you did, I needed to hear it again. Some days I’m so afraid, and I almost can’t stop the Alyssa tape. I repeat the Serenity Prayer until I fall asleep. I know this baby is a gift, especially because of the circumstances. God gave me another reason to stay sober, another reason to stay strong, to fight. He knew I might not do it for me. But I’ll stay sober and fight for this baby with every ounce of strength I have.”
“How about a celebratory snowball for your new sobriety?” Peter asked and headed in the direction of the best snowballs in the universe. Papa Sam's. Summer. Snowballs. Sam's.
When we were kids, we waited for the summer day when we could stand in the long, long line in the hot, hot sun for the first snowball of the season. Younger and shorter, stretched on tiptoes, my fingers would curl over the windowsill, my nose almost dented by the aluminum window ledge so I could watch the magic: the SnoBall Wizard ice machine blew shaved snow crystals of ice into cups. An ice-packed funnel, mashed on the top, formed a white mountain. The best tippytoed part was watching the glistening rivers of syrup as they drenched the ice and the mountain became yellow or red or green or, in my case, chocolate.
We ate our snowballs sitting under the striped-umbrella-shaded picnic tables—Peter with his usual traffic-signal green spearmint, and me with my thick, dark chocolate. I couldn’t remember how long it had been since Peter and I shared this ritual. Years, probably. Years I spent polishing off bottles of wine or fruit-flavored martinis, and didn’t make time for my brother. And if I did spend time with Peter, I would hardly remember the next day. This, I realized, would not be a memory drowned in alcohol.
I