Chapter Forty-Two

Denise felt triumphant. Even though it was the beginning of the war, she had won the most important battle, securing Travis as her client. She had defeated the beasts, both Whitney and her mother who would forever haunt Denise’s nightmares.

Well now don’t you think you’re being a tad dramatic? Benjamin asked, looking pointedly at Denise and the bag of treats in her hand. She gave him one to quiet him.

“That’s right, go find your comfy bed and leave the musings to the human,” she said. She sat with a glass of wine in her hand and an open bottle on the sofa table. What had been a weekend treat had become a nightly ritual with Denise sitting in her loneliness, and the only thing to combat it was a glass of White Zinfandel and a judgmental dog. But she didn’t mean to give Benjamin a hard time. At least he wasn’t cruel like her father.

Her father had called earlier, which set off the night’s freshly opened bottle. She could hear the happy family sounds in the background, and as she closed her eyes, she tried to transpose them over her own childhood but couldn’t. She was left alone too often for noises like that to come into play. She toyed with herself, setting the scene that was playing out through the receiver of her phone. Her father, his new wife, their kids all somewhere where laughter was not just welcomed but expected.

A place Denise had never been.

“George said you picked up something recently. Another one of these charity cases. Denise, Denise, Denise...” he said, stopping to take a drink of something. It was so hot outside. Maybe it was hot where he was, too, and those noises were gathered around an open grill, a blue-faced pool. Denise closed her eyes and pretended she was there. 

“Old friend from high school, his son. He got himself mixed up in some gang activity, but he’s too young to know any better. I think he was set up.”

“And there’s that bleeding heart again. You get that from your mother,” he said, just disdainfully enough for it to curdle in Denise’s ear.

“Doing what’s right isn’t a sin, Dad. Quite the opposite,” Denise said, filling her already overfilled glass. She tried to reason with herself. She was stressed. She needed to take the edge off. She blinked away Pastor Luke’s face asking her where her Bible was. The truth was, it was sitting on a bookcase with all the other books, and Denise hadn’t read it in a very long time. This was another thing she reasoned away because if God wanted her to read His book, He should have made more minutes in the day.

You have enough time to drink.

Denise blinked away the random thought and tried to concentrate on what her father was saying.

“Wait. What did you say?”

“Pregnant. Tara’s pregnant again. I was hoping to tell you in person but it looks like you’re swamped as usual. Maybe one of these days you’ll ease up on the workaholism and come see your ol' dad.” Denise took a long drink from her glass, her lids working overtime against the memories of her father missing her life to lead one of his own. What a perfect “I learned it from you” moment, Denise thought but didn’t verbalize because realizing she was about to have another half-sibling at her age made her sick. Or maybe it was the wine on an empty stomach. Or maybe it was because her life was in shambles and her body just couldn’t process it anymore.

“I need to go.”

“I’m sure you do. Thanks for the congratulations. No worries, Tara will send you the link to our registry.” Wasn’t there some sort of rule against making people send you baby gifts after the first kid? But Denise didn’t say that out loud either because she had already hung up the phone.

She had the desire to call somebody, but as usual, there was no good person to call. She didn’t want to bother Pastor Luke, his face a reminder that nobody was immune from this world, and calling Branson would probably end up with her vomiting in the toilet at some bass-pounding club. She thought about who she really wanted to call, taking a quick glimpse at Benjamin greedily licking treat crumbs off his snout.

Do it, his dewy eyes seemed to say.

“Okay,” Denise said, taking another gulp of liquid courage.