A Fistful of God Read Free

her favorite scotch.
    “It’ll help both of us if you go,” she said. Crooked strips of sun pierced the closed blinds and stabbed her face. But the dim room shadowed her eyes, and I figured they had to be bleary and swollen. I grabbed the cord and snapped up the blind so light flooded the room.
    Mom winced and covered her forehead with her hand. “It’s at three this afternoon.”
    I slammed my glass onto the table and juice sloshed over my hand. “Did you even think I might have something to do then?” I shouted and struggled to lower my voice. “I’m supposed to babysit.”
    “Aidyn.” Mom waited for me to look at her. “I didn’t know. You don’t need to change your plans. There’s always next week.”
    “What if I’ve got something next week?”
    “You make it sound like I’m forcing you.” Mom sighed and shook her head like she thought she could convince me how wrong I was. “You have to be ready for it, or it won’t help.” She took another drink and her hands shook. She had been talking to Joyce last night, and now she had a hangover.
    Yeah, and she probably had vodka in that juice.
    “Just like me.” Mom’s voice came soft and patient, as though she loved this deep, touching subject and knew I cared just as terribly about it. “If I hadn’t been ready to quit, I wouldn’t have been able to.”
    Just like her—she thought I was like her ? “I don’t have anything to quit!”
    She raised one eyebrow at me, as though I had no idea what I was talking about.
    “I’m not the one who drinks!”
    “I know.”
    “ I’m not the one who throws up because I drink. I’m not the one who forgets stuff like birthdays and promises and field trips and teacher conferences because I drink. I’m not the one who pretends to quit and then lies and lies .” I jumped up and backed away, my fists pressed to my stomach.
    “I did quit.” Mom stood, too.
    I backed farther away. “You’re lying.”
    “When did you think I was drinking?”
    “Only last night,” I snarled. “Only when you were talking to Joyce. Only when you weren’t talking I knew what you were doing.”
    “I was talking to…I was listening, Aidyn. That was my sponsor.”
    “Was she drinking, too?”
    Mom gasped. “Of course not! I swear. I haven’t had a drink since Sunday.”
    “You’re lying!” I flailed my arm, grabbed something, and threw it. Orange juice sprayed my mother and the kitchen. “I hate you!”
    She put her hands over her face, and I did the same, cowering, sure last Sunday would happen all over again.
    “Oh, dear God,” Mom whispered. But I knew she wasn’t talking to me. For once, she was really praying.
    I lowered my arms. She slumped against the warped counter, juice dripping off her chin, and she shook. “I don’t need this, Aidyn. I’m having enough trouble trying not to drink.”
    We stared at each other, blame separating us.
    “I’m sorry.” Mom swallowed. If she went on swallowing her anger, she’d make herself sick. “For what I said, and for Sunday.” She looked away.
    “I thought you blacked out again.”
    “I wish I had.” She looked up at me then. “Aidyn, I am so sorry.”
    Her tears mixed with the juice, but she still didn’t wipe her face. I grabbed a towel. Too rough, I dragged it across her face until she snapped it away. I didn’t care. She must be half drunk already, slobbery, sentimental, maudlin. She took the towel from me and clutched it to her chest. “Did I hit you?”
    I shrugged. “You were too drunk to hurt me much.”
    “You have no idea how sorry I am.” She turned, wiping the sticky juice from the table and cabinets. I leaned against the table and watched her.
    She tossed the sopping towel in the sink. “I was out of control, and I hurt you, and I’m sorrier than you can imagine.”
    Mom never talked this way. That meeting must have affected her. That or the booze. Maybe she could hold it better now, but she still had to be drunk.
    She pointed to the