My Name is Nell Read online

  The letters of Brady’s signature swam. Even though Nell had anticipated he would leave, seeing it written by his own hand had a finality that shattered her.

  “Hope is a thing with feathers.” From nowhere came the lines of Emily Dickinson’s poem.

  And things with feathers flew away.

  Somehow she managed to hold herself together until Alan arrived to pick up Abby.

  Then the darkness came.

  And the thirst.

  THE OVERCAST SKIES matched Brady’s mood as he slung his bags into the back of the Escalade late Friday afternoon. He glanced back at the bland exterior of the condominium where he’d spent the past few weeks. He’d had such high hopes when he’d made the decision to sublet the unit. He shook his head. Had he been so desperate for stability in his life—for companionship and acceptance—that he’d sacrificed his reason?

  In business that would have been disastrous. He mocked himself with a derisive chuckle. Just goes to show what happens when you abandon the practices and principles that resulted in success.

  He headed down I-540 on his way to I-40, which would lead him west to sunny California and work—the only security in his life right now. He’d bury himself in the damn projects lined up and waiting for him.

  Carl had been ecstatic, of course, when Brady had called to announce what felt like craven surrender. He hadn’t had time today to do more with Buzz Valentine than tell him he’d make some decisions about the optioned property in the next few weeks. So what if he lost his earnest money? It was, after all, only money—the one thing he had plenty of.

  Rain accompanied him all the way from Ft. Smith to Oklahoma City, where he planned to spend the night, but he didn’t care. The swish-swish of the windshield wipers had a comforting, metronomic quality that helped soothe his churning stomach.

  For the thousandth time since Tuesday night, he repeated the words. Nell is an alcoholic. In his mind, he’d tried to argue that she was not an alcoholic, but a recovering alcoholic. Tried to believe that insight made a difference. Hell, from her actions, he never would have known. She might go on for years without taking a drink, if ever. But how could he be sure?

  Even if he could accept her, he couldn’t accept that desperate accusation she’d flung at him, as if turning the tables on him excused her. You’re addicted. Right. He wasn’t the one drowning his sorrows in a bottle, was he? But that wasn’t what she’d said. Even though he remembered her words exactly, he didn’t want to consider her indictment. Addicted to anger, resentment and guilt?

  Hell, yes, who wouldn’t be? His old man hadn’t even waited until his mother was cold in the grave before bringing Velda home and having the nerve to suggest Danny should call her “Mother.” Her chipper smile and the way she clung to his dad, looking up at him as if she’d taken home the blue-ribbon hog from the county fair, were an insult to his mother’s memory. Had he been the only one who’d mourned her?

  He’d never forget the day he’d come home from school the week after the funeral and found all traces of his mother removed—her hairbrush no longer on the dresser, the framed photograph of her parents that had always sat on the mantel gone, her prized cut-glass serving bowl missing from the china cabinet, her closet empty of everything except the lingering scent of talcum and lavender. Even now, his jaw clenched in anger. What kind of man removes all traces of the woman he’s supposedly loved, who has borne his children?

  Danny had been too young, of course. What did a seven-year-old know? Especially when for most of his life their mother had been sick. He’d fallen right in with the plan, snuggling up to Velda from the beginning. It had sickened Brady, who had managed to get through most of his senior year before his father kicked him out, days short of graduation. Thank God for Coach Elbert, who’d somehow sweet-talked the superintendent into awarding him his diploma anyway. They’d mailed it to him in care of General Delivery in the town where he’d gotten work as a roofer.

  He turned on the radio full blast, in the futile attempt to block out his memories and the gut-wrenching realization that Nell had nailed it, whether she knew it or not.

  He hated his father.

  NELL SAT on the rug cradling the wine bottle she’d pulled from the paper sack. Her frantic trip to the liquor store was a blur. All she knew was that after Abby left, the walls of the house had crushed her with their mocking silence. She’d ended up—again—abandoned and alone. The bright lights inside the store had hurt her eyes, but she was drawn instinctively to the racked bottles, lined up row after row, their ambers, crimsons and roses seductive in their appeal.

  Now, running her hands up and down the smooth, cool glass, caressing the curve leading to the slender neck and the rubbery seal over the cork, she focused on her palate, tingling in anticipation. Imagining that first euphoric swallow, the feel and taste of it coursing down her throat, warming her chest from the inside.

  She closed her eyes and leaned against the sofa. It would be so simple. The corkscrew lay within easy reach on the coffee table. Her favorite rounded goblet, which nested perfectly in her palm, stood beside the corkscrew—waiting. Could she stop with one glass? Would she?

  Nothing and no one else offered her the immediate comfort of the merlot resting heavy and promising in her hands.

  Opening her eyes, she grabbed the corkscrew, studying it as if it represented the tempter—and the deliverer. Remember. The word jolted her, causing her to drop the corkscrew. Remember your last drunk. The words of every AA sponsor stopped her. Before you take that first drink, relive your last drunk.

  She set the wine bottle beside her on the floor and buried her head in her hands. Did she have to? It would be ever so much easier to open the bottle and have a drink. People did it all the time.

  Your last drunk! The idea grew insistently, clawing at her, refusing to let her go. Rick. The fight. The images beckoned, demanding to be revisited.

  She jumped to her feet and paced to the window, remembering their spacious but homey living room, decorated with antiques she and Rick had restored, the fire crackling in the fireplace, the lambent glow of the new brass table lamp she’d purchased only that day. She’d meant only to have one little drink before Rick got home, but one had turned into three. She’d carefully rinsed her glass and put it in the dishwasher before he came in, hiding the evidence.

  That evening had started out no different from every other evening in the months before, when she’d begun to dread his arrival. The cool, polite distance he kept as if she were tainted. Long gone were the welcoming kisses, the tell-me-about-your day ritual. Instead, he moved straight to the bar and fixed himself a bourbon and water. She never protested when he fixed her one, too.

  Protest? She lapped it up, hoping it would inoculate her from his obvious aversion to her. That night he’d perched on the hearth, holding his drink between his knees. He looked fuzzy to her, the fire backlighting his body turning him into a fiend. She had blinked, but the image remained hazy, sinister.

  His words, like a razor slice, had cut through her alcoholic haze. I’ve filed for divorce. Here are the papers. She’d sloshed her drink as she carried it to her lips and drank thirstily. He wasn’t finished. I’m moving out tonight. To Clarice’s. He set the legal-size envelope on the bar.

  She could never remember if she’d flung the glass before or after he mentioned Clarice. All she knew was that suddenly she was standing in their decorator-beautiful living room, surrounded by shards of broken glass, staring at a stain created by bourbon and melting ice darkening the thick cream-colored carpet. Screaming an obscenity, she had launched herself at Rick, now standing, his face gray with disgust. She had called him names she didn’t even know were in her repertoire, all the time pounding her fists against his unyielding chest. Finally he had grabbed her arms in a viselike grip. You’re a drunk, Nell. What did you expect?

  Bile and phlegm had risen to her mouth, and tears, maudlin and self-pitying, had dripped down her cheeks, off her nose and chin. He couldn’t do this to
her!

  Nell laid a hand on a cool pane of glass, grounding herself in reality. That was then. This was now. She could stop this horror film in midreel. You want to stay sober? Force yourself. Remember the worst.

  Somehow, she’d staggered through the shattered glass to the bar, where she drank directly from the bottle of Jack Daniel’s Rick had left out. She couldn’t get enough to douse the flames licking at her psyche. She’d whirled around then. What are we supposed to do? Abby and I?

  My attorney will be in touch. Meanwhile, call your mother to come get Abby. In this condition, you’re not a fit mother.

  He’d been right, of course, Nell thought bitterly. How could she have lost sight of Abby? No matter how diminished Rick had made her feel, how could she have been so irresponsible a mother?

  Her reaction that night had been violent. She’d screamed one word at him. Bastard!

  That’s when Abby had appeared, her eyes wide with fright. Mommy? she’d cried, her bottom lip trembling. Nell had scooped her up and faced Rick, barely able to control the venom threatening to spew out of her. Get out, she’d spat. He’d given her one last look of undisguised repugnance and said, Call your mother. Now. And he’d left.

  Nell paced to the center of the family room, staring at the wine bottle, the corkscrew, the glass. All urging her to a decision.

  But memory insisted. Confront the worst. She’d stood, rooted, six-year-old Abby clutching her around the neck, asking over and over, Mommy, who spilled the drink? Where’s Daddy going?

  She remembered carrying her child to the bar, setting her on her feet and downing the remainder of the bourbon in great gulping swigs straight from the bottle. Finally Abby had nudged her. Why did you yell at Daddy. Where is he? Why did he go?

  Nell picked up the merlot and studied it. Tempting, with its tasteful label and graceful, understated script. She nestled it to her chest, wondering why on earth she had ever answered Abby as she had. He’s left us, Abby.

  The howls had erupted then. Seeming to grow louder, more intense, as Nell drunkenly tried to explain. How could Abby ever have forgiven her?

  I want my daddy. I want my daddy. I want my daddy.

  Nell hadn’t been able to stand Abby’s screams. She’d grabbed her purse, buttoned Abby’s coat around her, thrown on her own and dragged Abby to the car, her stomach revolting with every gasp of breath. After she’d buckled Abby in, she remembered fumbling on her hands and knees, searching for the ignition key she’d dropped in the snow, all the time craving another drink to calm her nerves.

  Well, her prayers had been answered thanks to the county liquor laws. On her way to confront Rick she’d pulled into a drive-thru liquor store and purchased a pint of vodka. At the next stoplight, hands shaking, she’d stripped off the seal and swallowed a third of the bottle.

  Abby had become strangely quiet. Snow drifted dreamily from the sky, landing on the windshield. Headlights blurred together like a soothing watercolor wash. The combination of the car heater and the vodka warmed Nell, relaxing her as she started down one of Fayetteville’s steep hills toward Clarice’s. Rick needed to see what he’d done to them. To her, but especially to his daughter.

  At first it had seemed like a graceful glide toward a fleecy white backdrop, but then, in a moment of sudden clarity, Nell saw the brick wall rising to meet them, her car in a sickening spin she was helpless to control. She gripped the wheel. The last thing she heard was her own voice screaming Abby, Abby!

  That was all she could remember until she woke up in the hospital, her bandaged head full of anvils. The elongated human faces peering down at her came and went, then dissolved completely, leaving nothing but darkness and stabbing pain.

  Nell turned on the lamp beside the armchair and sat down, still holding the bottle, menacingly familiar in its shape. As long as she lived, she would never forget the words of the police officer who’d visited her in the hospital. You had a close call, Mrs. Porter. Another six inches and your daughter wouldn’t have been so lucky.

  Nell’s mouth soured. Who was that woman who had so carelessly risked her child’s life? Who had preferred a bottle to her own daughter?

  Was she prepared to put Abby through that hell again? Worse yet, was she deliberately going to become that woman she loathed?

  Still cradling the bottle of wine, slowly, deliberately, so she would never forget this moment, she stood, picked up the corkscrew and walked into the kitchen. She flipped on the light, peeled the sealant from the neck of the bottle and then, with deadly aim, impaled the center of the cork with the tip of the corkscrew. She levered the arms of the corkscrew, then heard the soft pop of the cork, smelled the faintest, tantalizing hint of grape before she lifted the bottle, upended it over the sink and watched as every last drop spiraled down the drain.

  Afterward, she threw the bottle in the wastebasket, then leaned against the sink, drawing ragged breaths.

  Finally she went to her purse, removed a small metallic object and clutched it in her hand, as if it possessed magical powers. Opening her fist, she placed the AA chip on the counter, rubbing her finger over the Roman numeral six etched there. Six years of sobriety. She was not willing to sacrifice that for anyone. Anything.

  Picking up the chip, she bowed her head, humbled by the grace that had brought her to this moment. In the quiet kitchen, her prayer of thanksgiving, strong and healing, rose from her heart.

  Never losing her grip on her six-year chip, she opened her eyes to overwhelming relief. She was back on track again.

  In the morning she would call Ben, seek his counsel, but for tonight? She had triumphed over the enemy—for yet one more day.

  That didn’t mean she wouldn’t miss Brady. Worry about Abby. Feel stifled by her mother and sister on occasion.

  It simply meant she valued Nell again.

  WHEN SHE HEARD Abby at the front door, Nell muted the TV. “I’m in here, honey.”

  “Okay.”

  She looked up when Abby entered the family room, her eyes sparkling. “Did you have a good time?”

  Abby sank into the rocker, hitched her legs over one arm and then sighed dramatically. “Oh, Mom, I’m in love. He’s so nice.”

  Nell permitted herself a concealed sigh of relief. “Tell me all about it.”

  And, unbelievably, Abby did, so caught up in what a good dancer Alan was, how dreamy his brown eyes were, how polite he’d been that she must’ve forgotten she was speaking to her mother. But then, Nell mused, Abby was like that. When she wanted to share her feelings, she could be completely up front. But when she didn’t? You couldn’t pry a single tidbit from her.

  “Tonya was green with jealousy. Her date was a total jerk, all the time trying to make people laugh with these lame jokes and pigging out at the refreshment table.”

  “Tonya’s day will come. We all have to kiss a few frogs in the process.”

  Abby twisted a strand of hair around her finger. “I guess I was just lucky to get a prince the first time.”

  Nell smiled at her daughter’s innocence. Yet stranger things had happened than meeting The One in eighth grade. “Alan knew a good thing when he saw you.”

  “Mo-om, you’re prejudiced.”

  “Guilty.”

  Abby hopped up. “I’m gonna get a cola. Want one?”

  “No thanks. The caffeine would keep me awake.”

  Nell watched the final couple of minutes of the movie while Abby was in the kitchen, then flipped off the TV.

  “Mom?”

  A coldness in her daughter’s tone caused Nell to glance up. Ashen, Abby stood clutching the empty wine bottle. Nell cringed. Why hadn’t she emptied the wastebasket before Abby got home?

  “What’s this?” Abby demanded. “Have you been drinking?”

  Nell rose to her feet, crossed to her daughter, took the bottle from her and set it on the table. Praying for the right words, she laid her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and found her troubled eyes. “No, honey, I haven’t been drinking. I’ll admit I
was tempted, but instead, I poured all the wine down the drain.”

  Abby hung her head. “I should’ve been here.”

  “No. It doesn’t work like that. If an alcoholic wants a drink, she’ll make it happen. You don’t have to keep watch over me, sweetie. I’m the one who must do that for myself. Tonight I did.”

  “It’s Brady, isn’t it?”

  Nell lifted a hand and smoothed back her daughter’s hair. “It’s lots of things, but I’m determined never again to let alcohol become more important than the people I love. And, yes, Brady is one of those people. But how can I demonstrate that love unless I give him his freedom?” She hesitated, struck by another truth. “And honor my feelings for him by remaining sober.”

  Abby hugged her then, an embrace that warmed her far more than any amount of liquor could ever have done. “I’m so proud of you, Mom.”

  “I love you,” Nell barely managed to say before her throat clogged with tears of gratitude.

  The struggle would be ongoing, but what reward could be sweeter than Abby’s forgiveness and love?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  BRADY STOOD at the window of his corner office, eyes fixed on the vermillions, bronzes and sun-bright yellows of the chrysanthemums planted artfully around the L&S TechWare flagpole, imagining how the fall foliage in the Ozarks might look at its height. He cursed under his breath, wondering how long it would take before he could focus totally on the here and now. Here was California and his work. Now was not then and certainly not the tomorrows he couldn’t bring himself to contemplate.

  He turned around to face his desk, where a computer monitor demanded his attention. He stood for a moment, massaging the back of his neck, ropy with tension. He’d snapped at his secretary this morning, alienated a longtime client and fouled up a set of important computations. And it wasn’t even ten o’clock.

  He slumped into his leather desk chair and started through the letters requiring his signature. Carl and others in the front office had been great about bringing him up to date after such a long absence. He wished he could care about the new projects they’d shepherded since he’d been gone. He threw his pen down in disgust. What the hell was the matter with him? Where was the energy and excitement the company had engendered in the past?