‘Where is it?’ Jarrod demanded as he walked into the living room. He tossed aside the cushions of the couch, pulled out the end table drawers. ‘Where is it?’ He moved into the kitchen, checking underneath the sink and in the cabinets. Then on to the bathroom.
‘What are you talking about?’ Faith asked, jumping off the couch.
‘You don’t get it, do you? You really don’t. You are watched wherever you go. There’s a camera watching you wherever you go. It’s gonna be all over the news! Where’s the bottle?’
She backed into the sliding glass doors. ‘I don’t have anything.’
‘You left her in the park by herself to buy yourself a bottle of booze. Now where is it?’
‘I didn’t drink it, Jarrod. I didn’t. I bought it, that’s right, but I didn’t drink it.’ She ran up, grabbed his face and breathed in it, then she kissed him hard on the lips. ‘See? I didn’t drink it! I swear! You’d taste it!’
He backed away, his fingers to his lips. ‘I can’t do this any more. I can’t babysit you. You left her again. She’s five years old!’
‘But I didn’t drink it! I swear!’
‘Don’t swear. You’re not very good at that.’ He ran upstairs. She heard him in the closet, rummaging around. Then he moved across the hall to Maggie’s room.
‘Don’t fight, Daddy,’ said Maggie from somewhere upstairs.
Faith paced the floors downstairs like a frantic tiger, trying to figure out what to do. Everything was happening so fast – there was no time to think. She heard him on the stairs again and looked up. He was carrying a large duffle bag in his hand and Maggie in his arms.
‘No! No! Please!’ she begged, running over. ‘I didn’t drink it! I’m sorry!’
‘Not in front of Maggie. Not any more. Please, Faith,’ he said as he walked past her and out through the laundry room to the garage.
He walked out the garage door and put Maggie in the car seat while Faith watched from the laundry room door, holding onto the frame for support, trying to think what to do. She could hear Maggie crying. It felt like someone was sticking a knife in her heart.
‘Please, Jarrod! Please!’ she pleaded. ‘I’ll be good! I won’t drink! I won’t!’
‘I’ll be right back, sweetie,’ Jarrod said calmly to Maggie, handing her the Kindle Fire. ‘I’m gonna go talk to Mommy for a minute. Watch your movie with your headphones.’ He closed the car door and came over to where she stood in the doorframe.
‘Please …’
‘When you’re ready to get sober, we’ll be back. I’m sorry, I really am.’
‘Jarrod, no!’
‘You left her alone in the park,’ he said flatly. ‘I can’t babysit you – you’re a grown woman who makes her own decisions. Maggie is five – she doesn’t have that luxury and I have to protect her from people who keep making bad choices. I love you, Faith, I do. I’ll leave you with that. I don’t know if you believe it any more, or if you’ll ever believe it again. I do know I can’t make you believe it, and it doesn’t matter anyway. You’re gonna do what you want to do. I can’t watch though. I can’t watch you destroy yourself.’ Then he turned and got into the driver’s side of his Infinity.
‘But I didn’t drink it!’ she screamed. She raced up the stairs two at a time, stumbling on the last step, and scraping her chin on the carpet. In the master bedroom she frantically felt underneath the box spring and pulled the unopened bottle of Absolut from the hole she’d burrowed in it. She raced back down the stairs and pushed open the laundry room door with the bottle in her hand to show him, running out onto the front lawn as the garage door was closing, but he was already long gone.