He closed his eyes.
“Right here.”
“In this garage.”
“On this bucket.”
“With a bottle a lot like this one.”
“Only that one was open.”
“And empty by midnight.”
My knees wanted to give out.
I didn’t let them.
“Jess was high-risk that whole pregnancy,” he said.
“She’d been in the ER twice that month.”
“I was scared out of my mind.”
“I’d been drinking every night since August.”
“Nobody knew.”
“I was good at hiding it.”
“That night, the pager went off four times.”
“I didn’t hear it.”
“I didn’t hear a thing until eight in the morning.”
“That’s when Nate pounded on that door.”
He pointed at the side door.
“He’d come straight from surgery.”
“He hadn’t slept in a day and a half.”
“He looked at me.”
“He looked at the bottles.”
“And he said, ‘I’ll handle it.'”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“I’ll handle it.”
