Read Online Vanni: A Prequel (Groupie Book 4) by Ginger Voight - Free Book Online
Authors: Ginger Voight
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face. There’s no one there to pick up the pieces anymore, either.
I grab my jacket and my keys, but leave my phone. It, like the house phone, has been ringing non-stop, but I can’t face any of it. I’ll have to think about things like funerals and work and life soon, but I’m not ready. Instead I head down to the liquor store down the street and around the block. Three hundred and fifty-two steps. I know, because I count each one. Since I can’t even stomach the thought of food, I decide to pour vast amounts of whiskey on the hurt. I buy at least two bottles.
Both Mama and Aunt Susan had an aversion to hard liquor. We usually always had wine in the house, or maybe some rum or liqueurs for baking. (Aunt Susan’s rum balls were the envy of the entire neighborhood this time of year.) But they drew the line when it came to anything else, and I knew this had everything to do with my dad. My old man would win very few prizes, but drunk of the year was right at the top of that list.
The lucky sonofabitch. He got to miss all the heartache and the struggle just by crawling into a bottle. Suddenly that’s all I want to do, too.
When I get back home, Mrs. D’onofrio waits for me on the stoop. She has yet another casserole dish, but just seeing that white dish with blue flowers makes me want to puke. Nothing will ever be as good again as Aunt Susan’s cooking. This realization chases away any appetite.
I want my Christmas breakfast. I want my cranberry streusel cake.
I want my aunt back.
Mrs. D’onofrio offers to come inside to help me take care of things. It’s all I can do to refuse. She tells me that I shouldn’t eat alone, that food is meant to be shared. I stop short of asking her if she plans to come over every meal for the rest of her life, because eating alone is no longer an option for me. Finally she gets the hint and leaves, but only after I take her casserole.
Italian women , I think to myself with a half-smile. They’ll never let you go hungry, no matter what’s going on. Sick? Here’s a bowl of minestrone. Funeral? Here’s some ziti. Zombie apocalypse? Here. Have a cannoli.
I take the dish into the kitchen, which I realize has been cleaned by all the mourners who had stopped by the day before. I am a part of their community, so I know they won’t leave me hanging, any more than Aunt Susan would have left any other neighbor hanging in their time of need.
Her good deeds are finally being rewarded, but to the wrong person. I figure I’ll have to craft a “Do Not Disturb” sign for the window if I want any real privacy.
I shove the dish into the overfilled refrigerator before grabbing a tumbler from the cupboard, along with a pad of paper and a pencil from the drawer next to the fridge.
It still has her half-crafted grocery list on top. My gut lurches to see her recognizable handwriting. It had never changed, in all the years I had known her. Where mine was barely readable, her beautiful cursive had graceful lines and loops, picture perfect like it was lifted from all those grade school wall decorations to teach proper handwriting.
If my aunt did it, she made sure it was done right. Likewise I take care as I write my door sign in big bold letters. “IN MOURNING. PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB.”
I place it in the window just to the side of the door, next to the doorbell. I know if I hear this sound, I will shatter into a gazillion pieces.
Only the silence, and my lonely little cocoon, holds me together.
The lights from the Christmas tree still twinkle as I sink to the floor next to it. I could turn on the television for some noise, but I don’t think I could make it through some schmaltzy holiday cheer-fest surely playing nonstop all Christmas Day.
Instead I fill the glass. It burns going down but somehow that feels right. It gives me something else to think about than the dead weight in my chest. I fill the glass again. It burns going down again. But my brain mercifully starts to cloud as I
I grab my jacket and my keys, but leave my phone. It, like the house phone, has been ringing non-stop, but I can’t face any of it. I’ll have to think about things like funerals and work and life soon, but I’m not ready. Instead I head down to the liquor store down the street and around the block. Three hundred and fifty-two steps. I know, because I count each one. Since I can’t even stomach the thought of food, I decide to pour vast amounts of whiskey on the hurt. I buy at least two bottles.
Both Mama and Aunt Susan had an aversion to hard liquor. We usually always had wine in the house, or maybe some rum or liqueurs for baking. (Aunt Susan’s rum balls were the envy of the entire neighborhood this time of year.) But they drew the line when it came to anything else, and I knew this had everything to do with my dad. My old man would win very few prizes, but drunk of the year was right at the top of that list.
The lucky sonofabitch. He got to miss all the heartache and the struggle just by crawling into a bottle. Suddenly that’s all I want to do, too.
When I get back home, Mrs. D’onofrio waits for me on the stoop. She has yet another casserole dish, but just seeing that white dish with blue flowers makes me want to puke. Nothing will ever be as good again as Aunt Susan’s cooking. This realization chases away any appetite.
I want my Christmas breakfast. I want my cranberry streusel cake.
I want my aunt back.
Mrs. D’onofrio offers to come inside to help me take care of things. It’s all I can do to refuse. She tells me that I shouldn’t eat alone, that food is meant to be shared. I stop short of asking her if she plans to come over every meal for the rest of her life, because eating alone is no longer an option for me. Finally she gets the hint and leaves, but only after I take her casserole.
Italian women , I think to myself with a half-smile. They’ll never let you go hungry, no matter what’s going on. Sick? Here’s a bowl of minestrone. Funeral? Here’s some ziti. Zombie apocalypse? Here. Have a cannoli.
I take the dish into the kitchen, which I realize has been cleaned by all the mourners who had stopped by the day before. I am a part of their community, so I know they won’t leave me hanging, any more than Aunt Susan would have left any other neighbor hanging in their time of need.
Her good deeds are finally being rewarded, but to the wrong person. I figure I’ll have to craft a “Do Not Disturb” sign for the window if I want any real privacy.
I shove the dish into the overfilled refrigerator before grabbing a tumbler from the cupboard, along with a pad of paper and a pencil from the drawer next to the fridge.
It still has her half-crafted grocery list on top. My gut lurches to see her recognizable handwriting. It had never changed, in all the years I had known her. Where mine was barely readable, her beautiful cursive had graceful lines and loops, picture perfect like it was lifted from all those grade school wall decorations to teach proper handwriting.
If my aunt did it, she made sure it was done right. Likewise I take care as I write my door sign in big bold letters. “IN MOURNING. PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB.”
I place it in the window just to the side of the door, next to the doorbell. I know if I hear this sound, I will shatter into a gazillion pieces.
Only the silence, and my lonely little cocoon, holds me together.
The lights from the Christmas tree still twinkle as I sink to the floor next to it. I could turn on the television for some noise, but I don’t think I could make it through some schmaltzy holiday cheer-fest surely playing nonstop all Christmas Day.
Instead I fill the glass. It burns going down but somehow that feels right. It gives me something else to think about than the dead weight in my chest. I fill the glass again. It burns going down again. But my brain mercifully starts to cloud as I
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