It's Never too Late

Because she shouldn’t be drinking alcohol? “Why?”

Backing up to her spot beside the small table that held Kleenex, bottled water, Nonnie’s phone and everything else the woman might need, Nonnie looked Addy straight in the eye.

“Because that boy seen enough whiskey in his life. I ain’t ever, ever going to make him see me with a bottle.”

Addy noticed the woman’s hands were shaking as she gripped the bottle in her lap.

“Mark drinks,” Addy reminded softly, not completely sure Nonnie was bluffing. The woman had missed her calling—she’d have been better suited to the stage.

“Beer only,” Nonnie said. “And never more than two a night—one when he’s driving. And I ain’t talkin’ ’bout him, anyways. I’m talking about the women in his life.”

Women. Was Ella a drinker? Was that why Nonnie hadn’t liked the woman? It wasn’t her place to ask.

“He ever tell you about his mum?”

“Just how she died,” Addy said, remembering. That’s when she realized that Nonnie was being completely sincere. Wishing she could fade through the wall, back to the safety of her house, Addy just stood there. She couldn’t get any more emotionally involved with these two. Helping an old lady on occasion was no different than volunteering with meals-on-wheels like she’d done in Colorado. But this...sharing their lives...

“My daughter didn’t just die drunk, she lived that way, too,” Nonnie said, her voice filled not so much with disgust as with pain. And regret. “My fault. I raised her around the stuff and didn’t see till it was too late that she’d been sneaking sips behind my back. Lots of them. Got to the point she’d do anything for a drink. I thought, after Mark came along, that things’d be different. She loved him more than anyone. Just not as much as she loved the bottle.”

Nonnie paused, breathing hard. Tears pricked at Addy’s eyes and she felt the need to bolt but was physically unable to move.

“I did what I could, but when I saw her drinking around the baby, I told her to git. She could see the boy whenever she wanted, but only if she was sober. The courts tried to take him away from her, away from me, but in the end, I won. She’d come back every now and then, mostly for money. And every time, that boy thought his mom was home to stay. He never quit believing that she’d get sober and they’d be a family—the two of them....”

Addy’s heart cried for that boy. And ached for the wonderful man he’d become.

“I can’t afford the sleeping pills the doc prescribed,” Nonnie said. “He told me that a little nip at night, on the hard nights, wouldn’t hurt if it’d help me sleep. My friend Doris used to buy it for me. I been rationing, but I’m out and...”

Without another word Addy took the empty bottle from Nonnie, and got the hell out of there.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

AFTER CLASS ON MONDAY, instead of waiting for Addy outside her building, Mark left school right away, intending to get a five-hundred-word essay written for his English 101 class. He went to Harmon Hardware and Electronics instead to drop off a toaster he’d fixed and to pick up some solar lights.

He hadn’t seen Addy since Friday. But he’d heard about her. Incessantly. Knew that she’d had pasta salad for dinner Saturday night and eggplant on Sunday. That she had gone shopping in Phoenix and had picked up some chocolates for Nonnie.

She’d been in his thoughts. Far too much.

“Mark, good thing you stopped in.” Hank greeted him with a smile from behind the old-fashioned counter—one that resembled the counter in the drugstore on Main Street in Bierly. “I’ve got a vacuum cleaner I need you to look at if you’ve got time.”

“Sure, Hank, leave it by the door and I’ll take it on my way out.” He made a beeline for the outdoor lighting and found what he was looking for almost immediately. The lights cost a little more than they would have been at the department store out by the highway, but the owners of independent shops needed support. He knew. Jimmy’s dad had owned the drugstore back home.

“How’s your grandmother doing?” Hank asked as Mark brought his lights up to the counter.

A sixtyish woman was perusing the paper towel holders in the center aisle. He’d noticed someone in the paint section, too.

“She’s fine,” Mark answered.

“Some folks have been wondering what she does all day while you’re at school and working. We haven’t seen her out and about.”

“She spends a lot of time on the computer, Hank. She did

at home, too, but people were always stopping by to interrupt her so I didn’t worry about it as much.”

“Well...” Hank paused and the woman he’d seen earlier came forward. “This is Veronica.”

“Hello.” The woman smiled.

“Hello.” Mark shook the hand that she held out.