Walking on Broken Glass Read Online Free Page B

no idea which cleaners I used. What would he do with this shirt for a month?
     
    “I don’t know, really. I mean, of course I was going to talk to you. I guess I just didn’t think—”
     
    “Exactly. Once again, you just didn’t think,” he said, as if relieved I finally provided the answer he expected. “How many times do we need to have this conversation?”
     
    And there it was.
     
    The hill I was willing to die on for the compromise I wasn’t willing to make.
     
    I finished the beer, clasped my hands around my knees, and pulled my legs against my chest. I held on tightly. My heart flopped like the fish dad would pull off his line and toss on the pier. A few more beers and the words could ride out on the river of my waning inhibitions. But so could my conviction.
     
    Deep breath. “I’m doing this. I have to or I won’t get sober or stay sober. You may not understand right now, but it's what I need to do. I’m admitting myself on the fourth.” Exhale.
     
    I found the hill. Carl found the dam, and it exploded like a grenade filled with ball bearings. He shot up with such force I almost tumbled off the sofa.
     
    “The fourth? You’re going in on the fourth? Are you crazy? Did you forget about the weekend? Your dad's coming in. We’re all supposed to meet my parents at the lake house.” Angry desperation brewed a toxic combination.
     
    “They’ll understand. It’ll work out. I don’t know. Go without me.” I pitched solutions, but the batter left the plate. “Isn’t my sobriety more important than going to the lake?”
     
    “Oh, right, I forgot. This is all about you. Your alcoholism,” which he pronounced more like “al-co-hall-izim.” He paced in front of the sofa. I tried to move past him. This would all go down so much easier with another beer. Or a glass of wine. He stopped in front of me, almost mashing my toes with his deck shoes. “Well, if you’re a real alcoholic, then where are you stashing it? That's what real alcoholics do, right? Hide bottles?”
     
    He scissored through the house from the family room to the kitchen to the study in an Academy Award performance. I followed him in the newly created Unsupporting Actress category.
     
    Things were tossed, nudged, lifted. Merry Maids were going to be anything but when they arrived next week.
     
    “Carl, I promise I don’t hide bottles anywhere. I’m not that kind of alcoholic. I mostly drink Miller Lite,” I said, though I’d left out “or anything else.”
     
    He shoved the bottom drawer of his desk closed. The handle clanged against the wood like metal teeth chattering in the cold. He paused on his way out of the study. Just a few paces behind him, I stopped and waited. But he didn’t even turn around when he said, “Don’t say another thing unless it's to tell me you give up this lunatic notion of yours.” Each word from his mouth was a bullet intended to kill my determination.
     
    I didn’t want to provide the ammunition, but I fueled his search with the news I wouldn’t abandon my “crazy idea” of going into rehab.
     
    He pushed the guest room door open. The room had been the nursery. I begged him to stop. But he reached into the belly of the closet, shoved the pink gingham diaper bag he found into my chest, and dared me to unzip it.
     
    “Why didn’t you fill this with alcohol? Not like it’ll ever be filled with anything else again.” His voice throbbed with anger.
     
    The closet floor and its contents drifted in a swelling carpeted sea. Tidal waves of the closet's barren dampness, Carl's exploding accusations, and the lingering scent of baby powder sweetness crashed over me. I rode them out until the floor finally settled itself underneath me.
     
    “How dare you! How dare you!” I summoned a voice from places in my soul I’d buried a lifetime ago. My arms cradled the pink bag. I fell to my knees. I wanted to suffocate myself in the quilted softness. Its emptiness screamed of what was, what