Filthy Money by Lissa Brown

Author:Lissa Brown [Brown, Lissa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Regal Crest Enterprises
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

TRISH STOPPED IN her tracks when she got home after a late shift and spied an empty bottle of Four Roses on the kitchen table. Gabby dozed in a chair in front of the TV.

“Wake up. Have you been drinking this?” Trish held the nearly empty bottle. “Last time I saw it, it was half full. You drank all that?”

“I’ll replace it. Don’t get hysterical.”

Trish turned off the TV.

“I think you’re missing my point,” she said through clenched teeth. “You rarely drank the whole time I’ve known you, and now you polished off half a bottle of whiskey? What gives? You becoming a boozer?”

“Plenty of people drink that much in a night. You should know from your parents.”

“We’re not talking about my parents, but since you brought them up, if they hadn’t thrown me out, I’d have moved out because of their drinking. Maybe I have to remind you how much I hate it.”

Trish hadn’t given much weight to Gabby telling her she’d been a party girl in Puerto Rico. When she said she drank rum and Coke the way people in New Jersey drank plain Cokes, Trish assumed that was a Puerto Rican tradition.

Trish remembered how drunk Gabby had gotten in Gloversville after a couple of glasses of wine and wondered. She took the bottle into the kitchen and poured the rest of the whiskey down the drain. Then she climbed on the stepladder and stretched to reach the shelf above the refrigerator. She couldn’t see the shelf, but slid her hand across the surface searching for the other bottle of whiskey.

“It’s not there,” Gabby said from the doorway behind Trish.

Trish twisted around to see Gabby’s tear-stained face.

“Where is it?”

“Where do you think?” she sobbed. “I think I need to see somebody about my nerves, babe.” She held up her glass filled with ice and a trace of whiskey. “This is the only thing that helps me relax lately.”

“You mean like a psychiatrist?”

Gabby snapped, “I’m not nuts, just nervous. It’s all this money and worrying about your safety and the cops…”

Trish walked over and took the glass out of her hand. She wrapped her arms around Gabby and they cried together.

“I know you’re not nuts, but this could be a sickness. How long has it been going on?”

Trish kicked herself for not questioning why Gabby began binging on mints, and for accepting her explanation that she used them to settle a sour stomach.

“Not long…a couple of weeks…but it’s not the first time.”

“What do you mean?” Trish let go and said, “Let’s talk. No yelling. No accusing. I want you to tell me everything.”

For half an hour, Gabby talked while Trish listened. By the end of the conversation, Trish knew two things: Gabby had a serious drinking problem when she was fifteen; and she stayed sober long enough to know she had the strength to do it again.

They hugged and cried several more times that night before Trish extracted a promise from Gabby to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.