— he bellowed, his voice like a thunderclap.
Eleanor recoiled, her back hitting the wall. The man grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers digging into her skin with bruising force.
— “If you touched him, you old drunk,” he hissed, shoving her back, “I’ll make sure you never see the sun again. I’ll bury you.”
— “Dad, stop! Don’t hurt her!” Paulie screamed, running out from behind the table. “She’s nice! She saved me!”
Andrew Miller spun around, saw his son, and dropped to his knees. He pulled the boy into a fierce hug, checking his arms, his legs, his face.
— “Are you okay?” he asked hoarsely. “Did she hurt you?”
— “No, Dad,” Paulie sobbed. “She fed me. She let me sleep in her bed.”
One of the deputies cleared his throat and stepped forward.
— “Ma’am, I need to see some ID,” he said, reaching out a hand.
Eleanor nodded numbly and walked to the dresser. Her hands were shaking so badly she nearly dropped her wallet. She handed her driver’s license to the deputy, but Andrew snatched it out of his hand. He stared at the name on the card. His face went pale, the blood draining away instantly.
— “Eleanor P. Miller,” he read aloud, his voice barely a whisper.
He looked up. He looked at her—grey-haired, stooped, wearing a cheap cardigan. He looked, and something in his expression shifted. Confusion. Recognition. Horror.
Eleanor took a step forward, her lips trembling.
— “Andy?” she whispered, her voice so faint it was almost lost to the wind.
Andrew recoiled as if he’d been struck. The license slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.
— “You?” he gasped. “You’re alive?”
Eleanor nodded, tears finally spilling over.
— “I thought you died in some gutter years ago,” Andrew said, his voice dripping with a hatred so thick it felt heavy. “I thought you were long gone.”
He stepped closer, his eyes boring into hers. Then he saw the scar. A thin, faded line above her left eyebrow. The scar he remembered from when he was seven. When she had fallen on the porch steps while drunk and split her head open.
— “It is you,” he whispered. “It’s really you.”
Eleanor covered her face with her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.
— “I’m so sorry, Andy,” she choked out. “I’m so sorry!”
Thirty years ago, Eleanor Miller had been a different woman. She was young, with long dark hair she kept in a neat bun. She had a quiet beauty and worked as a nurse at the county hospital. She’d come home tired, but happy, because Mike and little Andy were waiting for her.
Mike would meet her at the door with a kiss. Andy, a seven-year-old with messy hair and scraped knees, would tackle her legs, yelling, “Mom’s home!” They’d eat dinner at an old wooden table that creaked. Eleanor remembered the smell of those nights: pot roast, fresh bread, and Mike’s aftershave. She remembered Mike reading to Andy while she sat nearby, thinking she was the luckiest woman alive.
Then the world ended. Mike was hauling a load through a mountain pass. Black ice, a jackknife, a steep drop. They found him two days later. Eleanor stood at the funeral and didn’t cry. She just stared at the casket, unable to comprehend how to keep breathing.
She took her first drink at the wake. Then another. Then a bottle. The bourbon burned, but it numbed the edges. Eleanor drank to forget. She drank so she wouldn’t have to feel. Andy would watch her with big, terrified eyes.
— “Mom, please don’t,” he’d whisper, tugging at her sleeve. “I’ll do the dishes. I’ll be good. Just stop.”
But she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the addiction. The “friends” showed up soon after—the kind who only want to drink. Parties until dawn, strange men in the house. She forgot to feed him. She forgot to take him to school. He’d stand by the window, waiting for her to sober up, crying quietly.
The neighbors finally called Social Services. Women in suits came, looked at the empty fridge, the filth, the broken bottles.
— “You aren’t fit to raise a child,” they said, their voices cold as stone.
Eleanor tried to argue, but the words wouldn’t form. She stood on the porch, swaying, watching them lead Andy away. The boy was screaming, reaching for her.
— “Mom! Mom, don’t let them take me!”
Fifteen years. Fifteen years passed between the day they took Andy and the day Eleanor woke up in a hospital bed after a bender and realized she was at the end of the line.
The years after losing her son were a blur of misery. She drank because sobriety was a mirror she couldn’t bear to look into. she hit rock bottom and stayed there. She lived in shelters, halfway houses, and sometimes on the street. She worked odd jobs—cleaning motels, scrubbing floors—spending every cent on the bottle.
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