Chapter 15
“Wait a minute,” Bobby said. “Are you drinking while you talk to me? A man who hasn’t had a beer in weeks. Don’t call me an asshole, you asshole.”
“It’s disturbing you can tell I’m having a beer by the sound of the empty,” John shot back. “Bye, Bobby. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
He ignored Bobby’s protests and ended the call. He stood still for a moment, letting the silence wash over him. The encompassing quiet broken only by the metronome-like tick of the wall clock and the groaning complaint of settling wood in the otherwise too noiseless home.
John carried his empty bottle into the older-style kitchen, remembering when the house had been alive with the unselfconscious clatter of his family. The framed photos lining the hallway the only proof he hadn’t always lived here alone.
Some days it made his bones hurt to look at them. The pain burrowing deep with each faded childhood smile. Images of a life, a family no one wanted to remember but him.