"Coffee!" Journey shouts as she bursts into the shop. Now I know why she has been gone for so long.
"What happened to the shelves?" she asks, watching Brett fix my apparent mess.
"Me. I happened," I tell Journey.
"All you had to do was sit here and look pretty, Mel," Journey says, walking over and stroking the side of my face as she places the recycled cup holder down on the counter.
I jerk my face away. "Funny."
"I try," she says. "Okay, if you don’t want to just be pretty, can you grab a bottle of Quinn Apple Red, Quinn Original 2014, Quinn Peak 2011, and Quinn Pine 2012? We’ll need those for the tasting."
I head into the back room looking for the inventory boxes, finding all of them quickly. I shuttle them out to the front and place them down on the counter.
"The sample glasses are in the sliding cabinet beneath the register," Brett says.
I know Dad has always done tastings in the far-left corner of the shop, so I bring everything down to the small empty mahogany bar table and begin setting up the displays. I catch Brett peeking over at me as I do so, and I wonder what’s going through his mind, and if he’s assuming I’m screwing something else up.
"I’ll be right back, I need to get more receipt paper.” Journey disappears into the back room.
"I remember you, Melody," Brett says without turning his head away from the shelves he’s organizing.
"Yeah, from all the way back to yesterday. Good memory," I jab.
"No, I remember you from when we were kids, all the shop holiday parties, and the last holiday party we were both at all those years ago."
My heart flutters in my chest as I glance over at Brett. "You do?"
"Yeah, didn’t you try bourbon for the first time?" His question accompaniesa silent laugh and a nod of his head.
8
It seemslike a slow morning with very few people walking through the front door. My samples have been sitting out, and I’ve been waiting to offer my best fake smile, but so far, no luck. The only thing I can focus on is the resentment I have against Brett for either poking fun at me or dismissing the memory I have held onto for way too long.
The backdoor swings open, and Journey hustles toward me, faster than I normally see her move. "We have to go," she says.
"What’s going on?" Brett asks. Concern fills his eyes, and his chest is moving up and down heavily.
"Dad collapsed. Mom just called. The ambulance took him to the hospital."
Shock quickly takes over my body. I’ve been down this road before, the news shouldn’t affect me, but it keeps coming in fresh waves of pain. Brett’s hand reaches for my shoulder. His touch pulls me out of my cold stare toward the back of the shop. "Why don’t you get going? I have everything under control here," he explains calmly.
I remove the waist-line apron I tied on for the tasting and place it behind the bar table. Journey hands me my coat, and I follow her in a daze as we rush out through the back. "Is this it?" I ask her, knowing she has no more of an answer than I do.
She doesn’t respond. Journey is focusing on the road, but her skin is pale, and her eyes are red.
I count the stoplights. It’s the only thing I can focus on besides the pain running through my body. I know there are five stoplights before we arrive at the hospital. I’ve counted them before, sometimes wishing there were a dozen more to drag out the time between knowing the truth and not knowing the inevitable.
There’s a spot up front near the emergency entrance. The parking lot is usually full, but not today.
I spot Mom’s car a few spots down. Our house is closer to the hospital than the shop. She must have followed the ambulance. We run inside, and though I’ve been here many times before, I feel lost not knowing what room Dad’s in, but Journey thinks quicker in emergencies. She’s already at the administration desk asking where we can find him.
The mixed scents of ammonia and bleach hurt my stomach—it’s the combination of the two smells that scream hospital. People are staring at us from chairs lined in the open area of the lobby, and I wonder how many panicked people run through this sliding door on a daily basis. Do we all look the same? Frenzied, panicked, and heartbroken.
Journey books it for the elevators, and I follow. My heart is pounding against the inside of my chest, making me feel like I’m skipping breaths as I move through the long hallway.
The elevator doors open almost right away, welcoming us with an array of digital advertisements displayed above the buttons on both sides of the doors.
Journey hits the number three, and we wait, both watching the advertisement for flu shots and happy children running around outside through green grass, all of them with large smiles stretched across their faces. The grass isn’t usually green when people get the flu here. It’s the only thought I can conjure.
