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I laughed and rested my head against the seat. “Five hundred years ago you’d be sticking leeches on people and doing incantations to rid them of demons.”

“We still do the leech thing,” he said. “I’d be an apothecary. Probably growing my own herbs. And doing the demon thing.”

“I’d be a bar wench,” I mumbled.

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d own the tavern.”

I smiled softly. I didn’t believe it, but I appreciated that he said it.

“It helps to put things in perspective,” I said. “I’m lucky when I think about it.”

He didn’t answer me and we slipped into silence again.

I raised my phone, took the picture, sent it through. And then we just sat there, the freeway humming nearby.

It was weird because technically we should be driving home now, but he didn’t make any move to leave, and I didn’t really want to leave either. It was like our talks in the doorway, the ones that just kept going.

“How have the nightmares been?” I asked, looking at him. “Are you still having them?”

He was quiet for a long beat. “Yes.”

“They’ll get better,” I said.

“Eventually,” he said. “Or so they say.”

I peered back at the billboard.

“My mom drank herself to death.”

I looked over at him. “What?”

“She died of cirrhosis of the liver. She was an alcoholic.”

I blinked at the side of his face. “Chris…” I breathed.

“I have never said those words to anyone outside of therapy. Ever.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “You haven’t told Mike?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I just didn’t,” he said, turning to me. “I’m not ashamed of her. That’s not why. I understand it’s a disease and there were things out of her control. I’m ashamed of myself because I should have known.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. I didn’t.”

I watched him in the silence.

“It didn’t even feel like she drank a lot,” he said. “She’d have a mimosa at breakfast. A cocktail with lunch, two or three glasses of wine with dinner—I mean, she was retired. She was with her friends, she was just enjoying life.”

“Is that all it takes?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah. Five drinks a day for five years, that’s all it takes. Especially for women. I had never, in my entire life, seen her drunk or even buzzed. I mean, now that I look back, it’s probably because her tolerance was so high. She always liked her wine, but it was never an issue. She was a hospitalist, an incredibly functional person.”

His eyes were sad. “Why didn’t I see it? I should have known. I’m a pharmacist. I know about addiction, know what dependency looks like.”