Read Online Almost Like Being in Love by Beth K. Vogt - Free Book Online Page A

loaded into the dishwasher and unloaded once they were cleaned.
    The kitchen bore evidence that his mother had been up. A couple of wine bottles sat on the kitchen counter—one empty, one half full. A few glasses cluttered the sink, all with a small layer of liquid in the bottom. His father had probably gathered them up from their bedroom. No need to sniff them and find out what his mother had been drinking. It didn’t matter anymore what she drank. White wine today. Red wine tomorrow.
    Some days he could almost convince himself it didn’t matter that she drank at all.
    His mother had left her black cotton robe draped on the back of one of the chairs in the breakfast nook. He could only hope she’d decided to get dressed this morning. Or had slept in a nightgown.
    Alex picked up the empty bottle. Zinfandel. Threw it in the trash. He drained the other bottle in the sink—also zinfandel—the liquid disappearing down the drain with barely a sound. Then he tossed the bottle into the trash with the first, glass colliding with glass with a sharp clink. Alex piled the glasses in the dishwasher. One less thing to deal with later tonight.
    He didn’t even bother checking the sunroom. His mother lived like one of those vampires in a gothic novel, preferring darkness to sunlight. In the past, when she used to somehow juggle her drinking and friendships and the occasional business dinner, she’d managed to maneuver between the foyer, kitchen, and the dining room, never coming near a window.
    Friends. Who was he kidding? The Hollisters were their most loyal friends, the only ones who knew the Madisons’ well-guarded secret. They knew who his mother was. What his mother was. And they accepted that most days she was a functioning alcoholic. And they loved her and Alex and his dad even on the days when his mother struggled and failed.
    The hallway leading to his parents’ master bedroom used to be lined with framed family photos. Of him, the firstborn son. And then Shawn, the baby. Christmas photos. Easter photos. Birthday photos. The beginning-of-school-year photos, Shawn trailing Alex. And then . . . there had been only photos of Alex. He’d bought each of the inexpensive frames for his school photos. Hammered the nails into the wall, making sure the photographs were lined up, level with one another.
    Look, Mom, I’m still here . . .
    But now the walls were bare. He’d arrived home from his first year of high school one day to find every single photo gone. No explanation—just empty space.
    â€œWhere are all the family pictures, Dad?”
    His father tore the plastic wrap off a frozen dinner, placing it on the rotating glass plate in the microwave and punching in the required time. “I don’t know. I just got home.”
    Alex tossed his canvas book bag onto the kitchen table. “Mom had to have taken them down. She was the only one home today. She knows where they are.”
    â€œProbably.”
    Alex continued to talk to his father’s back as he pulled a carton of milk from the fridge. “Aren’t you going to ask her? Put them back up?”
    â€œNo.”
    No? That was it? Just no?
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œObviously seeing the photos upset your mother. Putting them back up will upset her again. Let it be, Alex.”
    And that was the end of that. Let it be. No confrontation. Just manage. Maintain.
    It was as if he fought an invisible force as he made his way to his parents’ bedroom. The carpeting might as well have been thick, clinging mud or quicksand, the way his steps slowed. For all the times he’d gone in search of his mother and never found her . . . hurt . . . there was always the very real possibility that this time . . . this time he’d open the door and find the sum of all his nightmares waiting for him.
    Alex knocked on the half-open bedroom door. Waited. No sound. No slurred