“Why not? It’s true.”
“How about letting me drive you back to the house?”
“Thanks, but I’m staying here until this bottle is empty.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very smart idea.”
“Does to me.”
“Why?” I gave in and eased myself down next to him.
“Because this is where I took Brandi when I proposed to her.”
In the aching silence that followed, I knew my brother had hit rock bottom if he had come back to the place where it all started with Brandi. I closed my eyes and listened, certain I would hear the sound of his heart breaking into pieces.
“Frankie said the two of you spent some time in my office today.”
Eli picked up the Scotch and took another swig. “She wants a divorce. There’s someone else. Has been for quite a while.” He handed me the bottle. “Fabulous stuff. Best in the world.”
His eyes slid over mine and I saw his grief.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I had no idea.”
“You and me both. What an ass I was not to see it coming.” His mocking laugh echoed against the old bricks. “The husband’s always the last to know. You think that’s such a crock, but you’d be surprised how easy self- delusion is.” He nudged me. “You’re not drinking.”
“You know I don’t like Scotch.”
“Am I going to be turned down by two women in one day? Come on, keep me company. Macallan’s liquid gold. The old man had first-class taste in booze. You have any idea how much this bottle costs?”
“Nope.” I tipped my head and drank. It warmed my throat and I coughed, but Eli was right. It did taste like liquid gold, making me think of oranges, spices, and a vague vanilla scent. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as he reached for the bottle.
The Roman philosopher Seneca said that drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness. Tonight my brother was crazy with hurt, betrayal, and anger. It scared me to think what he might do in this self-induced state of reckless grief.
“Do you know who it is?” I asked.
“Someone with money.”
“He won’t have money for long after she gets hold of him,” I said.
His laugh was short and crude sounding as he drank more Scotch.
“You can stay at the house as long as you need to, you know,” I told him.
He set the bottle down and rubbed his face with his hands. “I appreciate that, Luce, but I’ve got to find someplace to live. I can’t keep mooching off you. Taking your charity.”
“It’s not charity. You’re family. You also don’t have to make any decisions right now.”
Especially when he was so drunk his breath was flammable.
“I’m going to lose Hope,” he said.
I knew he meant his daughter, but the desperation in his voice jangled my nerves like he meant something more.
“You’re her father. You’re not going to lose her.”
“How did Leland and Mom stick it out? He had affairs but he always came back to her.”
“They loved each other. I talked to Thelma this afternoon. She told me something.”
He slugged some more Scotch and handed me the bottle. “What?”
I drank, too. “She says Leland wasn’t the one pursuing Annabel Chastain. It was the other way around.”
Eli’s eyes narrowed as he tried to focus on my words. He was already starting to slur his. “So whadda’s that mean?”
“It means Annabel lied.”
“Any way to prove it?”
“Thelma said Mom told her Annabel wrote letters to Leland. Annabel hung on to Leland’s and that was the proof she showed Bobby. But you know Leland. He’d never keep someone else’s love letters as a memento.”
“So we have nada.”
“That’s the way it looks.” The sky had paled to a silvery gray. “When it’s dark out here we’re not going to be able to see a thing.”
“Relax.” He leaned over me and pulled away a brick that I thought was solid in the mortar. “Look what I found.”
A couple of fat, partially burned pillar candles and a box of matches.
“Who put those there?” I asked.
“No idea. Not me. Back in the day Brandi and I used it to keep, uh, other things there.”
“What other things?”
He eyed me. “You weren’t the only one who used the Ruins as a hideout for sex.”
“Oh. Those other things.”
The matches were still good. He lit the candles and set them between us, a soft pool of flickering light in the darkness. Overhead a pale nearly full moon became visible between banks of clouds.
“Looks like we’re going to see a ring around the moon when it gets darker,” I said. “Means rain’s coming.”
“Mom always used to say that.”
“I hope the reenactment isn’t a washout if that hurricane hangs around through the weekend.”
“I talked to Zeke Lee. He said they’ll be there come hell or high water. Literally. Said it’d take a monsoon for them to cancel.”
“You going to join them?”
“I dunno.” He cradled the Scotch like a baby. “Zeke says one of those weekends beats a visit to a shrink. You go back in time so none of your problems happened yet.” He gave a drunken chuckle. “Says it’s better than free therapy. Anything free looks pretty good from the bottle of the hole I’m in. I mean, bottom.”
“Give me that Scotch. Maybe two days of pretend war and shooting at people isn’t such a good thing for you to be doing right now.”
“Anger management. Sounds terrific.” He leered at me and uncorked the bottle again. “Remember when we used to play Civil War here?”
“How could I forget? I always had to be your Union prisoner and you’d stick me in the basement.”
“Scared you, huh?”
“I wasn’t scared.”
“Yeah, you were. Especially the night we told you we saw Mosby’s ghost.”
“I knew you were joking.”
He drank some Scotch and pointed at the moon. “Who says we were? You know he comes out looking for Yankees when there’s a full moon.”
“He comes out on moonless nights and I’m not falling for that again.”
“If you say so. But I feel his presence, moon or no moon. Something’s out there.”
“Cut it out, Eli.”
“You’re spooked. I can tell.” He chuckled again. “Wonder what happened to all my Civil War stuff?”
He lifted the bottle for another drink. This time I reached over and took it from him. “You’ve had enough. What Civil War stuff?”
“All the stuff I found out here. Bullets and buttons. You know, stuff. I even found a Condeferate belt buckle.”
“You don’t say.” He seemed oblivious that he’d mangled his syllables. “What’d you do with all of it?”
“Put it in one of Leland’s old cigar boxes. It’s shumwhere.”
“Maybe we can find it and have those things authenticated. Display them at the winery.”
“Yeah, sure.”
He tried for the Scotch again, but I blocked him with my arm and moved the bottle out of his way.
“Nice try, but it’s time to go home.”
