DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

That was the only thing she could think of. Why else would he be acting like that? She tried to imagine Mr. Holbrook with Mother Margeaux or with Mother Janine but could not do so without laughing.

“What is it?” Vella asked, stepping up to her.

“He wanted to take a tour of the winery.”

“Why?”

Penelope shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to meet my mom.”

She and Vella both laughed as they headed toward fourth period.

27

Mel Scott drove home after work instead of going straight to the hospital. It was stupid, he knew, and completely illogical, but he wanted to change before he went to see Barbara. She would not care what he wore, she would not even know, but dressing up for her made him feel as though everything was back the way it was supposed to be, as though Barbara was still alive.

Not that she was dead. She was comatose, had been so for the past nine months, but she was still alive, and the doctor said there was a slim chance she could come out of it one of these times.

Although the possibility of that occurring grew slighter every day.

She had been hit on a Friday afternoon while walking home from work, a drunk driver ignoring a stop sign and not seeing her as she crossed a corner. He’d plowed into her from behind, and she had bounced over the hood before cracking her head on the asphalt, the blood staining one of the white crosswalk lines so badly that it had to be painted over.

She was lucky she hadn’t died.

Ironically, after the trial, after the man had been sentenced to fifteen years without the possibility of parole, Mel had turned to drink himself, and though he made sure he never drove drunk, he had often been intoxicated while visiting his wife in the hospital.

He wondered if she knew that.

Lately, he had switched from whisky to wine, and while this should have been an improvement, should have sharply reduced his intake of alcohol, for some reason he’d also begun drinking more. A lot more. He now found himself drinking wine not only after work and after dinner, but during dinner, for lunch, and, even more recently, for breakfast. He just couldn’t seem to get enough of the stuff.

This morning he’d even poured a dash of it into his pancake batter.

He had thought about that all day. Part of his mind rationalized this latest act, told himself that it was no different than the cooking sherry Julia Child seemed to pour over everything, but another part of him warned that this was not ordinary behavior. This was obsessive behavior, addictive behavior.

But he felt no compunction to stop.

Amazingly enough, none of this had affected his performance at work, although even if it had, he was pretty well insulated from possible repercussions. He had less than a year to go until retirement, and the review and dismissal process would take at least that long—if it even got off the ground, which was a long shot for someone with his seniority and his well-publicized problems.

At home, Mel took a shower, combed his hair, and put on his suit. He drove to the hospital, waved to the doctors and nurses in his wife’s wing, and went into her room.

Her status was unchanged. As always, he felt a second’s flash of disappointment. He’d known she would be unmoving, in exactly the same position on the bed, with exactly the same expression on her face, but part of him always hoped that there would be some response as he opened the door, that she would be sitting up groggily as he entered and ask where she was and what had happened, that she would be waiting for him with open arms.

She was lying prone, however, tubes and sensors in place, machines and oxygen tanks flanking her bed.

He patted his coat pocket. This past week he had taken to bringing a bottle with him to visit Barbara, a flask. He knew it was pathetic, the act of a pitiful, desperate man, but he needed the support. The nurses and doctors had objected when they’d found out, warning him about hospital regulations, but their protestations were perfunctory. They knew how much he cared about Barbara, they could see the toll this was taking on him, and they understood, even if they did not condone.

He was under a lot of pressure.

His hand found the flask and he pulled it out. He made sure no one was in the hallway outside the door and quickly downed the entire contents.

He sat down on his chair next to the bed and closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the wine do its work. When he opened his eyes again, Barbara looked changed. The hospital surroundings and medical paraphernalia now seemed extraneous, fake, and she appeared to him to be merely sleeping.

“Barbara?” he called softly.

She did not answer.

He swallowed back the tears he could feel approaching. She was not merely sleeping. She was in a coma. A deep coma. And she might never come out of it.

“Barbara?” he said again. He touched her cheek, felt warmth there but no life. He looked at the wall, tried to think of what he would have for dinner, tried to think of the assignments he had to complete at work tomorrow, tried to think of anything that would keep the tears at bay.

He wished he’d brought another bottle.

A lone tear escaped from underneath his eyelid and rolled halfway down his craggy cheek before he wiped it away. He sat there, unmoving. A moment later, the mood passed.

Grateful, he held Barbara’s hand and, as always, told her of his day. He described to her the minutiae which made up his life and shared with her the thoughts and feelings he would have shared had she been at home with him and cooking dinner. His mind filled in what would have been her responses, and it was almost like having a real conversation.

He stroked