Don't Give Me Tainted Love novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Wake

"I wasn't drunk."

She said it again, in the hall, with my hand still against her face.

"I had one glass of wine at your father's wake. One. I went upstairs because of a headache, and Bradley found me on the landing."

I did not move.

"He said he had water for me and something for the pain. I took the glass because it was your brother, and I trusted him."

"Melanie."

"I woke up in the guest room. It was almost two. I couldn't move my arms properly. He was getting dressed at the end of the bed."

I heard what she was saying.

I did not hear it all at once.

It came into me in separate pieces, and each piece landed somewhere different.

"His phone was on the dresser, leaning on a book," she said. "The red light was on."

My hand slid down her face and fell.

"He said I'd been happy to come upstairs with him. He said the camera would prove it, and I shouldn't bother telling anyone, because they'd see me smiling." Her voice was steady and terrible. "I couldn't remember anything. I still can't. I remember the glass and the ceiling."

"He drugged you."

"I think so."

"He..." I could not make my mouth finish it.

"Yes," my wife said.

I turned my back on her.

I walked three steps down the hall, and I put my fist against the wall and stood there with my forehead on the plaster.

I had been in the study.

I had been in my father's study drinking my father's whiskey, thirty feet below her, and I had been sorry for myself.

"I went down the back stairs and out through the garden," she said behind me. "I stood under the hose behind the garage. I scrubbed my arms. I couldn't get warm. Then I walked home and you opened the door."

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