Free How the Light Gets In by M. J. Hyland Page A

orders champagne and my stomach churns at the sight of it. For the past few days I’ve been craving alcohol. I miss the way it makes me feel: soft, nerveless and edgeless. Most of all I miss how it helps me sleep.
    ‘Let’s toast to Lou. Our newest family member.’
    My glass is empty but I don’t refill it. When we toast, I use both hands to hold on, and drink the air from the glass.
    I look at Henry. ‘Since it’s a special occasion, could we drink some champagne?’
    Henry looks at Margaret and Margaret looks at Bridget.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ says Margaret, ‘but the legal age for the consumption of alcohol is twenty-one.’
    After our fancy dinner we go to the movies in a decayed old movie house in a small country town. Bridget gets to pick the film. We shove our hands into boxes of greasy popcorn and the almost-fluorescent white pieces bounce like tiny erasers from our knees and litter the carpet.
    The movie is boring and it reminds me of Steve and his habit of deliberately disturbing innocent people in cinemas.
    Steve and his best friend, Ryan, find a romantic, feel-good movie and sit next to a woman, preferably an old woman. Then Steve turns to Ryan during the pre-movie advertisements and confesses to a murder or some other violent crime he pretends to have committed only a few hours earlier.
    In a loud voice he’ll say something like, ‘Look, I didn’t mean for the knife to go right through her lungs,’ or, ‘She wasn’t meant to fucking die!’
    Then he waits for the woman to get scared and move seats or leave the cinema.
    Steve has an unnerving and convincing imagination when it comes to making up crimes. I pointed this out to Erin once and she spat in my hair. ‘It’s only fun ,’ she said. ‘But you wouldn’t even know what that is!’
    Bridget is holding her mum’s hand while watching the boring movie and Henry has fallen asleep. After all the popcorn has been eaten, James moves in his seat so that his shoulder touches mine. I move away but he moves closer. His knee presses up against me and then he pretends to scratch so that he can rub his hand on my leg.
    I feel as though I’ve swallowed fast-acting poison. I’m sweating, not just a light prickling sweat, but a pouring sweat from the palms of my hands. I need to leave the movie theatre.
    I make my way over the outstretched legs of Bridget and Henry and Margaret
    ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I whisper.
    I sit in the foyer for about twenty minutes and then decide to find something to drink. A drink will help the panic and maybe help me sleep when we get back to the motel. What I need to do is buy a small bottle of gin and drink some now and some later, but not too much.
    I take my wallet out of my pocket and check for the twenty dollars Margaret gave me.
    I walk a few blocks and find a licensed grocer. The woman behind the counter bothers me. There’s no doubt I look older than I am, but older women are better at knowing the difference between sixteen and twenty-one.
    The shop is dark and there is a group of teenage boys getting ready to shoplift in the back corner.
    ‘Can I have a small bottle of gin, please?’
    The shopkeeper is trying to keep one eye on the shoplifters and one on me. She puts her pen in her mouth and looks me up and down.
    There’s a Guatemalan worry-doll stuck to the cash register with sticky tape – a thick wad of tape wrapped round the head and feet – a sad, desperate and superstitious presence in this bleak, grimly-lit place. I decide to speak a little more; perhaps my accent will help convince her that I’m old enough.
    I say, ‘If you don’t have any gin I’ll have that vodka instead.’
    ‘We have gin,’ she says with tired resignation, putting her pen down on the counter. ‘The big bottle is on special if you want that.’
    I realise that this is a gift horse.
    ‘How much is off the usual price?’ I ask.
    ‘Two dollar twenty,’ she says. I am surprised she hasn’t asked me what part of England