Free Wings of Glass by Gina Holmes Page A

mind.
    He wiped his forearm across his mouth. “You don’t have a pair of lips for your loving husband?”
    I exhaled. Happy drunk today. Thank you, Jesus. “Hi, baby.” With my hands full of cans, I leaned down. Holding my breath, I kissed his scruffy cheek. He’d had so much to drink he was actually sweating alcohol. I wanted to fuss at him and tell him every six-pack he slammed down was a pack of diapers we could have bought. But he was happy, and so I was going to pretend to be happy too. Nothing mattered now except you, Manny. Over the following months it would be a constant battle to remember that around your father.
    “I’m so hungry I could eat the butt end of a hobby horse,” he said, making the whole sentence sound like one long word.
    I took the cans and bottle to the kitchen and let them clank down into an already-full trash can. I knew Trent couldn’t see, but the garbage can was right outside the back door. Surely if he could feel his way to the fridge to get a beer, he could find his way out there to empty the trash. How badly I wanted to say his loss of vision was not an excuse to lie around the house and do nothing. Why was it when he had worked I was expected to have the house clean anddinner made, but now that the shoe was on the other foot, he couldn’t even be bothered to pick up his own filth?
    “What are we having?” He pointed the remote at the TV, let out another belch, and kicked his feet onto the cocktail table.
    You don’t know how much I wanted to leave right then. Let him worry about his own stinking dinner and deal with the cockroaches sure to take over the place if I wasn’t there to clean. But what kind of woman would leave her blind husband?
    Rummaging through the cabinets, I eyed the stack of dirty dishes in the sink and called back to him. “What do you feel like?”
    Something slid across my waist and I screamed. I hadn’t heard him come into the kitchen, but there he was, puffing his beer breath onto my neck. Apparently, he was getting around the house on his own pretty good. Just not enough to find his way to the trash can or kitchen sink.
    “Dag, One Cent, why are you hollering? You tryin’ to wake the dead?”
    Stumbling backward, he grabbed onto my shoulder for support. The weight of him almost knocked me over. I hadn’t realized my nausea had subsided until it came back.
    “I was just coming in here to tell you I know what I’m in the mood for.” He leaned in to kiss me, but I turned so he caught my ear. This didn’t deter him one bit. He just started grabbing at me.
    Just coming from the doctor, I was in no mood to be groped. “Baby, leave me be so I can fix you some supper.”
    The familiar crease had found its way between his thick eyebrows, which told me a rant was finding its way to his lips. I backed away.
    “This job of yours has got you so high-and-mighty now you don’t even want your own man. What, are you turning gay now?”
    I sighed and grabbed the washcloth off the faucet. “Come on, don’t start. I love you. I don’t want no one but you.” No one, including you, I thought. “I’m just tired, is all.”
    He slapped the air, maybe intending to hit me, maybe not. He was too drunk and sloppy for me to tell which. “If this job is going to make you too tired to—”
    “It’s not the job making me tired. It’s your baby growing inside of me.”
    “So now it’s my fault?”
    I wet the rag and wrung it, then wiped the counter crumbs into the sink. While he stumbled back into the counter, trying to play it off like he meant to lean there instead of fall, I walked over to the freezer and yanked out a pack of hot dogs. If he wanted something better, let him cook it himself. “I saw a doctor today.”
    “We got a money tree growing out back now?”
    I had gotten good at rolling my eyes, now that he couldn’t see me. I wondered if he would like me asking that same question about his eye doctor’s visits if his job wasn’t picking up the