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[gypsy_merrique]

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With all that had been going on in the family, Merrique was absolutely astounded when late at night, Shalcross came stumbling into the house. The stumbling was bad, the smell of alcohol surrounding him a bit worse, but the thing that truly upset Merrique was the casual way he acted when questioned about his condition.

Many different thoughts about how to handle the situation came across her mind. The first was to absolutely beat the daylights out of him. Knowing that would not work for many reasons--the least of which being that he was nearly a foot taller than her--she decided against that as a newer, better idea came to her.

"Come, sit. Have another drink," she said as she went to the pantry and grabbed a bottle of liquor.

"Uhm. Mom. No, really..." the young man responded.

"Oh, no. I insist," replied Merri as she all but slammed the bottle onto the table in front of him.

Without much choice, Shalcross drank the liquor. Merrique sat watching him with a grim sort of humor. When his face began changing colors from red to white to a grayish pallor, Merrique stood and bade her son goodnight.

The anger over his insobriety was waning as she closed the door to her own room. When she heard the footsteps running to the privy, and its door slamming shut a little too hard, she actually laughed.

Oh, how she looked forward to the morning.
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. . . But the dark is very trustworthy.
It's always as dark as you thought it was.
And you don't have to work at staying there.
All you have to do is survive it.
And I've been doing that forever.
from the novel "Dark Debts" by Karen Hall