Whiskey Fires....Updated Draft

Winny dropped the unopened letter down on the coffee table and walked into the kitchen. She opened the cupboard above the stove and took down the fifth of Jack Daniel’s she kept tucked away behind the bag of sugar. She grabbed a shot glass from the collection that lined the back of the stove. The tall skinny one was her favorite. She had found it while browsing through the local Goodwill store. The wolf etched into the side of it looked very much like the one she had tattooed on her left shoulder and she had had to buy it.

The smell of stout whiskey drifted up to her nose as she opened the bottle and poured the first shot. She hesitated, staring at the tiny glass in her hand, almost afraid of the warming relief it would bring. But a glance back at the letter on the table told her she would need to relax and go numb for a while and she downed the shot. Shaking her head she made that slight growl in the back of her throat as the whiskey seared its way down. She didn’t really like the taste but she loved the way it lit a trail down her throat to warm her belly and it’s effects were quick.

She poured another shot, still standing at the kitchen counter not hesitating this time to drink it down. Another shiver and growl. Her eyes went back to the letter again. Maybe she had read the sender’s name wrong. But it had been addressed to Winifred. There was only one person in the world who had ever called her that. She abandoned the shot glass on the counter, grabbed the bottle of Jack and plopped down on the couch. Without inching any closer to the letter she tried to read the words written on it. She couldn’t quite make them out but she was afraid that if she leaned any closer she would actually see what she was dreading was there.

She sat herself cross-legged and nestled the bottle between her legs. Her cigarettes were on the coffee table but if she wanted one she would have to lean closer to the letter. After several seconds of debating, she took a long pull off the bottle, a deep breath and grabbed the letter, her cigarettes and her lighter. She dropped the letter next to her on the couch, careful not to look at it and lit a cigarette. She tossed the lighter back onto the table, took a deep draw off her Camel and picked up the letter. She looked it over carefully and her stomach turned. She knew the handwriting instantly.

“Grandma”, she whispered. She hadn’t spoken to her Grandma in twelve years, since the night Winny had told her Grandma and her mom and dad that she was pregnant. She had been 16 and her Grandma considered it an unforgivable mistake. She had stormed out of Winny’s parent’s home, vowing that she no longer had a granddaughter, much less a bastard great-grandchild. Her parents had agreed to her keeping the baby but made their daughter promise to finish high school and Winny had kept that promise. She had delivered Ian, 9lbs. 6.4ozs, halfway through her senior year but with the help of her parents, still managed to graduate with a 3.0 average.

Edna, as she had come to call her Grandma, never came to see Ian and would not come to her parent’s house if Winny or Ian were there. A year after Ian was born Winny’s parents were killed when their house caught fire. She still felt like if she would have been there it somehow wouldn’t have happened.

After her parents death Winny tried to reconcile with her grandma but it was no use. She would not answer the door when Winny would come by and would not answer or return Winny’s calls. Ian’s father, Danny, wanted nothing to do with either one of them. He never came to see Ian and made it perfectly clear that he did not want to be a dad. Her parents had left everything to Winny and she had received a sizable amount of life insurance, so she grabbed what little she had, packed it and her Ian into her 1990 Celica and drove away without ever looking back.

Winny noticed that her hand holding the letter was shaking and there were tear stains on the envelope. She was crying. She set the letter in her lap and took another long drink from the bottle. She crushed out the cigarette that had burned to nothing and lit another. She picked the letter back up laying it against her leg. As she looked down at it her hair fell across the cigarette dangling from her lips, sending the smell of smoldering hair into the air. She hardly noticed, swept her red hair back over her shoulder and opened the letter.

It was not a long letter. Not even a full page.

Winifred,

I am not apologizing for anything. You need to know that first. But I have no one else to ask for help. You should know that your Grandfather passed away two years ago. I am sure you do not care since you never tried to contact him. Since he passed I have been trying to run Whiskey Fires alone but I have been unable to maintain it financially and it is starting to fall apart. I have been told that if I do not come up with a very large sum of money soon I will lose Whiskey Fires, my home and everything else I have. I have no idea if you are willing to help me and it is not an easy thing for me to ask, but as I said before I have no one else. Please let me know via mail if you will be able to come and help as soon as you can.

Mrs. Edna Pascal

Winny set the letter down slowly and carefully on the coffee table in front of her. She tried to take a deep breath but her lungs rebelled allowing only shallow, quick intakes. Tears fell violently down her face and her body began to shake with her sobbing. Her grandpa had died? Two years ago? She had wondered why his letters had stopped so abruptly but she figured her grandma had found out that he had been writing to her and Ian and put a stop to it.

He had contacted her 6 months after she had left Buckeye. He had been her only link to her hometown, not that he knew much about anyone at his age. But his love had always been there for her and Ian. Thinking about him made her wish she had gone back to see him at least once in the years she had been away but it was too late now. He was gone and she would never get to tell him how much his love had meant to her. How it had been his love and his letters that had made her life bearable those first years on her own. She would cuddle up on the couch with Ian, rocking him to sleep and reading his great-grandpa's letters to him. It was a tradition that the two of them had continued up until the letters had stopped coming.

She lifted he bottle again, sniffling, wiping the tears away with her sleeve and took another long drink. She put out her second cigarette that had also wasted away, unfolded herself from the couch and walked over to the bookshelf where she still kept her grandpa's letters. They were in a huge box on the bottom shelf. Ten years worth of love lay in that box. She sat down on the floor, setting the bottle carefully down and started to pull the letters out one by one, opening them and running her hands over the scratchy handwriting that was distinctly his. She took another drink, closing her eyes as the burn of the whiskey hit her throat and the pain of her grandpa's death hit her heart. "Grandpa", she cried.

Winny awoke curled up on the floor, letters spread all around her and the empty bottle on it's side. Her head argued against being lifted off the floor as she sat up.

"Its her isn't it?" Winny jumped at the sound of Ian's voice. She looked over at him sitting on the couch holding the letter, his eyes full of anger.

She swung her legs around to face him, her head throbbing in protest to the movement. "Yes its her," she moaned.

Ian threw the letter down and jumped to his feet. "We're not going! I don't want to see her!"

Winny sighed. She had hoped to have time to think the whole thing through before telling him and when her head wasn't splitting open. She looked up her son and smiled inwardly. He may look like his father but that temper was all her. "Ian," she held a hand out for him to help her up, "I don't know what I am going to do."

"Great-grandpas dead! She didn't even tell us." His eyes began to fill with tears for the old man he had never met.

"I know. I read the letter." She sat down on the couch and patted the spot next to her. He was defiant though and stayed standing.

"Mom you're not really thinking of helping her? She hates you! And me!"

She looked up at her son. "If you want to be treated like an adult you are going to have to start acting like one. Now sit down so we can talk about this."

He sat down on the opposite end of the couch. "Mom please. I don't wanna go."

She looked over at her son and scooted the short distance between them. His shaggy brown hair was always falling down into his eyes. She moved it away with her hand so she could see them. "I don't wand to go either but she doesn't have anyone else. We are it. No other family. Do you understand that? She is an old woman who is completely alone." She grabbed a cigarette off the table and lit it.

"No smoking in the house mom. You promised." Winny rolled her eyes.

"Um do ya think you could give me a break here," she reached behind her head and opened the window. "I'm a little stressed."

Ian half smiled at her. "So what are ya gonna do?" His eyes studied his hands as they fiddled with the latest tear in his Levis.

"I have to go," she sighed and watched as her son's shoulders sank in disappointment. "Your great-grandpa would've expected me to go."

"That means I have to go, right?"

"I'll try and call her today and see what I can find out. Maybe she just needs money and then we can be done with it."

"You have her phone number," Ian asked surprised.

"No but I can hope she is listed. Unless you want to drive all the way there just to find out we didn't need to."

He shook his head quickly. "I don't want to go at all."

"I know baby. I'll see what I can find out OK. Now go get your mom some Advil and leave out the lecture on drinking OK."

Ian stood and tugged a piece of her hair. "That's what ya get." On his way to the bathroom he stopped at the pile of letters scattered over the floor. "I sure wish he was gonna be there if we go," he said carefully picking up the letters.

"Me too."