Page 40 of The Golden Hour

“Number one thing I learned when I got sober was that fulfilled and satisfied aren’t always the same thing. Your wife fulfilled you.” Rob meets his eyes with a significant look. “But this place satisfied the part of you that needed a hit.”

Mason feels like he has just been sucker punched, having to reach a hand out to the cool locker just so he does not fall over. His father walks to the bench behind him and sits, dropping his head into his hands.

Mason’s back slides down the locker until he is sitting in front of his father, knees pulled to his chest. He feels almost dizzy, the world spinning on its axis way too fast.

So much has changed in the last hour.

So much has become terrifyingly clear.

“Mama got you sober?” Mason rasps.

“No. Your mama left me,” Rob says bluntly.

“What?” Mason hisses, horrified at the thought of his parents—so fucking in love and happy—not being together.

“For a year,” Rob says, the edges of his mouth pulling down. “Packed her things and was gone by the time I came home, blacked out. And you want to know the worst part? I didn’t even realize it until I came home from the bar the next night. I was so fucked up back then. I was getting blackout drunk every single night at the bar. Draining our bank accounts on booze. And I was a mean asshole when I was drunk, and your mother was… the one who had to clean me up.”

He has always seen him as stronger than steel, mightier than any force on earth. He looks broken by this, still, even thirty years later.

“When I realized she was gone…” Rob shakes his head. “I tore the house apart in my grief. Drank myself into oblivion. A week later, I tracked her down to Aunt Nina’s and begged and pleaded for her to come home. I said that I would change for her. I would fix it. I would get sober, even though I was lying through my teeth. I dropped to my knees on Nina’s lawn and told her that I loved her more than life. But you know what she said?”

Mason shakes his head even though the question is rhetorical.

“Loving her didn’t mean shit if I kept making her live with the worst version of me.”

The silence after that statement is deafening. The words echo in his head, sinking hooks into his brain with no way to pull them free.

Because they’re true.

Mason loved Honey.

Honey loved him.

But it didn’t mean anything, because he was making her live with the worst version of himself.

No. Actually, he wasn’t even around most of the time.

He was forcing her to live with a ghost. A memory of a husband who was present, loving and involved. Even back in the thick of med-school, Honey was always his priority. Above all. He would drop everything for her if she needed him.

When did it change?

Was it cumulative, or was it one moment?

Maybe a little of both. That first time in the ER when he came home and felt euphoric. Then every time after that, searching and searching and searching for that feeling, damning everyone in his life to chase the high.

“How did this happen?” Mason whispers, feeling completely lost and helpless.

Rock bottom.

“It sneaks up on you,” Rob says, and like he can read Mason’s mind, he adds, “Addiction.”

Mason shakes his head. “I don’t drink or⁠⁠—”

“Addictions come in all shapes and sizes, Mason. I didn’t do the AA twelve-step sober journey. It didn’t fit me, and when I realized that, I felt hopeless. But one of my coworkers at the time was sober and recommended a group to me. It was just a bunch of oldhead mechanics who were all battling demons one way or another. Gambling. Shopping. Porn. Sex. We just talked about it, were there for each other, held each other accountable when needed.”

Mason snaps his mouth closed and feels his ears burn.

“This,” Rob gestures all around them, the locker room, the hospital, everything Mason thought he was. “This is yours. Whatever feeling you chase in this place. It might feel good, but one day you’re going to look around, and Honey’s gonna be gone, and Daisy’s gonna think you’re a stranger. It’s going to ruin you, Mason. And in turn, it’s going to ruin your marriage. Your life.”