The Last Glass Is the Scariest
I came up out of the subway and followed the familiar road home, and there it was.
I punched the code into the lock and stepped inside. Mom's shoes were in the rack.
She didn't so much as stir at the sound of me coming in, so I spoke first.
"Mom, I'm home."
The answer never had time to come. Faster than that, my eyes found hers—she was sitting at the dining table in the living room, pouring whiskey into a big glass.
"Oh. You're back, Jia?"
"Ugh, drinking again? I told you not to start in broad daylight, at least. Drink at night if you're going to drink."
"Enough... It's the weekend anyway. This is the only hobby I've got. Let me unwind with it. You want a glass too, Jia?"
"Is that something a mother says? In the middle of the day?"
"It's one glass. What's it going to do."
"No. I drank with Dad yesterday."
"With your dad? How much?"
"About half a bottle of soju? We split one between us."
I could already feel what she was about to say, so I let the end of it trail off on purpose.
"Half a bottle? That wouldn't even reach your liver."
"If I acted like I could drink in front of Dad, all I'd get is a scolding. I didn't want the lecture, so I pretended I was drunk."
"Well, your dad can't hold a drop. A little bit and he makes a whole production of it. He was like that with me, so with you... sigh. What's the point of saying it."
The talk still hanging between us, I took a glass from the sink and sat down across from her.
She went to the freezer without a second thought, dropped one big cube of ice into my glass, and topped it with whiskey and just as much tonic.
Sweet, with the faint bloom of alcohol spreading through it, the smell loosened something in my head.
"Whiskey really does taste expensive..."
"Haah. A kid shouldn't be picking up a taste for whiskey already."
"You're the one who poured it, so don't start. And I like soju just fine, as long as the food's good."
"What did you eat with your dad?"
"Sashimi."
"Good."
Mom and I drinking together was ordinary enough that we didn't have much else to say.
Honestly, the first time I drank, the reason was perfectly natural. After Dad left, watching her drink every single time grated on me so badly I could hardly stand it. At first I told her to stop. Then I got so sick of it I decided that if this was how it was going to be, I'd become a drunk right alongside her. I drank in front of her without a shred of shame, and somewhere along the way we turned into drinking buddies. She did seem to hold back a little when she drank with me. And once we were trading this and that, passing complaints back and forth, her mood eased more than I'd expected. All things considered, I thought it hadn't been such a bad choice. I liked drinking too, maybe because I took after her.
"Your dad doing all right?"
We'd been drinking in the quiet, neither of us saying a word, when she was the one to break it.
Her eyes were hollow. Half drunk, just as I'd thought. How much had she put away? I looked for the bottle. I was pretty sure this whiskey had still been sealed when I left yesterday. She was already emptying the last of it. I was only on my second glass, so nearly all of it was hers.
This was why I couldn't bring myself to leave the house. If she'd been drinking with me, it wouldn't have gone this far.
"Well, he's getting by..."
Still, he's cut way back compared to before. Skate over it and nothing will come of it.
"He does seem to miss you, though."
"...Does he?"
"Yeah. One look at him and I could tell—if you just said you were wrong and apologized a few times, he'd ask to get back together on the spot."
Not that I knew whether he wanted it quite that badly.
Either way, I already knew what she was going to say next.
Mom dropped her head toward the floor.
"Drop it. It's already too late. What am I supposed to say now..."
She sounded sad as she poured what was left of the whiskey into her glass. At that, I took the bottle out of her hands. She glared at me once, but she knew she'd had plenty, and a moment later her head sank again.
"See, why'd you keep it locked up so tight? If you knew you were sorry, you should've told him, and fast. My head's tough enough. Even if things at home got a little ugly, I would've been fine."
"You're telling me... If I'd just been honest with your dad sooner, it never would've come to this..."
She said that, and she still wasn't being honest.
Haah. It worried me. It really did.
Drinking with her was something I could only do now. Once I started college, there was no telling what she'd do.
"Can't you give me what's left?"
"No. Stop drinking. The last glass is the scariest one. If I don't leave a glass sitting there like this, you'll crack open another bottle later."
"That's mean. I'm not even drunk yet."
"Drunk doesn't have to mean blackout drunk. From where I'm sitting, you've been drunk twenty-four hours a day lately."
"You really don't leave me anything to say."
With that, she took a bottle of water from the fridge.
Good. Maybe she meant to end it here today.
"There's nothing left to drink in the house anyway. That's the problem with whiskey. It tastes good, but it's stupidly expensive. Soju's a dollar and a half, and even the cheap whiskey is thirty dollars a bottle. Honestly..."
"Looking at the state you're in, it's a relief whiskey's the hobby. If it were soju, you'd be a real alcoholic by now."
"My palate's refined, all right? I don't care what anyone says—I refuse to get drunk on soju."
She said it while throwing the water back the way other people throw back liquor.
"I really envy your dad. One glass of whiskey and he's gone, and I can't get drunk no matter what I do. Dating him was pure misery, I swear. At first I thought the drunkenness was an act."
"Please. If he couldn't drink, you'd have just grumbled that he couldn't enjoy it properly."
"Listen to this kid. What do you take your mother for?"
"An alcoholic."
"Don't say crazy things, Jia. What kind of daughter tells her own mother she's an alcoholic?"
"If you don't call a woman who kills a bottle of whiskey in broad daylight an alcoholic, what do you call her?"
"I'll have you know, right up until I split with your dad, I lived a perfectly decent life. I'm just having a hard time right now."
"And right now you are an alcoholic. What are you going to do if your liver actually gives out? I'm worried about you."
"I'm in my thirties, so it's still fine. Thirties. I told you. When I actually turn forty, I'll think about my health and quit, just like that."
"There you go again with nonsense. You think turning forty is going to change you?"
"A lot changes, you know. From forty on, you're a real ajumma. I ought to live with a little class and polish."
"Aren't you an ajumma already? Your daughter's about to start college."
"Are you needling me on the sly right now? You want a scolding?"
"No? I don't want to get scolded."
"This girl. Always running her mouth at her mother."
"It's fine. I mouth off at you. I don't mouth off at Dad."
Not that Dad was around anymore.
"Jia, even half of what you give your dad—no, half of a half of a half of a half—try giving me that much. You've been like this since you were little. Polite as anything with your dad, and with me, what. You know what? Whenever the three of us went out together, people didn't take me for your mom. They took me for your older sister."
"Don't go fishing to sound young while you say it. I don't care—you're forty any day now. Ajumma."
Mom clicked her tongue and glared at me.
"Good grief. I really should've given you one sharp scolding when you were little. Now your head's too big to touch."
"Back then Dad was around, so if I just handled him right, I could get out of being scolded by you."
Thinking about it now, they were genuinely happy memories. Whenever it looked like Mom was about to scold me, I'd hide behind Dad and whimper that I didn't want to get in trouble. More often than not he'd tell her to let it go, and she'd huff and fume and let me off. I was too old to pull that now.
Haah. I always wanted to stay innocent and pure in Dad's eyes.
Right. That reminded me.
"Oh, yeah—I told Dad yesterday. That you drink every day, calling Dad, Dad, like you're singing."
Her face went hard all at once, and she looked at me.
"...I told you not to tell him. Why did you say that?"
"I had to say at least that much, or he wouldn't get how serious it is. I didn't come out and announce it. We were just talking yesterday, the mood went that way, and it slipped out before I knew it. He looked really worried when I said you drink every day."
"Jia, honestly..."
As she said it, she reached again for the whiskey bottle beside me. I snatched it and set it on the floor.
A bitter look crossed her face.
"Sigh. I don't know anymore. I don't even know how I'm supposed to apologize. Jia, you think about it. If you were in your dad's place, would you forgive me? It only slid by because he's your father..."
"Right? You're actual trash, Mom. Forget a slut—what even was that. You sweet-talked Dad back when he was some quiet honor student in high school, then ran a scam saying you'd gotten pregnant with his kid. Sigh. It's not even cheap smut. You should be grateful he didn't slap you across the face that day."
The second I meant it, she glared at me, sharp enough to cut.
"...Jia, you little—. A slut? To your own mother? Even so."
"Ugh, then don't tear yourself down if you're going to get mad about it."
I said it, and what had happened with Dad last night came back to me all at once.
Maybe some of it really did run in the blood.