Waves

Part 42

TW: Brief mentions of alcohol abuse, adolescent neglect, hospital scenes. This is a heartbreaker–sorry guys!

Frank Wilson squinted at the time on his watch and cursed under his breath, the sound of his daughter singing along with the tiny stereo in her room exacerbating his migraine. His wife Andrea was attending a conference that he'd asked her to cut short but she'd refused, telling him he would be just fine watching Eve for three days, but she would finally be home within a few hours. Eve was her mother's daughter and was standoffish when it came to her dad, reluctant to spend time with him and bouncing off the walls out of boredom.

Truth be told, he didn't blame his daughter for her reticence; he knew nothing about what nine year old girls liked to do and the withdrawals he was feeling from not having a drink for the past three days was leaving him more agitated than normal. Rummaging around the cupboards, he shook his head when he discovered all of his normal hiding places were bare courtesy of his wife.

"So help me God Frank, if I find out you've been drinking while I'm gone, I will walk out and not come back," Andrea had threatened. He'd scoffed at her empty threats at the time but now was irritated. He didn't have a drinking problem. People with drinking problems couldn't work or think clearly and he could do both. He just needed something to take the edge off, a little salve for his stress. Slamming the fridge shut, he cracked his knuckles and thought for a few minutes before an idea came to him.

"Eve put your shoes on. We're making a stop and then we're going to the park," Frank barked. There was a corner store near the park and he could stop for supplies before letting Eve run off some of her excess energy.

"If I bring my ball do you think you could play with me for a little bit? Eve asked, holding the pink ball she'd gotten for her birthday. "You can find some other kids to play with–let's go." Frank practically sprinted down the street and around the block to the liquor store, Eve's much shorter legs struggling to keep up.

Once he had his booze, he led Eve to the park and plopped down on a bench while she went off to find someone to play with her. Cracking open the first one, he took a long swig and closed his eyes, the agitation he'd been struggling with finally calmed. Once he was done with one bottle, he moved to the second, sneering at a mother pushing a stroller who glared at the disheveled man chugging whiskey at 2PM.

He started to doze off halfway through the bottle, which is why he didn't notice Eve chasing after her ball that was rolling into the street. It wasn't until he heard someone yell "watch out" and her tiny scream that he was jolted awake, a crowd of bystanders surrounding his daughter splayed out in the middle of the road.

Eve didn't even know how she ended up in her mother's hospital room. The time between Adam's call to Joe and the moment she saw her mother hooked up to the machines keeping her stabilized was a blur. She was catatonic as she rested her face next to Andrea's hand, the faint smell of her perfumed wrist reminding Eve of when she would sneak into her mother's closet and play with her clothes.

Just outside of the room, Joe stood with Eve's Aunt Linda, Adam, and another detective, all of them listening to Linda recall what had transpired that afternoon. "Andrea and I had just arrived at the house. We had gone shopping and to the grocery store. I was outside grabbing some wood for the fireplace when I thought I heard a glass break, like she'd dropped a cup. When I called out to her, she didn't answer. That's when I walked back inside and saw him," Linda sobbed.

"Did he say anything to you? Did you recognize him at all?" Joe knew that the detective was Eileen Cline, the same who had responded to the incident at Eve's apartment a few weeks prior.