For thirty-five years, I had thought the secret was inside the bottle.
It wasn’t.
The real secret was inside the man who poured it.
Victor had never been trying to control me.
He had never been trying to deceive me for some selfish reason.
He had taken something I once considered frightening and turned it into a small ritual that never made me feel afraid.
And suddenly I understood why he always waited until my glass was empty.
Why he never let anyone else drink it.
Why he became uncomfortable whenever I asked too many questions.
Why the packages came every month.
Why he remembered something about my younger self that even I had forgotten.
He had been carrying a piece of my past for me.
Quietly.
For decades.
I drove home that afternoon with Emily beside me.
Neither of us said much.
When we entered the kitchen, I looked at the clock.
