"Why don't you ever come to the pub?"
It was either his question or momentary lapse in the foot rub she received that stirred Connie from her doze. "What?"
Jacob continued to knead the arch of her foot with his palm. "The pub," he repeated, nestled into the third seat of the sofa while Connie sprawled across the other two cushions. "Why don't you ever come for a drink after work?" He missed the simple pleasure of ordering a Budweiser at the Hope & Anchor after a difficult shift, or an easy one for that matter. Connie, on the other hand, avoided it like the plague.
"You know me, it's not my style," she replied dismissively. As Clinical Lead, her best chance to retain any measure of authority over the team required healthy boundaries to be upheld.
"Nah, it's more than that. Come on, man, tell me." Jacob probed a little more in his ever-loveable way but Connie suspected this was one of those bones that he would pick at until she bled a little. He had maneuvered himself from support bubble to permanent dweller in the Beauchamp residence, and every now and then Jacob scaled another one of her emotional barricades like it was his favourite hobby.
"It's somewhere my dad spent most of his time," she volunteered as little information as possible.
"Was he an alcoholic?"
Connie choked on the bluntness of his question, "No. He preferred a pint and the slots to home, that's all."
"So, you avoid the pub for the rest of your life because your old man liked a knees-up?" Somehow, Jacob simplified matters a little too easily, and Connie wondered whether he would ever truly understand how complex of a woman she could be.
Donny Hathaway's soulful tenor serenaded the couple for a minute or two as Connie became lost in the past. She softly shook her head, "He was always there, you know? Every day he'd be down the pub after work and I'd be at home with mum - no heat, barely any food or money left for the week." Connie shuddered a little as the recollection surfaced to her present. "Then one day she decided she didn't want to put up with it anymore."
"She walked out," Jacob presumed and his heart ached with the vision of Connie as a little girl, motherless.
Connie swallowed the tiny lump in her throat, "Left me with nan for six weeks." Connie had always pictured her mother to be cool, calm and collected when she left Billy. It was more likely she had been lost in another vicious bout of depression, hysterical and detached all at once.
"You don't talk about her much." In fact, Jacob didn't think he had ever heard Connie mention her mother; she only ever spoke of her father and those conversations were cursory.
"She, uh, wasn't well," Connie offered an obtuse rationale. "She found it difficult to cope without my dad around. She didn't like to be alone, so she would drag him home from the pub. One time, when I was about five or six, she took me with her." Dopey and heavy-eyed, little Connie Chase climbed out of bed and waited patiently for her mother to wrap her up warm in her well-loved red raincoat. They braved the downpour for four blocks to the White Horse and Connie clutched her mothers hand the entire way. When they burst into the establishment, their arrival received little fanfare; barmaids and patrons alike were consumed by another tall tale from Billy Chase. Connie's mother bundled her into the corner booth and proceeded to berate Billy for his absence.
"What happened?"
"Dad refused to come home, didn't matter how loud she shouted," Connie brushed her hair behind her ear and sniffed away any hint of upset. She could still remember the abundance of blood after her mother smashed a bottle over her father's head. "The next day, nan picked me up from school." Connie quickly learnt that when her grandmother collected her from school her mother wouldn't be at home waiting for her with a cuddle and kiss.
"I'm sorry," Jacob squeezed his palm around her shin. "Must have been hard."
"It's fine," Connie hunched her shoulders, nonchalantly able to brush the memory under the carpet. She didn't have the emotional capacity or desire to unpack her childhood any further. Jacob forced a weak smile. He understood how much it physically pained her to shed another layer of herself.