She closed her eyes to the shouts from downstairs. Cynthia and Tom had been shouting for nearly half an hour. He had come in drunk the night before again. It seemed that was the regular routine now. Her mother still worked at the hotel until midnight. She came home to find her husband not home. Then she dragged Sara out of bed, hurried her in dressing, and they trudged in the dark night to the closest bar. If he wasn't found there, they ventured to the next one and so forth until they found his sodden self.
Typically, he was lounging against the bar, using it more to hold him up before he slid to the floor sticky with spilled beer and whiskey and crushed pretzels. He'd be laughing and slapping himself, well trying to. He usually missed and swatted air. They'd enter the bar to find him an
