Coraline | Second Place TMoL Contest Winner

01 | Coraline

PRESENT

Cora might not have believed her father had pulled off tonight's event -

If not for the sign hung from a once forgotten church hall. It could be spotted yards before the building was even in sight, the words hand-painted by who she could only guess was her younger brother, Frank: ADDICTION DROP-IN HOSTED BY TOM NOVAK.

A part of her still doubted him. Another was almost jealous when she reached her father, stood in the buildings entrance with a smile etched in his face. 'Hiya dad,' she said as she embraced Tom in a hug, the ghost of autumn still on her heels.

'Coraline!' he cried out, the utterance of her name pressed into the brunette of her hair, as he enveloped his daughter completely in his tired arms. He pulled away but unable to let go held his eldest at arms length as a single tear rolled down his cheek. He smiled even wider then. 'I was beginning to think you weren't going to make it. I tried calling -'

Cora thought of the phone Jacob bought her for her birthday just passed. Smashed to pieces like the heart of her now ex-boyfriend. She swallowed hard and met her father's gaze. 'Yeah, sorry. My phone was off. I wasn't able to charge it on the way here.'

His left hand made a half-hearted sweeping motion, as if to say don't worry about it. 'All that matters is that you're here now. Come on in, I'll show around, we're still waiting for a few folk to arrive before we start.'

Cora lingered a moment longer, however. Twisted around to take in the night-time air, the glow of streets lamps and the moon.

Then she waited for what she needed, the winds push against her back, the sense of direction, of forward momentum she'd searched for since finishing college not too long ago, and yet could not find - most especially now.

She sighed then and twisted back around. After another moment she followed her father into the building, without a word.

PAST

Thomas Novak was sure in the end it was his sobriety which would be his downfall. Not his alcoholism.

All he did these days was work at not getting drunk. A surplus of idle time meant his mind would dream up a place of drunken oblivion: here no one and nothing could hurt you and everything was just a bit funnier. If only, temporarily. Which, in its own right, was a glorious and romanticised hell. Yet hell, nonetheless.

And so the key to his sobriety was distraction - or more specifically, a full immersion of himself in a single project to the point of exhaustion. This so thoughts of alcohol did not fill his mind to the point of self-destruction.

Perhaps, it was why at an AA meeting in his home city of Chicago, two summers ago, when he asked the woman who hosted that evenings event - an over-weight red head, named Susan who had big breasts and kind eyes - what went into organising such a meetings and she responded; 'a lot work and penchant for disappointed,' instead of be discouraged he stayed after all the other attendees left, and continued to question Susan on the matter. She was a mix of amused and weary but answered every questions she could. He was grateful and said as much.

To which she smiled shaking her head in halfway disbelief. 'I hope you don't dishearten easily, Tom Novak and that whatever it is that you're doing works out. I truly do.'

That same evening, he'd returned home and found himself in Coraline's bedroom, a place that was only lived in when his eldest was home from college.

She was not. She'd not been for a while.

The room sparse without her presence, her rarely slept in bed, made; everything in their respective places. She would have been so angry with him if she could have seen him now. Frozen in place, as if on pause, drinking in the little that filled the room as the ache of missing her bloomed all around him. He sunk to the ground then and started to work; this marked the first of many evenings in which he stayed up into the early hours of the next day deep in the weeds of research as he learned what was required for a person to run an alcoholics anonymous meeting.