Page 79 of At Midnight

A Silver Flask

Raphael Mirabaud

Is there always someone with a flask of whiskey at weddings?

Raphael and his father were standing outside of the church before the service while Flicka and Sophie were dressing in the basement.

Valerian offered Raphael a flask. “For courage?”

The silver flask gleamed dully in the cold afternoon sunshine. The air seemed especiallybright around them as the sunlight sparkled on the blue chop of the Mediterranean Sea below the cliff where they were waiting.

Several years ago, at Raphael’s wedding to Gretchen in Las Vegas, Raphael had taken the flask Wulfram had offered, “For courage,” and taken a long swig of the whiskey inside. The liquor was smoother than he’d expected, almost nourishing in his throat, not burning muchat all. It had been so smooth that he had sucked down another deep drought, and then another.

Standing outside that tawdry Las Vegas casino chapel, Raphael had drained the flask.

When he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the whiskey had already begun to affect him, heaviness draining into his legs like regret.

“Strong stuff,” Raphael had said to Wulfram.

Wulfram had raised one blondeyebrow at him. “That was fifty-year-old Macallan scotch. They only made two hundred bottles of it. That was from bottle number thirty-seven. I hope you tasted it.”

“Sure. Delicious.” He’d turned and stumbled into the casino’s wedding venue, half-drunk, to do the right thing.

Sometimes, the right thing sucks. Sometimes, the right thing is painful and awful. But you do it. Because that’s whatadults do.

And Raphael had done it.

This time, standing outside the small, white chapel on a windswept cliff, staring at the silver flask shining in the Gibraltar sunlight, Raphael shook his head. “No, thanks.”

He didn’t need liquid courage this time. Every wisp of his soul was drawn to the chapel and Flicka inside, and he wanted to see every second with clear eyes and remember every moment.