I wake with a jolt, limbs flailing, heart racing like I'd just been running a marathon in my sleep. For a few moments in which I register the pattering of rain against the roof, I sit still, breathing heavily, wide-eyed, and then the events of last night resurface, hazily at first, then take full form so suddenly I flinch. The smell of alcohol packed in a dimly lit club, the swishing hair of dancing girls, the blaring pop. The empty bottles on the table between my jeaned knees. The erratic drive home. Flashing headlights, murky clouds overhead, key rattling in the keyhole, struggling to get up to my room quietly. The gloriously soft pillows.

I hear my mother's musical voice in the kitchen. She sings in the choir at church and I wonder if she'd sung last night as she lay worried about me on her bed, my father snoring beside her, thunder shaking the windows. My head feels hot and sore so I whisk for an aspirin in a bedside drawer. I do a few jumping jacks to try and clear the hangover and then head downstairs.

My father is hidden behind a newspaper, but I can sense his face twist with disgust as I creak on the wooden floor to join him at the table. There's my favourite breakfast food, canned peaches, in a bowl decorated with whiskey bottles. Mother doesn't greet me with the usual, sing-song "Good morning, D!"; instead her back faces me as she does the dishes. Our cat is hissing because she hates the lightning; the thunder accompanying it is gentle and unnoticeable, like a grumble. I try to comfort and pet her with my feet but she swipes at me like she's also mad that I went drinking last night.

Beyond the window is a wet greyness and indeterminate images of our backyard, almost like hallucinations. The aspirin is kicking in slowly. My mother finishes the dishes, drying her hands on the flowery apron. She sits at the table, her red eyes meeting mine with an expressionless intensity, before pouring herself some chamomile tea, humming a hymn I knew to be about a bright, sunny day.