Story Notes: Written in August 2007. Prompt: white Russians.

When they were first married, Stella never could understand why Ray minded her dad hating him less than he minded her mom liking him. He just told Stella it was the white Russians that call-me-Helen always mixed when they visited. "Milk and alcohol, Stell, it's just wrong. It's like, hashish Ho-Ho's, or something."

Really, though, it was--her dad just glared at Ray silently when they visited his apartment. But when they had dinner with her mom in the too-big-now house, her mom would ask all these chatty questions about his dad's meatpacking job. Which, you know, not a job you converse about, you just do it, and Ray was pretty sure that Helen was pleased with herself for being open-minded and Embracing His Lower-Classness, and it pissed him off.

And once, when they were leaving Helen's---Ray went back in because he'd forgotten his jacket, and Helen gave him her milky-drunk smile, backed him up against the kitchen counter and grabbed his crotch. He got the hell out of there, and she never acted like she remembered it later, thank Christ.

He never told Stell about that, either. Not even in the worst days of the divorce, when he wanted to hurt her. Just, not that much.