J. Konrath - Bloody Mary

She gave my face a tender pat and limped into the bedroom.

Alan stood by the window, hands in his pockets.

“Are you up for breakfast?” he asked.

“No.”

“Would you like me to go?”

“Yes.”

“Are you taking anything for depression?”

“Why would you think I was depressed?”

He shrugged, almost imperceptibly. Much of Alan’s emotional range was imperceptible.

“Your mother seems to think you need someone now.”

“So you came running to the rescue? Isn’t that odd, considering the last time I needed someone, you fled like a thief in the night.”

He smiled.

“I didn’t leave like a thief in the night.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I left in the mid-afternoon, and I didn’t take a single thing with me.”

“You took my jacket.”

“What jacket?”

“The one you’re wearing right now.”

“This is my jacket.”

“I’m the one who wore it all the time.”

“Why don’t we fight about it over breakfast?”

“I don’t want breakfast.”

“You need to eat.”

“How do you know what I need?”

Alan walked past me, and I wondered if I hit a nerve. I followed him into the kitchen.

“I said, how do you know what I need?”

“I heard you.”

He found a mug, poured some coffee, and handed it to me.

“I don’t want coffee.”

“Yes you do. You’re always pissy until you have your first cup of coffee.”

I whined, “I am not pissy.”

Alan started to laugh, and I had to bite my lower lip to keep from grinning.

“Fine. Gimmee the coffee.”

He gimmeed, and I took a sip, surprised at how good it tasted.

“If you don’t want to go out, I can cook.” Alan opened the fridge and pulled out a single egg. “It’s your last one. We can split it.”

“I’d like my half sunny-side up.”

I sat at my dinette set and watched Alan search for a frying pan. It brought back memories. Fond ones. Alan made breakfast almost every morning, during the years we’d been married.

Having found the pan, Alan searched the fridge again.

“No butter?”

“I haven’t been to the store in a while.”

“I can tell. What’s this, a lime or a potato?” He held out a greenish brown thing.

“I think it’s a tomato.”

“There’s something growing on it.”

“Save it. I may need it if I ever get a staph infection.”

He tossed the tomato in the garbage, and found two red potatoes, half a green onion, and half a bottle of chardonnay. From the freezer he took a bag of mixed vegetables and a pound of bacon. Then he went through my cabinets, liberating some olive oil, several spices, and a jar of salsa.

“This doesn’t seem like an appetizing combination of food items.”

He winked. “I’ve got to work with what I’ve got.”

I sipped my coffee and watched him for the twenty minutes it took to microwave, peel, and dice the potatoes, fry the bacon, and sauté the veggies, chopped onion, salsa, and assorted spices in olive oil and white wine. He added the potatoes and bacon, stirred like mad, and then dumped the contents onto two plates.

“Hash à la Daniels.” He set the plate in front of me.

“Smells good.”

“If it’s lousy, there’s always pizza. Hold on.”

The egg was still frying on the stove. He slid it out of the pan, sunny-side up, onto my pile of hash.

“Bon appétit.”

I took a bite, and that led to two and three, and pretty soon I was shoveling it down my throat conveyor-belt fashion.

We didn’t speak during breakfast, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable.

When I scooped the last bite into my mouth, Alan whisked away my plate and refilled my coffee.

“Still angry?” Alan asked.

“A little. I thought we had an unspoken understanding all these years.”

“Which was?”

“You don’t call me, I don’t call you.”

He nodded, putting his plate into the dishwasher.

“I never called you, Jack, because I knew it would hurt.”

“You didn’t seem to mind hurting me when you left.”

“I wasn’t referring to you in this case.”

“You’re saying it would have hurt you to call me?”

“Yes.”

What could I say to that? I chose, “Oh.”

Alan closed the dishwasher, then sat across from me, leaning in.

“So, how are you?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“I know you’re not fine, Jack.”

“How would you know that?”

“Still have the insomnia?”

I looked away. “Yeah.”

“You feel guilty about that cop’s wife.”

“Not really. IA cleared me on the shooting. It was completely by-the-book.”

“By-the-book isn’t enough for you. You have to be perfect, or you can’t live with yourself.”

I felt the armor I’d built up over the last decade begin to flake away. I needed to hate Alan. That’s how I got through it.

“You don’t know me like you think you do.”

He shifted back in his chair, giving me room to breathe.

“How’s the injury?”

“Almost healed, thank God. Latham has been more than patient.”

“Latham?”

“My boyfriend.”

I stared hard at Alan, but he didn’t react. I don’t know why that disappointed me.

“That’s probably why you think I’m not fine. I just need to get laid.”

“That did make you cranky. Remember that time I threw out my back?”

I grinned. “The three worst weeks of our marriage. Productive, though. I doubled my arrest record during that time.”

“Remember when I was finally healed?”

“Yeah. We made up for lost time, didn’t we?”

“Sure did. And I threw out my back again.”

We both laughed, and I wondered how he turned the conversation away from Latham so quickly.

“I love him. Latham, I mean.”

Alan stood up and walked over to me.

“That’s nice. You deserve it.”

“He’s wonderful. You’d like him.”

He put his hand on my shoulder.

“I hope I get a chance to meet him.”

He leaned down, getting in my personal space.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you think there could ever be an ‘ us’ again?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Prove it to me.”

“How?”

“Kiss me.”

“No. You don’t have that right.”

“I made a mistake, leaving. I want to make it up to you. But I need to know if your feelings are still there.”

“Alan…”

“I still love you, Jack. I always have. I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you. I left because I couldn’t compete with your job. It took everything you had, and there was nothing left for me. Plus, the constant worrying you wouldn’t come home.”

“Nothing has changed, Alan.”

“I’ve changed. I can handle it now. And seeing you again…”

I said, “Don’t,” but his lips met mine, and I didn’t stop it, I didn’t pull away, and all of our history came rushing back, all of the good times, and I closed my eyes and let my tongue find his and spent a moment wondering what might have been.

Then I found my center and pushed him gently away.

“I’m in love with another man.”

“I know.”

I traced my fingers along his jaw.

“You hurt me, Alan.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to do this.”

But when he kissed me again, I knew that I did.

I didn’t sleep with him, but felt so damn guilty I might as well have.

After the kissing became light petting, I excused myself to check on Mom.

Mom was snoring peacefully, with a silly smile on her face. I wasn’t stupid. Bringing Alan here was part of some grand plan of hers, and for all she knew, it was working out fine.