From THE THIRD MAN

“I should go.”

“Hey.” He put his hand on my shoulder and I realized how little physical contact we’d had in the time we’d known each other. Even when we hugged, it was like hugging your grandfather. I got it. You don’t stick your hand in the fire unless you want it to get consumed. “You’ve had a couple of drinks. Maybe wait it out?”

I had, hadn’t I?

The drinks were strong, too, mojitos whose sugar conned me into drinking them fast, faster. Then when the check came, he covered it and tried to wave away my tip money. I forced him to take it and watched the room spin while I did.

“You’re a cheap date,” Adam always said, “and I like cheap.”

I’d promised him. I’d promised.

“Hold on,” I said, and stepped away for a minute. There, on quiet Solano Avenue, I called my husband to tell him a partial lie and a partial truth.

“I can’t drive,” I said. “I had a couple of drinks.”

Fact was, the room might have spun around me, but the fresh outside air sobered me right up. I was perfectly capable of hopping in the Mazdaspeed and motoring on home.

I just didn’t want to.

“So you’re going to sober up,” he said, voice tight, “right?”

“Yeah.”

“How?”

The Pub was right across the street. In addition to alcohol, it also had coffee and tea.

“Give me a little bit,” I said. “I promise I won’t be long.”

“You promised you’d be home by 10.”

“I know. I – I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Are you really?”

It was like my mind burst in two at this point: a split screen, two different ways of seeing what was happening. Part of me understood his frustration, knew that being home with the kid while your spouse was out carousing around wasn’t exactly a big old ice cream sundae.

Another part of me was like, fuck you, dude. Stop sitting on my ass. It’s starting to sting. This resentment seemed very, very old, probably because it was.

“You know what?” I said in a voice that didn’t sound anything like my own, “I’m not.”

“No. I knew it.”

It would have been polite for Jack to take a few steps away from me, down the street, busy himself with his phone, get back in his truck even. A little privacy, please? But I didn’t want that. I wanted him to overhear. I wanted him to see me push back.

I wanted a witness.

“Look,” I said, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Neither of us seemed entirely loving in that moment. But that’s the time when I love you most needs to be said. That’s the time you need to remember, to grasp that thread and understand what it holds together, that to unravel it is to forever lose the connection.