Ergo, Ego.

Twenty years sober.

Boy, those years went by in a flash. But not really; Dennis knew all too well how loose the mind's grip on time really is. It dragged when Flora first told him he had a drinking problem and scraped by even slower when he finally listened to her. But in time, the years built on themselves, days became weeks and productivity went up. Way up, until he had a lot on his plate and had to admit she was right. He really was better off without the weed, better, free of the booze. He never dared believe it, before, how good it could all feel. But then again, he never believed he would ever be a success, either. Go figure.

“If I drink or smoke again, you have to dump me.” A younger Dennis said to her, recalling his words like yesterday’s dinner. Chicken wings. They were watching a King movie on Netflix, the one about the grass...

no pun intended. Dennis thought with a snort, turning the Jag onto their lane, only fifteen minutes from home. Twenty if he let the old girl rumble.

She said she would, too. Matter of fact, she damn well promised she would. Flora was over it, kid. She loved him more than anyone she’d ever met (as he did her), but she was done with the habits, those sudden booze binges which lasted months and stole him away from the world. Away from life. The arguments and the anger and all the turbulence was too much to deal with, even for him.

Up until that moment, he’d been in pure denial. But the way he wound her up and the way she came to break down made the day a prominent one; looking at what he was doing to her just about tore his hangover heart out.

He made her a promise on the day he turned up steaming from the night before; feeding it into those teary hazels of hers with all the sincerity he could muster.

Dennis was reliving it all the way home, reeling from the difference one moment makes.

“I don’t ever want to see you cry like this again.” He told her, his head hammering, his eyes swelling with tears of his own. “I’ve never admitted it before, babe, but I have a problem.” He palmed his nose, it left a snail trail. He sniffed and said what needed to be said long, long ago (just before it was too late to save them). “I need help... I can’t do this on my own.”

And it was easy, after he confessed it to her. It was the gods honest truth, and she knew it. Oh sure, she might have had trouble trusting him for a while. But she came around, after he proved he meant it. She said she didn’t want the motivation to be hitched to her; “you need to have higher callings than doing this for me, Dennis.” Was what she told him, once. Back in the early days where a relapse must have seemed inevitable. But damn it all if he didn’t listen. He didn’t need a higher plane of motivation, because, in this case, love was enough.

He never told her (because he was sick enough of hearing his own woes by the time he sobered up) but the simple fact of the matter was he truly saw for the first time how much he was hurting her; the woman he fell for; the woman he knew completed him, and would rip him apart by leaving his wasted ass. He wished there was some grander seal on his lid, but as far as he was concerned, the old idioms were best:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

And Dennis hadn’t broken his word to her in all these twenty long years. Thinking of them now, the years seemed to flash by. But he knew they didn’t, not really. They just played fast back in his sober old noggin. Just like a blur does in the mind of a booze-hound.

He pulled up. The daydream had kept him company all the way to the front door. Not for the first time, as he stepped out of his Jaguar, he let himself get a little hazy eyed over the pride he felt for earning it. All of it. The life, the wife; everything.

Back when he was a booze-hound none of this seemed possible. But business boomed. He found he was all too able to keep the plates spinning. He and Flora now, had two kids and three homes and a tidy lot of stock still to play with. Turns out being into computers to an obsessive degree will let you make some pretty cogent decisions in the field of investment. He missed his mom, sure. But what else was he gonna do all sober with the inheritance? Might as well gamble. And Apple gambles were gooood.

Dennis opened the door. A glass fell and two bodies flew away from one another.

‘Oh god.’ Came a man’s voice.

‘Dennis.’ Flora gasped.

He couldn’t make out what he was seeing. It didn’t compute... no pun intended.

This time he didn’t snort. He found he was growling. The edges of his vision were turning as red as that dress she was wearing.

‘What the fu-’

‘I thought you were away.’ Flora-the-living-stereotype whined, clapping hands to her mouth with tears already flooding in her eyes.

He didn’t care about her. Not just yet. He gritted his teeth and glared right at Blondie, who put his hands up like a train was about to hit him.

‘Whoa, man. Please, she didn’t tell me she was married. I swear! Please. You gotta stay cool, man.’

Dennis didn’t mind admitting it to himself; this kid’s life depended on what he saw next. His shotgun flashed in his head, first. Oh boy, was it tempting to go hunt that down, right about now. But instead, he looked to his cheating bitch of a wife’s hand. There was indeed a distinct lack of ring, there. Framed by another hand and a two pronged fork of tears.

He snapped his gaze back to Blondie. His head was almost swelling, glowing redder with every new stare Dennis shot at him.

‘You just won the lottery today, kid.’ He smiled. He looked at Flora, laughed, and looked back to Blondie, laughing heartily. The idiot actually laughed a little with him.

‘GET OUT OF MY HOME!’ He roared. Blondie flinched out of his skin, nearly jumping clean out of his pastel pinkish sport coat.

❧

She hadn’t stopped crying. She somehow made Dennis laugh, though. Genuinely. She begged him not to shoot the guy just as he was scrambling out the door. The fool started sprinting away. It was damned glorious. He felt like getting the damn gun, just to fire it in the air and really make him crap himself. Just to make Flora the Explorah squeal a little for her poor little lover boy.

‘I’m sorry.’ Flora whispered. At some point the sobs became silent tears. She was staring at the table edge right below his nose, not quite enough nerve to look him in the eyes.

‘Lemme guess, Flora; I bet I wasn’t home enough. Or maybe I chose the wrong damned stereotype, eh? Maybe you might want to fill me in on why that tool was filling you in? Because I'm at a loss.’

She started sobbing again, shaking her head, no, and saying it aloud, too, over and over. Dennis felt sick to his stomach. The lights in their kitchen were too bright, they were pulsing flat against a migraine which started thudding somewhere behind his eyes.

‘After everything we’ve been through...’ He said, more to himself. ‘After all these years, seriously. And you do this shit?!’

‘We don’t talk anymore!’ She shrieked, looking him in the eye as she thrashed in her seat in a trembling fit of frustrated rage.

‘Oh, Christ alive. Thank you for the damned clarification; I clearly picked the wrong stereotypical excuse from your little handbook, there, didn’t I?’

He was standing over her yelling, not wanting to, yet, powerless to stop himself. This simply hurt too horribly, he couldn’t concentrate on calm. He wanted to rage.

‘God damn, I can’t even look at you.’ He said, shaking his head as he turned away in disbelief. His mind torturing him with sensual images of her lying giggling on her back, wanting Blondie inside her. It was pulling his heart down and squeezing bile up, all at once.

Agony. Pure, undeserved agony.

He knew she’d try to justify it (just like all cheaters do, when they get caught), but he’d be damned if he’d let her worm out of it. This hurt too much to let go of. He wanted to know, at least, where it all went wrong. He felt he deserved to know.

‘Just tell me.’ He said. Speaking softer to his own reflection - still a scowl, made of frown, but easier to talk to than she was, at this point - glaring into the night blackened window with her ghost over his shoulder.

‘Why, Flo? What the hell did I do to make you even want to do this?’

He had to wait a while before she answered. But wait he did. When she spoke he turned to look at her, he wanted to see if those eyes were lying. No matter how much it tore at his heart to do it.

‘It was exciting.’ She said, soft as anything. ‘God, Dennis I don’t know what came over me...’

‘Try to know.’ He said. ‘Go on and try.’

Her eyes searched for answers in the nice ceiling lights and all along the floor, but she sighed eventually and hung her head. She had nothing.

And then an idea popped right into his head. Birthing a smile.

‘Wait right there.’ He said. Strolling off to the liqueur cabinet with a pep in his step.

❧

He started unscrewing the bottle as he rounded the corner. So she could hear it. So she knew. It felt good, like a fine handshake. He took a whiff as he came into the room, it smelled like whiskey should. It made his throat cringe and his mouth water.

‘Oh my god.’ She uttered. ‘No, for goodness sakes, Dennis please don’t.’

He just glared at her for a moment as he reached for a rocks glass. He looked away and made a show of it as he poured a fat three fingers worth and left it neat, just like he'd always liked it. He slammed the bottle down, placed the glassful beside it.

‘Remember that promise I made you give me, back when I got clean?’

She looked nonplussed for a little while before the penny dropped. He saw it, it was in the little extra white in the rim around her hazel eyes.

‘Oh yeah, it’s happening.' He said, smiling sourly, sitting opposite her like an interrogator. ‘Talk or I drink; and it’s all over with.’

‘You’re not even giving me a chance.’

‘The chance is right here.’ He pointed to it. ‘Well aged chance already, so you’d better not spoil it.’

Barely a beat passed by. And the rug was pulled out.

‘I don’t want to.’ She said, folding her arms and taking her eyes to the side. Staring away at the hallway. ‘You’re coming straight from a place of ego. There is no point me playing into it.’

Ah, the first hurdle.

When she doesn’t have an argument she’ll go for the jugular. Hit him down from his (so-called) high-horse for daring to call her on her bullshit. It's the way you said it. That ol' chestnut.

‘Fine.’ He said. Picking up the glass in a swipe, tipping it as he did so just like a flare bartender (which he once was) without spilling a drip.

He looked to the sky through it, toasting the ceiling lights, playing with it, glancing twinkles of amber-glades through it. He brought it to his lips. But something in his gut didn’t let his wrist tip.

He looked at Flora. She was still staring away, arms folded, face scattered with mascara branches, but without a fresh tear. She just looked like she always did when she became indignant with him; bored and faintly impatient. The whiskey might as well have evaporated; his will to drink it certainly did, after looking at her.

‘Oh to hell with it.’ He said, slapping the glass to the table where it almost cracked with a shrill clap - catching a flicker in her eyes, but nothing more.

Don’t let her get in your head.

She looked at the glass, then at him. Her eyes were set, framed by angry angles, a stubborn rose bud of a pout tied it all together; the face of a woman who could give a damn.

‘What gives you the right to look at me like that, huh? No, you can't damn well look at me properly now, can yo-’

‘I’ll shove that glass up your ass if you talk to me like that again, Dennis.’ She hissed. Nearly making him flinch.

And right away he felt like an idiot, he bit on the bait, the hook was in his cheek and he didn’t even notice when it got there.

Why wasn’t she reacting? Why on Earth was she justified and he wasn’t? Didn’t Flora just get caught cheating?

‘Are we in opposite world now, babe?’ Dennis said, palming his face clean of the worse of the knots - all stressed muscle. His head felt hewn into a forever-frown. ‘I just saw you with him. I mean come on, be honest, you wouldn’t take me sitting here, giving you this attitude, if it had been me on the landing with some twenty-something in a red dress, now, would you?’

She took a breath. Her shoulders rose and fell. Still slender, even in her forties. He couldn’t help feeling that heartfelt yearning for her, even under all of the heartache.

‘Yeah.' She admitted. 'Maybe not. But I’m not going to sit here feeling worse over it just because you wanna ride your high-horse over me about it, Dennis.’ She shot the glass a look. He half expected it to melt like candle wax. ‘Who the hell does that?’ She added, barely a growl under a whisper of breath.

‘Who the hell does that?’ He roared, pointing to the stairs. Pointing to the ghost of Blondie, past.

‘You should’ve started with that if you wanted to know! But you didn’t want to know, did you? You just wanted to twist the knife in after the fact.’ She actually rolled her eyes. Shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Den. But I lost all respect for you the moment you grabbed the bottle. You’ve done well over the past twenty or so years, don’t get me wrong. But to throw it all away in some theatrical attempt to interrogate me - “or we’re done” (with finger quotes and another roll of the eyes) - It’s just pathetic.’

And, one of the reasons I wanted to cheat.

He didn’t hear it from her, but it was folded in her words like the waves in Damascus steel. He could catch it in the light at the right angle.

He looked at the whiskey in the glass and realised how little he wanted it, how different he was from the guy who so needed it back in the day and how stupid he felt for letting himself down like he just did. A prickle of ego-mind edged at him, trying to tell him he was right, he had a right, blah blah - etcetera - but he didn’t believe in it; he did feel stupid for doing it. And for the life of him he didn’t know what do about it.

‘I-’ God, don’t say you’re sorry, for the love of Christ.

But he was. He should have acted better. All too suddenly he felt connections dotting together in his head, lines of code which made the program work; calculations could be made. He’d felt so happy about his life he didn’t even notice Flora fading away from him, until now, awash as he was in the blinking headlights of hindsight.

Life was good, but when was the last time they went anywhere together? When did he last take Flora on a date or complement her on her hair - those ringlet waves he loved to smush his face into - or take her on a drive with him?

He was sorry. Sorry for himself, because he could have acted better.

It doesn't matter what people do, it's how you react. And he just reacted like a toddler.

‘I let my rage get the best of me.’ He admitted. She laughed through her nose, those eyes went wide in a nooooo, really? kinda way. ‘Alright, alright, slow your roll. I was a dick, but you don’t get to wriggle out that easy.’

He actually laughed. It was funny all of a sudden. He just threw his toys out the stroller, hard. But now he felt better about it, somehow.

‘And I bet my reaction back there has something to do with whatever it is about me that made you want to do... stuff, with Blondie back there. Am I right?’

A jut of the jaw. A chink in the armour. No, idiot, not the armour. The wall she erected to protect herself, you jackass.

‘Look, I wanted to hurt you back.’ He admitted freely. ‘Hell, I’ll just be honest; I still do. Seeing you in that douche bag's arms like I did just about killed me.’

That fine-line jaw set itself in, holding together at the seams.

‘Why couldn’t you just talk to me, Flo?’

Tears. From both parties.

‘Because you-’

Never listen. Never here. Never, never, never. He heard it all in the air between them as he closed the gap, hugging her at the shoulder and feeling as she went from stiff to soft, and eventually hugged right back.

The two of them held one another like this for a long, teary, glowing little while. It had been, what? Six months since he had even bothered to hold her like this? Something like that.

No wonder. He thought to himself, humbled and oddly whole, all at once. It felt good to be close like this again, even though she hurt and he did, too. In his heart of hearts, he didn’t want it to stop. The truth, after all.

‘I didn’t sleep with him, by the way.’ He heard her say from head to jawbone in a voice as soft as butter. ‘I wouldn’t have... I don’t think.’

‘You just wanted me to see.’

‘Yeah.’ She said with a sniff at the end. Trembling a little. A little shook.

‘We should talk more.’ He said, laughing a loud, ripe laugh.

She gave his arm a squeeze, a real one.

One he felt a spark through.

‘I’d love that.’ Flo said to him.

And, hell... Dennis knew he would, too.