Homeport

dark and light lining the shelves. Fifths and pints and quarts just waiting, just begging to be selected.
    Try me and you’ll feel better. You’ll feel fine again. You’ll feel fan-fucking-tastic.
    Glossy bottles with colorful labels. Smooth bottles with manly names.
    Wild Turkey, Jim Beam, Jameson.
    He picked up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, running a finger over the familiar black label. And sweat began to pool at the base of his spine.
    Good old Jack. Dependable Jack Black.
    He could taste it on his tongue, feel the heat slide down his throat and fall welcome to warm his belly.
    He took it to the counter and his fingers felt fat and clumsy as he reached for his wallet.
    “This be all?” The clerk rang up the bottle.
    “Yes,” Andrew said dully. “That’s it for me.”
    He carried it with him, tucked into its slim paper sack. He felt the weight of it, the shape of it as he walked.
    A twist of the top, and your troubles were over. The nasty ball of pain in your gut forgotten.
    As the sun set toward twilight and the air cooled, he went into the park.
    The yellow trumpets of the daffodils were rioting, a small ocean of cheer backed by the more elegant red cups of tulips. The first leaves were unfurling on the oaks and maples that would offer shade when the summer heat pounded during its short stay in Maine. The fountain trickled, a musical dance at the center of the park.
    Over to the left, swings and slides were deserted. Children were home being washed up for supper, he thought. He’d wanted children, hadn’t he? Imagined making a family, a real family where those in it knew how to love, how to touch each other. Laughter, bedtime stories, noisy family meals.
    He’d never pulled that off either.
    He sat on a bench, staring at the empty swings, listening to the fountain play, and running his hand up and down the shape of the bottle in the thin paper bag.
    One drink, he thought. Just one pull from the bottle. Then none of this would matter quite so much.
    Two pulls, and you’d wonder why it ever had.
     
    Annie drew two drafts while the blender beside her whirled with the fixings for a pitcher of margaritas. Happy hour on Friday nights was a popular sport. It was mostly the business crowd, but she had a couple of tables of college students taking advantage of the discount prices and free nibbles while they trashed their professors.
    She arched her back, trying to work out the vague ache at the base of her spine as she scanned the room to be certain her waitresses were keeping the customers happy. She dressed the birdbath glasses with salt and lime.
    One of her regulars was into a joke involving a man and a dancing frog. She built him a fresh Vodka Collins and laughed at the punch line.
    The TV above the bar was showcasing a night baseball game.
    She saw Andrew come in, saw what he had in his hand. Her stomach took a slow nosedive, but she kept working. Replaced crowded ashtrays with fresh empties, mopped damp rings from the bar. Watched him walk to it, take a seat on a vacant stool, set the bottle on the bar.

    Their eyes met over the brown paper sack. Hers were carefully blank.
    “I didn’t open it.”
    “Good. That’s good.”
    “I wanted to. I still want to.”
    Annie signaled to her head waitress, then tugged off her bar apron. “Take over for me. Let’s take a walk, Andrew.”
    He nodded, but he took the bag with him when he followed her out. “I went to a liquor store. It felt good to be in there.”
    The streetlights were shining now, little islands of light in the dark. End-of-the-week traffic clogged the streets. Opposing radio stations warred through open car windows.
    “I walked to the park and sat on a bench by the fountain.” Andrew shifted the bottle from hand to hand as if to keep it limber. “Nobody much around. I thought I could just take a couple of pulls from the bottle. Just enough to warm me up.”
    “But you didn’t.”
    “No.”
    “It’s hard. What you’re doing is hard. And tonight, you made the right choice. Whatever it is, whatever’s wrong, you can’t add drinking to it.”
    “I saw Elise.”
    “Oh.”
    “She’s here for the exhibit. I knew she was coming. But when I looked up and saw her, it just slammed into me. She was trying to make things better, but I wouldn’t let her.”
    Annie hunched her shoulders, jammed her hands into her pockets, and told herself she was insane even pretending she and Andrew stood a chance. That she stood a chance. “You have