The sound of a key scratching against the door’s lock pulled my attention away from a clip of Chris Harrison elegantly trying to calm a drunk woman down amidst her tears and profound knowledge of love’s deep meaning.
I lifted the remote and clicked mute, returning my attention to the door. The scratching sound continued, and I lowered my feet from the ottoman, hoisting myself from the plush containment of the sofa. “Hello?” I called out, staring at the door as if an inanimate object would respond.
My nerves were on edge while wondering who would be trying to get into the apartment at that hour.
With my clammy palms pressed up against the wooden door and rose to my toes and squinted my left eye to peek out the fishbowl hole. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Keegan fumbling with his keys.
I swat at the lock and yank the door open. “You scared me half to death. What in the world are you doin’?”
Keegan stumbled back a step or two, clutching his chest as if he was having a heart attack. His mouth was jagged, wrenched with a look of pain. “You scared me,” he said breathlessly. “I didn’t—you—why aren’t you at work?”
At that moment, I wished there was a woman behind him, there to follow Keegan inside for a scandalous affair, but the only thing behind his back was a bottle of Jim Beam.
I lunged at him, grabbing the bottle. “Were you just driving?” I seethed.
“It—babe, babe ...” he steps in toward me, forcing me back into the apartment. The scent of whiskey burned my nose, and the sight of the sweat beading on his forehead, and the grease coating every strand of his hair forced my stomach into snarling pain.
“Don’t,” I tell him.
“You don’t—Auggie, you don’t get it.”
“You’re not at work, you’re drunk, you just drove from wherever you got drunk, and you’re standing here sweating like a pig. I don’t think you should be telling me what I do or don’t get, Keegan.”
I thought things were better, but I realized we were just going through the motions of denying reality. Keegan thought if I didn’t know what he was doing, it wasn’t an issue.
“How long have you been doing this again?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, shuffling over to the sofa.
“We were celebrating Phil’s birthday.” From what I knew, Phil was a guy he got friendly with at the bar he frequented.
“In the middle of the afternoon?” By the look on his face, I could see he didn’t know what time of day it was. “Sit down, Keegan. We’re going to talk.” I tell him, grabbing the material of his flannel shirt and pulling him over to the couch.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied, playfully like the situation was funny.
“I’m not your momma, Keegan, and I’m not going to beat around the bush. I will not go through this with you a seventh time. I’m going to ask you again. How long have you been drinking?”
In a childlike manner, Keegan held up his fingers, bending each one down in an appearance of counting. “Just a week.”
A week of drinking meant he was already neck-deep in trouble. I was surprised he managed to keep it from me for so long.
“You’re going to AA in the morning,” I told him.
“I ain’t got a problem, Auggie.”
I laughed because his statement was funny. His words were funny. I told myself he was delusional if he thought he didn’t have a problem, but those thoughts were just floating into dead space because it’s common knowledge that someone with a severe problem can’t see their troubles at all. I studied him, waiting to see if he had anything else to say. I hated the way he looked when he had fallen off the wagon.
Keegan’s head appeared disjointed from his shoulders. His neck protruded with a weakness. His tawny brown eyes had taken on a gray hue in contrast to the scarlet veins webbing throughout the pale-yellow coloring. His stare was emptier than the glass he had just left behind, but his heavy eyelids were covering most of the truth. Those lips I used to love to kiss hung as if someone had beaten him in a boxing ring.
An unfamiliar person might have thought Keegan was merely tired, but it was the look of reconciliation with a vice that has threatened his life many times before.
“I’m tired,” he added. “I’m going to bed.”
“It’s two in the afternoon,” I reminded him.
“Well, I have a headache.”
“Of course you do,” I scolded my boyfriend—a grown man, not my child.
