Curled in the Bed of Love by Catherine Brady Page B

at the windows of my house. I can’t see Nathan’s shadow anymore. I can’t see any shadows behind the blank, translucent eyelids of the window shades. For a minute it seems as if I’ve only imagined the life I know goes on inside that house, belongs to me, welcomes me back.
    â€œCan we go now?” I say.
    â€œYou can do whatever you want,” Walter says.
    When I get up from bed after we make love, Jay puts earplugs in his ears so I won’t wake him when I come in later, a practicalprecaution that invokes guilt more effectively than a protest would. At my computer, I’ll feel the pull of his wanting me to stay in bed, of his sane dismay at my foolish late hours and the price I’ll pay tomorrow when I drag myself through the day. The four golden rules of AA are that you never allow yourself to stay hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. HALT .
    I used to have to stay up later than Jay. When I was drinking, this was my chance to indulge without witnesses, devour stolen pleasure. When the bottle was empty, I’d exchange it for a full one from the case I kept hidden in the garage. I’d open the new bottle and pour off the equivalent of the glass or two I’d had with dinner, so that when Jay opened the fridge in the morning, the bottle would be there, telling a lie for me. I used to imagine that he observed me that carefully, that I had so much work to do to hide my secret.
    Now I have nothing to hide except for the handouts on grammar that I type for my students while the house hums with silence. I print out the night’s work on the computer, and then I click on the solitaire game. You can’t cheat at solitaire on the computer. I’ve learned little strategic tricks: I never draw from the deck if I can move a faceup card and turn over the card beneath it instead. But chance determines whether each game is a process of slowly dwindling options or unexpected, expanding possibilities. I cannot quit until I’ve won three games. Even if my eyes grow heavy lidded with drowsiness, I have to keep playing, out of a narrow need so simple that I can vanish into it.
    As usual Walter arranges things so that he’ll be the last person I drop off. When we arrive in front of his house, he doesn’t get out of the car. He asks if I’d mind if he has a cigarette before he goes.
    We smoke together, watching the men who stand outside the corner liquor store, clutching brown paper bags twisted tight around the necks of bottles. It is cold enough that their breathsform clouds, unfurling so thick and white I’m reminded of smoke pluming from a locomotive, from some indefatigable engine of misery. The cloud of smoke in my car is tinged with the smell of gasoline that always clings to Walter, who nowadays is lucky to have a job pumping gas. This secret commingling of odors reminds me of my mother, who came home from work smelling of chocolate, a stale, cloying odor that should have been sweet but wasn’t.
    â€œI sure could go for a nice cold beer,” Walter says.
    â€œI only drank wine. Good California white wine.”
    â€œYou lie right and left,” Walter says. “Bullshit you only drank wine. Never had a desperate moment when you drained the cough syrup.”
    â€œWould you give me a break? I already have a complex about my piss-poor drunk credentials. I never have any big confessions to make at meetings.”
    â€œNo. You’re always so full of sweetness and light. Why do you put that on for all the other drunks? Like they don’t know the scam.”
    â€œWhat do you want me to do? Apologize for being happy?”
    Walter unlatches the door and heaves it open with a grunt, as if it requires superhuman effort. “You’re not happy,” he says.
    Hannah has to make up word problems for her math homework. I help her count the books on the shelves in the bedrooms, the living room, my basement office, so that she can write a problem that