a fourth story...'sailboat'

From the kitchen window he could see across the channel to a lone sail boat negotiating the swollen current, single tail light on.  His fingers felt the warmth of his cup of coffee, and for the first time in a long while he thought he could make out the abandoned lighthouse far, far away on the old promontory, and the waves rolling up and down the pebble beach.  He was still for almost an hour looking at the sea and the sail boat.  There was something engrossing about watching it struggle to make headway in the choppy waters and he found himself willing it on toward the refuge of the harbour.

When he returned to his armchair he had a yearning to talk with his wife.  She had left him a month ago on account of his drinking and was staying with her sister.  He wasn’t sure if it was temporary or forever – he had been passed out at the time, and couldn’t for the life of him recall what she had said.  She hadn’t taken many of her possessions so he assumed, and hoped, it was only for the time being.  But although the telephone was within arms reach next to a pile of nautical books on the satinwood reading table, he was loath to call her.  He was worried about two things: that his wife’s belligerent sister would pick up; that if he managed to get through to his wife, she would ask him if he had quit drinking altogether.  They weren’t so much in love anymore that she couldn’t see through his lies.

So he sat a little lower in his armchair and closed his eyes.  He thought of the sail boat and knew it meant something regarding his own situation.  And that he needed his wife back to will him towards sobriety.  He doubted his ability to do it without her.  How their relationship had shifted and changed over the years.

A little time had elapsed when he was awoken from his reverie with a start by the shrill chime of the telephone.  He knew it was his wife.  Who else could it possibly be?  He rubbed his eyes and swallowed before picking up the receiver – his wife’s dislocated voice spoke to him.  She asked how he was doing.  He said ‘fine’.  She asked if he was eating properly.  He said he was.  She asked if he was shaving.  He said he had done so just this morning.  She asked if he missed her.  He said he did, and he meant it.  Then she asked if he had stopped drinking.  He hesitated and then there was a long bleep and the line went dead.

What could not have been more than few moments later the front door bell rang.  He was up and there to answer it in no time.  When he opened the door a strange opalescent light shone into the hallway.  It took him a moment to take in his wife standing on the step, one ear painted blue and holding out a bottle of Jim Beam.