A Piece of Evidence - Kaye Doiron

He sits watching the clock, he has finished every beer in the house and is about to move on to the hard stuff, the stuff he knows he shouldn’t…It is five fifteen, she said she’d be home early today. He fights the urge to call and check up on her, to rifle through her personal things, to look at her calendar, to open her email. The ice makes a crisp sound that cuts through his thoughts as he pours another shot of whiskey over it. His brow is deeply furrowed, he sits bent over his knees, his tall lanky body gracefully balanced on his elbows, the cigarette burning beside him. The jealousy boils inside him and turns to rage, he can see her now, in the process, right in front of him making love to someone else. He lives it like it’s really happening. He knows he cannot allow himself to trust her. He knows that she is just like all of the other women he has known. They’re all whores. Look at her. She is magnificent, she is talented, she is successful. He cannot bear to think what she does all day alone at her office, without him. Who is there with her, who will she meet while she is not with him, who will she betray him with?

She can feel his energy the moment she opens the door and walks into the hall. She smells his anger. She remembers now that she told him she’d try to come home early today, but the work just didn’t stop pouring in. She tries to put all the happy energy she can into her voice, “ Sweetheart, I’m home!” No response. She wants to turn and go back to work, go down the street and have a drink, but she is compelled to smooth his brow, to run her hand along his tight shoulders, to tell him he is the only man in the world for her. She also knows it will not work. She knows there is not one piece of evidence she can offer him that will ease his troubled heart, this is his demon and he must learn to tame it.