Adduce (aka ‘Just One Drink’)

“It’s just one drink, just one glass of red to help me relax that’s all,” said Alan half concealing the glass behind his back. “It’s no big deal.”

Kay shook her head, disappointment etched across her face like that of a teacher finding her best pupil smoking behind the bike sheds. “If it’s not a big deal, why are you trying to hide it?”

“I’m not. I wasn’t. I mean,” blathered Alan. “It’s just that you startled me.”

“You promised me Alan. You said this time would be different. We agreed. Total abstention,” she kept her tone calm, level – as if to underscore her discontent.

“It has been. It is, different that is. I’ve not touched a drop in months.”

“So why now?”

He looked from the glass in his hand, to her and back again. “It’s because, well, you know, it’s his birthday isn’t it.”

Kay took a deep breath, her fingernails digging into the palms of her clenched fists. He was a selfish bastard, always had been. She couldn’t believe now, not after all that had happened, he would try and adduce having a drink on it being Liam’s birthday.

Or rather, it would have been. If he were still there with them.

“Do you think he’d want to see you drinking, Alan. Really?”

He looked down at his feet and shifted uncomfortably. “He wouldn’t mind. He’d understand.”

“And what about me, Alan? Do you think I’ll understand?” She could no longer keep the anger from her voice.

“It’s just one drink, love. That’s all. Just to help me get through today.”

Kay knew there was never such a thing as just one drink for an alcoholic. It was a doorway, an entry into the first level of self-inflicted oblivion.

She tried to recompose herself, knowing that he would use her anger as another excuse to take that first fateful sip. “I thought we agreed, Alan, that if there’s not a first drink then there’ll never be two, five or even ten more?”

He shrugged. “If only it were that easy, Kay.”

“You think any of this is easy for me, Alan?” she sighed, choking back tears. “Every day I have to urge myself to get up, to get on with life. Every day Alan. So I promise you, you take one sip from that glass, and I’ll walk straight out the door.”

She looked down at herself, her legs motionless in the wheelchair.

“As well as I can of course.”

“Please love, it’s just one drink, honest,” he whimpered, his voice cracking under the strain.

“That’s what you said that night, isn’t it?” she snapped, no longer able to control the venom she’d been bottling up for months. “The night you smashed our car into the back of a lorry. Just one more drink, you said, after all they were free weren’t they? It’d be rude not to. Unless, of course, you consider the life of our son to be much of a cost?”