Promise

He was sober for three days before he started again; tried to hide it from me. I'm not stupid.

He made me promise that it ends today and forever. We shook and held hands, which for us is a damn lot of touching.

He went out tonight. It was supposed to be the bar down the street, but he came home an hour after the bars closed in a lime green taxi cab. He doesn't know, right now, where he left his Jeep.

I woke with a start about 2:20 and got up soon after. I've never been so glad for the zenish chore of writing apple butter, apple butter, apple butter over and over again. The smell of the hot glue gun and the warm press of the burning stuff under the ribbons soothes my shaky fingers.

So the treats are all finished and in the van. I am exhausted, but at least I'm calm. Letting go of the control his actions have over me is so hard.

I have to be up again in an hour and a half. Wednesday's lunch is all but made, there's coffee in the pot, and a promise to be upheld from now on.

We'll see.