After staring at her Smartphone on and off for the past hour, tapping on Mike's name, then pressing cancel, swiping through the app pages - back and forward, then forward and back – and putting it back down…

"Hey," Stef finally says into the phone to Mike.

"Hey," Mike answers back. Their staccato greeting is awkward and uncomfortable, laden with tension and unspoken feelings – defensiveness, distance – yet they need so much to be gracious to one another.

"Did I wake you up?" Stef asks. Mike sounds…No, he's not sleepy, Stef thinks. She knows that drawl in his voice. It's not because of an extra long shift.

"No, um, just relaxin'," Mike says. Stef could hear the couch squish and creak through the phone as Mike rights himself from a lying to a seated position.

"Do you have time to meet on Friday after you close out?" Stef asks. "My mom's going to take Brandon for the weekend."

"Oh," Mike says, sounding more alert. "I had, I had plans. I wanna take him to a baseball game on Friday night. I bought tickets."

"Could you do it another time? We need to talk."

"Okay, that won't be a problem. I'll give 'em to Brad's kid. He could use 'em. Get Brad outta the house. He's goin' through somethin' with his wife, Sue. 'Member Sue? We had dinner with them-"

"Mike," Stef interrupts, "I want to meet about…I want a divorce."

During the silence on the other end of the line, all Stef hears is the pounding of her own pulse in her ears; it's deafening. The pregnant pause of nothingness is broken by a sound she's never heard before. It's the mangled roar of a wounded animal, the guttural bark of a being that's no longer human. Stef is not even sure the sound is coming from the other end of the line. She pulls the phone away from her ear and looks around her.

"Aaaaaarrrrrrrgh!" Interspersed with a series of pounding – first against wood, then against plaster – Stef hears brown glass bottles thunk! haphazardly to the floor; some spray shattered glass.

"Mike!" Stef yells into the phone. "Mike!"

"Aaaaaarrrrrrrgh," is the only response that Stef gets.

"You're leaving me for her?" Mike asks, his diction sharp and clear. "You're leaving me for that bitch!"

"You better watch how you talk about her," Stef says in her most authoritative police officer tone.

"That, that, fucking b-aaaarrrrrh!" Mike growls through clenched teeth. That fucking dy -aaaaarrrrrh. That woman's got you all screwed up. You're just lost and confused. Lost!"

"And she found me," Stef retorts.

"I didn't lose you. I never let you go," Mike says remorsefully. "You left me."

"I didn't leave you, Mike," Stef reassures him. "I didn't leave the Mike that I could always talk to, who always looked out for me on duty, who I made a beautiful son with. Mike, I left your drinking. I left your being out of control. I left because you checked out from Friday to Sunday with a bottle – "

"What we do is stressful," Mike interrupts. "You know that."

"I left you," Stef continues, "because you won't get help."

"Help?" Mike snickers. "You're the lesbian. I'm not the one with the problem. I don't need help. I don't have a problem."

"That's your problem," Stef snaps back. "That's why I left."

"You didn't care so much about our drinking when we were cadets," Mike says tauntingly. "But oh, once you sobered up, you got all high and mighty and now I'm not good enough for you. Then you go and meet some fucking wh—aaaaaaarrrgh and now all you have a taste for is pu-aaaaarrrrrgh."

"You're .Drunk. Mike," Stef says, disappointment weighing her every word. "Call me tomorrow."

"No, no, don't go. I'm sorry, don't go," Mike pleads. His voice softens, becomes almost tender. "It's just…so…hard. This is so hard for me. Everything. Is. So…A divorce, Stef? Divorce? Does your father know? Did you tell your father?"

The sound of the word "father" curdles Stef's stomach. A sour taste fills her mouth like morning breath after a night of vomiting.

"You still there?" Mike asks.

Stef cannot answer; her tongue feels glued to its root, hardened into concrete in her mouth. A sickening image of her father's face expression and reaction to news about the divorce materializes in her mind. The thought of telling him she's in love with a women sears through her bowels. Her knees buckle and her head suddenly feels like a sloshing fish bowl; she swallows past a bulging lump in her throat.

"I have to go," Stef says. "Sleep it off and call me…I'll call you." She disconnects the call without waiting for Mike to say, "bye".