"Why so serious?" Donnie asked her, his eyes twinkling.

It was a longtime inside joke. They practically had their own language.

"Sit down, Donald," Eve told him. "Coffee?"

He nodded.

She rifled through the back of her java drawer for the flavored selections and retrieved a raspberry chocolate blend. A purist, she hesitated to even call it coffee, but who was she to judge?

"Roll us some cigarettes," she told him, watching as he went to her hutch, opened the bottom doors, and retrieved the tin of tobacco, the rolling gizmo, and the filtered papers.

"Fourteen months, six days, and—"

Donnie stopped mid-sentence, dropped the tin, and pulled out an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. In the bottom of the bottle was a rolled up piece of paper tied with a purple piece of yarn.

Holding it up, grinning, he said, "You still have this?"

That one, and about a dozen more, Eve thought.

There was a time when they'd spend the night laughing, playing naked Monopoly, and draining those bottles dry. Before they'd pass out, they'd always write down the date, along with a message to their future selves, tie it up with whatever was handy, and screw the cap on tight.

Neither had ever re-read their scrawled, shit-faced notes. Those were time capsules that needed to stay shut.

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"Anyways," Donnie said, returning the bottle to its dusty corner and taking a seat at the wooden table. He pulled a generous pinch of loose tobacco from the tin. "That's how long it's been."

"Yup," Eve replied flatly, handing him his sickeningly-sweet beverage. "Sounds about right."

She took the rolled cigarette from him and leaned in as he lit it for her.

"Why are you here, Donnie?"

He lit his own cigarette and took a sip of the hot liquid, a look of forgotten pleasure creeping across his slightly drawn face.

"Just wanted to make sure you were okay," he said, his eyes fixating on Eve's laptop.

She exhaled a stream of bluish smoke and grimaced. It was easier to humor him, and, given the current state of affairs, Eve thought he might just be right.

She stood from the table and placed her iPad and laptop gently in her microwave. As an afterthought, she grabbed her cellphone and added it to the pile before closing the door.

"Okay," she said, reclaiming her seat from her elderly tuxedo cat, Hanna. Hanna had been slowly stalking Donnie since he came in. She always was his baby. "Why are you here, Donnie?"

He smiled and nodded approvingly. "That's what I'm talking about."

Hannah made the leap of faith and landed in Donnie's lap, where she'd remain for the next hour.

Eve tried to gauge Donnie's state of mind.

He was engaged and he wasn't trying to swipe a malevolent spirit from her shoulder, so, that was a good sign.

But after the first few separated months, Donnie had never shown up at her door unless he was desperate. It was like, in his darkest times, some part of him knew he could always reach for the lifeboat of her sanity, her light.

And a desperate Donnie was almost always a tweaking balls Donnie.

This time, though, she wasn't sure. The jury in her head was still out.

A decade of the never-settled life he'd chosen for himself was taking its toll. He never had the "care-free" look. He'd never truly known a care-free life. When he wasn't scrapping for basic necessities, he was battling demons, both real and imagined.

Because, Eve would go to her grave swearing, if demons did exist, they dwelled in the cold, conniving heart that beat for far too long in the bitch that was his mother.

She wouldn't lie — not even to Donnie: She did a happy dance when that woman finally dropped dead.

Now, a spidery fan of creases crawled from the corners of his golden-green eyes. His auburn hair and the stubble on his chin were sprinkled with white. He was in his mid-forties now, and it showed in his sun-roughened skin and almost haunted gaze.

His eyelashes were still impossibly long, she noted. And his smile still felt warm and familiar.

He took a long drag, holding her gingerly with his eyes as he exhaled.

"I'm not sure," he replied. "I was kind of hoping you knew."