Courage To Live. Morgan Q O'Reilly

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      I didn’t hear Jack’s reply, probably just as well. He’d almost certainly stated, yet again, that I was the bitch from hell.

      By no means stupid, I knew how most of the neighborhood saw me. Kind of hard not to in a tiny insulated community of twenty-three narrow, gray vinyl-coated homes built over two-car garages separated by small yards. The neighborhood consisted of one street that bent ninety degrees with a handful of homes on the outside facing a semi-major residential thoroughfare. Few features identified individual homes. Mostly, a strip of faux rock facing on either side of the garage or a slight variation in color on the narrow trims kept our homes from being identical. A few had large, versus small, balconies overlooking the driveways and only a handful of us planted baskets and pots of bright summer flowers.

      Because of these attempts at gardening during the short season of long summer days, we in the neighborhood tended to be in each others’ pockets a fair amount during the sunny half of the year. Which was why the neighbors all knew and adored my husband. And missed him far more than Rob or I did.

      Quint wasn’t his real name, of course. He’d been born with the mouthful of Stilwell Crosby Cutler the Fifth, hence the nickname. It was how the family identified him in the lineup of descendants, of which Trey–SCC-III–and Ivy–SCC-IV–were still alive and kicking. Another reason I was hated–I’d refused to saddle our son with the sixth name in that line. Robert Crosby Cutler was plenty unwieldy and I called him Rob. His father called him Bob. One of our first big disagreements.

      In any case, I was the hated one, while Quint enjoyed the role of the poor, misunderstood, patient, saintly husband of the crazy woman. He loved to humiliate me by calling me Candyass, mostly at inappropriate times. Although I reminded people I preferred Candace, I routinely had to endure being called Candy. At work, my name had been shortened only once. My boss had gotten the message loud and clear. Thank God.

      With Quint and his truck missing from the drive and house, the looks had turned more suspicious, more furtive, more questioning. A few of the neighbors like Jack had even spoken with police when someone from Quint’s office had filed a missing persons report. I told the police then, and whenever they thought to check in, that I didn’t really care where Quint was, as long as he stayed far away. Since Rob had eventually convinced me to go to the hospital the night Quint left, they’d added the missing person’s report to my file. I did ask that if they found him, I’d appreciate them informing him of the impending divorce and the settlement he owed me. And the active restraining order.

      I limped into the foyer that also held the front door, and the short hall leading to a small bathroom, tiny laundry room and two cramped bedrooms. One of which functioned as my office-slash-crafts room, the other Rob’s bedroom. I kicked off my sandals and hauled my load up the stairs to the center of the main living floor.

      Horrible house design in my opinion. The kitchen should be on the same floor as the garage. It was one of the main reasons I’d continuously begged for a second refrigerator for the garage to sit next to the large freezer Quint insisted we have. The extra large, Alaskan Hunter’s Special from Sears. For the moose he meant to kill and butcher each fall. The last time the freezer had seen moose, or caribou, or salmon for that matter, had been when Pete, the neighbor to the south, had generously offered us some.

      Quint had picked the house and signed the loan while I was packing up our previous house and dealing with the movers. Because it took a minimum of three weeks to ship a container with household goods from the Lower 48–or Outside as Alaskans liked to call it–and the movers insisted on a destination address, Quint justified pouncing on the house before I had a chance to look at it. A fact I bemoaned every single time I had to haul in a load from the warehouse or grocery stores. I also routinely thanked my lucky stars that Rob was old enough to carry most of it for me. Bless the child, he was putting the groceries away while casting longing looks at the big screen TV.

      “Get the cold stuff in please, then you can play while I make dinner.”

      Rob sighed, but he nodded. He didn’t quite have the sigh down, but he worked on it. He was also an inch taller than my five-one and his feet were three sizes larger. I’d been raised to believe a child could do simple labor and contribute to the running of the household from the moment they began toddling. The fact he could reach higher than I meant he got to empty the dishwasher. Only fair, considering he used the most dishes. He also spent hours on end playing various video games. As he tended to have the top grades in school, rarely missed a day, practiced piano, studied Tae Kwan Do and spent the days in a summer program at the local gymnastics center, I couldn’t see being stingy with the playtime, especially over the long break. Sometimes it even served as a bit of bonding time with his father. Or had. It was one reason Rob did miss his father and sometimes looked at me with yearning, but never chastised me because I refused to put effort into looking for Quint.

      Lord knew I fought a battle of conflicting emotions.

      The fight with Quint six months ago had not only been our last, but the very worst. It had been building for years, just as his drinking had been increasing. Long story, but suffice it to say, our marriage had been over but for the shouting for at least a year before he took off. One of the reasons the neighbors thought me a shrew, surely, was Quint had a talent for subtle prodding. A cutting remark there, a bite of sarcasm over here. When he directed it at me, I could ignore him for a long time. When it came to our son, not so much.

      We’d been sniping at each other for months, and since I opened the windows whenever I could the sound carried outside far more than I liked. But Quint was that good at pushing my buttons. He never raised his voice, so everyone thought I was the evil one. They assumed it went with the red hair. But no, it’s the quiet ones with sharp tongues, the charming sociopaths, the subtle manipulators, who escalate the problems. The instigators.

      That night, Rob had eventually found an old landline phone to plug in and talked me into calling a cab to take us to the hospital where a doctor wrapped up my ribs, advised me to get the lovely and fashionable corset, then called the police. After the police took a cursory report, another cab drove us home through the thickly falling snow that had accumulated to about two feet over night. I had a locksmith at the house within the hour. Robbie figured out how to reprogram the garage door opener so Quint’s remote wouldn’t work. I was physically in no condition to move farther than my chair.

      I left the matter of finding Quint in the hands of the police. They had a description, his license number, the photo on file, as well as the information on his truck. The personalized plate made it easy. QUINT. Pretty unique. Later that day when the police came by to tell me they’d found the truck at the airport, my sense of panic eased, only I had no clue where he’d gone. Outside? Or had he climbed on a bush plane at nearby Lake Hood and flown into the wilderness? The police assured me they were investigating both options. The truck was searched and impounded. They found a dozen empty vodka bottles inside. I scanned and emailed the report to a lawyer and started divorce proceedings with a restraining order.

      Part of me shared a sense of relief with my son; the other part lived in fear of Quint’s return. In keeping with the СКАЧАТЬ