Business as Usual by Michael Boughn

Author:Michael Boughn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: NeWest Press
Published: 2011-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

10

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1993

Claire sat at the table in her kitchen watching the morning light flicker across the roses. A breeze ruffled the limbs of the oak in her backyard, sending shadows and light chasing each other over the rich red of the flowers. She pulled her bulky robe tighter around her shoulders, sipped at a cup of coffee, and felt her anger slip away in spite of her best effort to hang on to it. How could she stay mad? It was Saturday morning. Sunlight was streaming through the windows. And David had sent her roses. It was such a surprise.

When the doorbell rang yesterday morning, she’d been in a rush to get ready for work. Her first thought was “Oh God no, not missionaries, it’s too early,” but who else would be ringing her bell? She’d thought about not answering the door, but reluctantly changed her mind. The smiling face of a man holding a box of flowers had greeted her. She took them into the kitchen and opened the box. The note read: “I need you, Claire. I love you. David.”

It stunned her. When she got in this mood, she tended to see everything in a negative light, and her relationship with David was no exception. She sometimes thought it was only death that had brought them together in the first place — and that’s all that held them together. The night they’d met at Barry O’Neill’s party, David, not quite intoxicated, had opened up to her about his brother’s rock-climbing accident and how he thought of it almost every day.

They had been sitting in the backyard on the deck, watching the crescent moon over the escarpment. It was a late summer night early in September. The cicadas filled the warm air with their song. She’d found herself strangely at ease with — and moved by — this stranger whom she knew nothing about and she’d started talking about her parents and the accident that had taken both of them. In that moment of shared pain, they’d drawn together, and been together, more or less, ever since.

She smiled, reached out, and touched the roses, adjusting them in the vase. She didn’t really understand how six flowers could change her mood so utterly. Was she that superficial? But there you had it — one of life’s little mysteries. She knew she had overreacted. She had responded so intensely to that poor woman that she’d just lost her balance. Then getting back and realizing how far behind she was, how much work she had to do. Playing with David was fun. Sometimes. But she had responsibilities, damn it.

She got up and poured herself more coffee, then went to the window and looked out at the ravine and the creek flowing away to the lake. The thought of her parents brought a familiar ache to her chest, and then the memory of David showing her the stolen photograph. She still couldn’t understand how he could have done that. Maybe she didn’t want to.

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