Ruin Falls by Jenny Milchman

Author:Jenny Milchman [Milchman, Jenny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Suspense
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-04-22T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

She looked up a glazier, a real one, and arranged for an emergency appointment that morning. Liz tidied up the study, then the rest of the house. She stood by while the window was repaired, no word or notice paid to which glass was chosen.

There was only one place to go after that.

Liz drove through the gates and parked in Paul’s faculty spot. Security wouldn’t be too voracious about checking stickers before the start of the semester, and Liz wanted to get close to her husband’s office. She was tired, sleep largely lost to her now.

Paul had gone to school here in the mid-nineties, coming up from Junction Bridge, while Liz herself had been downstate at SUNY Binghamton. Liz had once expected to be a Lit professor, or maybe a writer, and Binghamton had a great English department. Funny how things ended up. Liz had met Paul during their senior years while she was home on break. After they started dating, she’d seen the struggle he went through as academia began to close in on itself. Even after getting a master’s degree—which Liz helped pay for, working mostly pointless admin jobs—Paul hadn’t been able to find any position besides a non-tenure track at his alma mater. But those early years of their marriage had served a purpose. They’d exposed Liz to Paul’s preoccupation with matters of the earth, and she had discovered a deep vein within herself that connected her to the outdoors. It made any life of the mind feel imprisoning.

She tried Paul’s office door, not surprised to find it locked. Backtracking down the hall, she was relieved to see Marjorie at her desk.

The secretary looked up, such a light of hope in her eyes that Liz almost pitied her.

“He’s not back,” Liz said.

Marjorie closed a window on her computer. “I suppose you wouldn’t be here if he were.”

“No,” Liz agreed. That had been the problem, hadn’t it? Her willingness to let life proceed largely at Paul’s direction, and unseen by her? She took a breath. “Marjorie, do you know if Paul kept a lockbox of some sort? Maybe in his office?”

“Not that I know of.” Marjorie rose. “But you can certainly check.”

The two of them walked down the hall so that Marjorie could unlock Paul’s office door. This room was neater and more spare than his office at home. The bookshelves contained the popular texts that Paul used in his courses—Bet the Farm, Garbology, The Humanure Handbook—but no teetering rows of journals. The desk was bare; Paul had simply brought his one laptop back and forth. And most of the drawers were empty. Here at school, Paul had demonstrated his philosophy of small living. There certainly was no lockbox. Liz felt something inside her deflate. She reached into her purse, reassuring herself that she still had the key, even though there seemed no place to make it fit.

“Thanks, Marjorie,” Liz said, watching the secretary read resignation in her eyes. “I think I’ll go try to catch Lia.”

She could thank their intern for her help last night, and apologize for the tension coming from Jill.

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