Steel, Titanium and Guilt: Just Hunter Books I to III by Craig Robin

Author:Craig, Robin [Craig, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2015-12-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 55 – Tears

Miriam pushed open the door to her home and went inside. She was exhausted. There had been explanations, debriefings, all the usual debris from a major operation, especially one that had gone sour. If anyone had died she would still be there.

Miriam’s story of what had happened was accepted, at least for now; there was no reason to doubt it. Amaro’s story supported hers, at least for the times they were together, and her injuries bore silent witness to her ordeal. Amaro had been spirited away by his own people, while Miriam and Jack talked with theirs and wrote up their preliminary reports. Finally they saw her wilting, and let her go. There would be more in the days to come, but for now she was wrung dry.

The place felt oddly empty. She looked around and realized that Amaro was gone in body as well as spirit. He must have let himself in and taken his things; the few possessions he habitually left in the lounge room and kitchen were gone. On the table was a single long-stemmed red rose laid on top of the keys he had left behind. Typical Amaro, she thought, even after all this. She sniffed the rose. It had no perfume. Like their relationship, she thought. Pretty on the outside but not fully real. She threw it in the bin.

She went and lay down on her bed. It still smelt of Amaro. Anger boiled out of her, and she practically ripped the sheets and bedclothes off the bed and threw them into the washer. She added a double dose of detergent and viciously put it on its heaviest duty cycle. Then she put her elbows on the machine and lowered her head into her hands. You’re being irrational, she thought. What do you want to do, burn down the house to be rid of every trace of him? But she knew the intimacy of the sense of smell. She wouldn’t have been able to bear it.

Mechanically, she put new sheets on the bed and sought refuge under the covers. She stretched out, feeling the crisp new sheets. Crisp new sheets for my crisp new life, she thought. She was spent. There was a limit, she thought, to what anyone can bear in one day.

But she could not sleep. She sat up cross-legged on the bed. Beneath the roller coaster ride of the evening was her anger and grief over Amaro. She remembered how in the past she had held on to the happiness of a relationship rather than wallow in the sadness of its end. But this was different. While there had been plenty of fun and pleasure during her time with Amaro, the underlying relationship that had given it meaning had never really existed. It was like a betrayal of the happiness she thought she had, and all that pleasure had turned to pain because of it.

Then under the anger and grief was shame, shame that she had been so thoroughly taken in by him.

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