The Bog Monster of Booker Creek by Wayne V. Miller

Author:Wayne V. Miller
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: ManyBooks.net
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

"Yes, I've got to find one."

"Let me talk to our house counsel. I can get a recommendation."

I looked her in the eyes. "I want you to know that I have done nothing wrong." Then, after a sufficient pause: "Except the trespassing thing. It's stupid, I know, but there's nothing to it. I promise you."

"I have to say that I wondered," she said. "Sometimes I'd call and you wouldn't even know I had left a message. And I felt I couldn't ask you."

"I understand," I said, for the lack of something better.

She hadn't said that she knew I had done nothing wrong, but in a parallel way I couldn't ask.

The silence, rather than expand the distance between us, seemed to bring us together that evening. In the silence was the impossibility of the guessing the future and the question whether we would be sitting together in a year's time. It was unsettling but made the moment more powerful: just sitting together, sharing our marriage as it teetered on the edge of my life's dissolution. Uncertainty in itself can be an overwhelming thing.

All of a sudden, I heard her sob. She was already trying to wipe her eyes clear when I looked.

I felt helpless. "I'm sorry," I said.

"That damn monster," she said weakly, and smiled at me for the irony of making it real just so that she could damn it.

Things can move quickly in the legal world when they must. I had an interview with a lawyer the next afternoon. He came highly recommended, "though he's not every one's cup of tea." I didn't know what that meant, but Doreen said: "I think in this case that can only be a good thing." There were a couple other choices, should I not feel comfortable with Mr. Kettle, but I got the sense they might be just a little less available. A bit of professional sharing the wealth, perhaps, with this recommendation?

Again I was faced with the question: How do you communicate innocence? Do you pretend this is no big deal? Do you dress the Sunday penitent? I opted for the ol' work clothes, though not the old work clothes.

I was quite underdressed, as I surmised in the waiting room when evaluating his secretary. She was on the older side, but thin, smartly dressed in lustrous rayon, attractively coifed with long brunette curls, and expertly made up, with perhaps too much blue mascara for her crows' feet and the circles under her eyes. "Mr. Kettle will be with you shortly," then the curt smile that you may think extinct but you will come to realize it's been preserved for a different class of people.

He came from the outside door, and greeted Ms. Van, then disappeared into his office. She avoided my glance until she went back to typing at the computer.

The door popped open five minutes later. "John," he said with force, as if we knew each other. Or maybe there was a question in it.

In any case, he strode to me and we shook hands.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.