The Good Neighbor: A Novel by Quinn Jay

Author:Quinn, Jay [Quinn, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

It’s all about give and take

THE EXODUS OF any morning traffic out of St. Marks Court had finished by the time Bruno stepped out of his house and walked to the end of his drive promptly at seven thirty. Bruno noted the winter’s sunlight hadn’t even made it over the tops of the houses on his side of the canal yet. So he stood beside his still street, glad of his suit coat in the chill, with his briefcase and suitcase waiting by his feet. The car service was behind schedule, but not yet late enough to give any cause for alarm. Still, he undipped his cell phone from his belt and looked at its digital screen to make sure he hadn’t missed any calls saying the driver had been delayed. Bruno hated this in-between time of travel, this waiting to get going, this stasis before leaving home and Rory behind to join the world of work and larger concerns.

He was not one to look behind him with longing at any time, never less so than when he was leaving on a trip. Long last looks were for losers and pessimists. Bruno had no doubt he’d soon be back in this drive with a successful week in New York under his belt. He gave no thought to towers that might collapse and fall in on themselves. He wasted no time wondering what horror could suddenly come from a madman’s urge to snuff him out as a by-blow in a larger condemnation of his world. Bruno didn’t move but in one direction, and that direction had no exits for fear or unanswerable questions about the nature of things beyond his control.

Still, something about leaving Rory this time niggled at the back of his mind. It was nothing he could put his finger on. They had not fought. They hadn’t exchanged any cross words. But there was an underlying sense of something not quite right, not quite said, not quite usual in Rory’s goodbye. It was as if Rory was holding something back. There were hints of storm clouds in the atmosphere that Bruno couldn’t see, but made the hair on the back of his neck stand up just the same.

Bruno glanced over his shoulder toward the front of the house, half expecting Rory to be watching him from behind a window or a crack in the door. The house betrayed nothing but its usual grand façade. It was the home of a successful man, and Bruno relished its stolid presence at his back for just that reason. But this morning, it was as if the house had turned its back on him, wearily. It called to mind the same look and feeling his mother used to give him and his brothers when their antics had pushed her beyond all patience and endurance. She’d turned her back on them as if to say she really didn’t care anymore about anything they did. Her turned back seemed to say her disappointment with them was too great to waste time on recrimination, correction, or tears.

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