CREATURE by John Saul

Author:John Saul [Saul, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 1989-06-04T21:00:00+00:00

15

“It doesn’t matter what you thought, or what Jerry Harris told you,” Sharon insisted. “I’m your wife, and I’m Mark’s mother. You had no right simply to make a decision about Mark without even telling me!”

They were in the small sitting room area of the master suite. On the hearth, a fire was slowly dying. Blake had lit it when they’d come upstairs an hour before, for that afternoon a cold front had moved in from the north and a light snow was falling outside. But Sharon was oblivious to both the snowfall and the fire, her eyes fixed angrily on her husband. “Don’t you even understand what I’m saying?”

Blake shrugged tiredly. It seemed to him that the argument had long ago become circular, but once more he reiterated what he’d already told her three times: “You’ve already admitted that nothing terrible happened to him out at the center. In fact, all things considered, he looks pretty damned good. And you were exhausted this morning—you’d been up all night and you wouldn’t have been thinking straight.”

“But you still—” Sharon began.

“Enough!” Blake said. He’d been pacing the room, finally pausing at the window to watch the snow float to the ground outside. Now he turned to face her, his jaw set firmly in an expression that told her his patience had run out. “For Christ’s sake, Sharon, what do you think I intended? It’s not like I was trying to do something terrible! Jerry just suggested I have Ames look him over, and it sounded like a good idea! If I was wrong, I was wrong, and I apologize. But I wasn’t wrong!”

“Can’t you keep your voice down?” Sharon asked, her own dropping to a harsh whisper. “We don’t have to tell the whole neighborhood we’re having a fight, do we?”

It was a mistake. Sharon knew it was as soon as she’d uttered the words. Blake’s jaw tightened and his eyes glinted with anger. “No,” he said, “we certainly don’t. In fact, we don’t have to have a fight at all. I’ll see you later.”

Before Sharon could say anything else, he was gone. She listened as he stamped down the stairs and the front door slammed. From the curved window of the turret she watched him walk away from the house, his shoulders hunched, his head down. He was walking quickly, and she was certain she knew where he was going.

To the Harrises, where Jerry would assure him that he had indeed done the right thing, whatever his wife might think.

She turned away from the window and added a log to the fire as if the gesture itself would put a period to the fight. She wasn’t being fair, she chided herself. If Jerry thought Blake was wrong, he wouldn’t hesitate to say so.

She curled herself up in a small chintz-covered chair in front of the fire and tried to sort her thoughts out rationally, firmly putting aside the anger she felt over Blake’s failure to consult her before sending Mark out to Marty Ames.

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