The Resident (part thirty)

Chapter Four

An Odd Man Out

(part thirty)

“You’re mad that I did something, or you’re mad because I talk to Aura. But! The whole thing about her husband is so…”

“They’re divorced, aren’t they? Not married. I’m not mad at you.”

“They are divorced.” Amusement…Claudie’s sort, understanding a joke he hadn’t made. “They were living in this cabin in California, he was teaching at a college. Managing the camp was another way they got money. Aura left the little girl, which was compatible…do I want to say compatible?”

Commensurate? Congenial? “With their getting along,” he tried. “What is her last name again?”

“Cheale? Do you mean Aura?”

“They got along, the Cheales. Not like couples who are dangerous to each other.”

His wife accused him of brooding. He watched Claudie sadden, grow silent, surprised at ugly divorces. Had she been raised in a cult? In another country, with her off accent, her fresh encounters with the English language…?

“They got along,” he said, “and Aura came to Oathbreach alone, to see if she and her father could get along.”

“And now they’re all together! And we have this beautiful house.”

A glance back, at the timbering and stucco, the upper story’s small proportions, as though the house had been baked in an oven, and risen. “Which is great, and why am I supposed to be mad?”

“One day, John, I will tell you something, a long story, because Gemma Quill… I lied she was Aura’s friend. Well, no, that’s not true. I implied lied. She’s my lister, even though you won’t understand that. Gemma has the authority to send me away. It doesn’t matter that we’re married, I wasn’t supposed to have attachments. I broke the rules.”

Claudie had talked herself to tears, while John in guilt felt the smallest buzz. A correct guess. “This is an immigrant problem?”

“No. Do you love me?”

His brain was barraged by movie scenes and songs.

He had got as far as how do I love thee, let me count the ways, when she said: “You can not. It just makes it easier. Or maybe worse. I love you, anyway, so I’m sorry.”

She said this, and when they’d kicked a few leaves, and stepped round to the laburnums’ shedding, she talked to John about Daniel Cheale’s mission to solve D. B. Cooper. He would go into the wilderness. He would hobble himself with a makeshift crutch, find a tree branch and pretend he needed it to walk. If he immersed himself in the choices Cooper had to make, deals would come, a book, a documentary, who knew, even the answer…

“So,” John cut in, “Aura’s husband is…kind of wacko? Actually? But she didn’t take her daughter.”

“They only talked about these things.” Claudie a little heated. “Whatever Aura decided, and if she went back and got their daughter, Daniel would quit his job and disappear. What’s wrong with that? People can have…”

She finished, her chosen words apt enough, “Complicated situations.”

43

An Odd Man Out

The Resident (part thirty-one)

(2025, Stephanie Foster)