An Odd Man Out (part seven)

The Resident

Chapter Four

An Odd Man Out

[rerunning the last several entries to help readers catch up, because I haven’t added to this story for months]

He knew her dismissal didn’t mesh. The friend of a casual friend doesn’t call to scold you. But a bent of John’s, a product of the Grey, was to cede all points to the energy drain of pursuit. Just now, today, don’t follow up. Don’t ask.

“I see you get broody,” she said, on an appropriate day in autumn, in the little woods around their new home, the morning’s sun gone. A frost warning for the night. Ferns green, through fallen maple leaves, gold.

They had taken Aura’s house…for retribution?

No, she was innocent. She and her daughter, Teconieshe had said, were having an apartment made at Oathbreach Farm. They wouldn’t want the house after all.

“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 campground 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! Well, minus Daniel. But 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 when I said she was Aura’s friend. No, that’s not true, I implied lied, that I didn’t know her. 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.”

43

Tithonians

An Odd Man Out (part one)

(2022, Stephanie Foster)