He threw on a jacket and bolted the house not wanting to make his way through the bottle of whiskey. He was wearing street shoes which were wet within a few blocks and he stumbled on a curb and nearly fell when the power of the big drink hit full force then he walked more slowly. He made it out to the city park, Presque Isle, for a gorgeous sunset which somewhat subdued his panic but not completely. He was brooding over a case that had preceded their separation and over which Diane had become very angry. In a small town far to the west three upstanding young men had seemingly kept a girl just over eighteen hostage in their deer cabin for three days. They had stowed her clothes outside and she was nude and hysterical when a visiting hunter came to the cabin. The perpetrators were out hunting and the girl had refused to run for it without her clothes. She was from a “trailer trash” family and when the local prosecutor talked to her father he said that she had always been “haywire.” It was a dicey case indeed and when he had described it to Diane she demanded a prosecution full-speed ahead. Sunderson was less sure. When he talked to the perps who were all married with young children they were remorseful and used the excuse that they had all been drinking too much, an excuse all too often honored by some judges with a “boys will be boys” attitude. The prosecutor and Sunderson had agonized over the matter and decided against going on with the case, which would permanently injure the young men with felony convictions. The girl was trying to withdraw the charges under the pressure of her parents. They could have gone ahead anyway with the initial charges but the prosecutor felt too vulnerable in the community and chickened out. Diane was enraged when Sunderson had stupidly said, “She’ll get over it,” then went on to explain he couldn’t continue without the prosecutor which was less than true. Oddly, in a follow-up inquiry the young woman seemed to be doing well having moved off to Duluth with a friend.
He was utterly fatigued and wobbly when he completed the nearly two-hour walk home, much longer than necessary because he had made a wrong turn and had walked toward a small rented bungalow they had lived in during their happier times early in their marriage. He could barely acknowledge his mistake but then blamed it on his age rather than on a questionable mood.
When he reached the house there was an unfamiliar car parked in front and the kitchen light was on in the late afternoon winter darkness. He walked across the yard then peeked around a maple tree and could see Diane and Mona chatting at the kitchen table. He stood there not wanting to go in his house and face the music but then realized there was no music to face. He slicked back his hair and entered through the porch door with a thoroughly fake smile. Get a grip on yourself, he thought.
“My goodness but you look good. Mona said you’ve become a fitness buff.” Diane was grinning with no backspin.
“Retirement is more complicated than I thought it would be so I’ve been walking a few hours a day.” He wished the open whiskey bottle wasn’t on the table. To his surprise Diane poured herself a shot.
“I was wondering if you could drive Mona to Ann Arbor and then over to Kalamazoo to look into colleges? My husband is too ill for me to leave.”
“Of course. I’d be glad to.” This was a lie. He had a peculiar fear of heavy traffic.
They left to go out for dinner without inviting him. He wouldn’t have gone but was still slightly miffed in the manner of a girl who didn’t get invited to the prom. Before they left Diane said that she and her husband wanted he and Mona to come for Christmas. He accepted when he noted Mona’s eagerness though in truth he’d rather stay home and suck a dozen raw eggs. He sighed wanting a whiskey but decided to delay it for after he had done a little reading and cooked supper. Diane, always prim and proper, looked ten years younger than her age of sixty-five. Marion had observed that in the past decade women were staying younger much better than men. He wanted to talk to Marion but he was off in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with his wife for a meeting on Indian affairs after which they were traveling to Guadalajara in Mexico for Christmas vacation. He opened D. H. Lawrence’s Studies in Classic American Literature but something not clearly definable was nagging at him. He called Carla.
“What are you wearing?” he asked impulsively.
“A blue cotton skirt for work. White cotton short-sleeved blouse. It’s warm here. Robin’s egg blue bikini panties. You want to try some phone sex?”
“Yes and no but not really.”
“I want your thick fat cock in my mouth,” she laughed.
“Never mind, please. We’ve tried very hard and Mona’s a computer whiz but we can find little information on King David’s past except some French stuff, and almost nothing on his childhood.”
