Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

Then he leaned back and laughed. “Sure. You got it. Why the hell not? Come back at ten-thirty... it slows down pretty much then... breakfast traffic leaves me alone and it’s a bit early for the lunch traffic.”

“Thanks, that’s very kind of you,” she said, feeling just a bit light-headed. The first step, the very first step, but it was progress.

He stood up and wiped his hands on his apron. “But I can only give you a half-hour or so. Okay? Some people love an early lunch, and I hate to disappoint my customers.”

“I’m sure,” she replied, and when Jason got back to the grill — accompanied by some catcalls and shouts for goofing off on the job — she reached into her purse, took out a five-dollar bill, left it on the counter, and then walked out.

Home.

She paused in the driveway, in her Volvo, still listening to the radio gallantly try to pull in that elusive NPR station. She had nearly four hours to kill before returning to the Have a Seat diner. Up ahead was the house, a small one-story ranch on a nice sloping lawn that had a view of the Connecticut River Valley. It had about an acre of woods in the rear, and a few times, early in the morning, standing by herself in the living room, she had seen deer grazing on the shrubbery down by the mailbox. She had grown up in apartments and condos. It was the first house she had ever lived in, and the first day she had seen it had also been the day she and Casey had moved in.

She got out and walked up to the door.

It was a house.

It wasn’t home.

And the damn thing was, it had seemed so... well, if not logical, then it had some sort of crazy sense to it, and only later did she think that Casey had this all planned out, years and years earlier. After marriage and a honeymoon filled with love, laughs, and lots of fun, they had settled into their lives, a routine that she had loved, he off to his high-powered trading firm, she off to the Journal and occasional assignments out of town. Nights at restaurants or pubs, circles of friends from the business world, weekends at the Hamptons or up the Hudson River Valley, lots of laughs, but... there had been some edgy times. Just little spats here and there, and one day, well, one day, he had come out and said it.

“Look, we’ve got to leave,” Casey had said.

“Leave what?” she had said, grinding coffee beans in a German-made coffee grinder that offered twelve different levels of coarseness. “The apartment? The neighborhood?”

“Nope,” he had said, “Manhattan. The whole package.”

She knew she looked ridiculous, standing there in her Bloomie off-the-rack bathrobe, container of ground coffee in her hand, but still... “I’m sorry, what did you just say?”

His somewhat friendly expression suddenly chilled. “You heard me. I’m not kidding, Elaine. Look, we’re not getting any younger. We’re getting shackled in what we’re doing, me with the firm, you with the newspaper.”

“I don’t think I’m shackled.”

“You don’t?” he shot back. “How many times have you complained about your editors, about your travel, about your assignments? How many times have you told me you’d really like to dump it all and start writing a novel? Am I right? Don’t you want to write that novel you’ve talked about so many times?”

And with each sentence, each phrase, his voice got tighter and sharper, a type of assault she had never experienced before. “Sure, Casey, one of these days, I mean—”

He made a chopping motion with his hand, smacking it into the other hand. “That’s what I mean! One of these days! One of these days, I want to have my own firm, and one of these days, you want to write your novel. And I’m telling you, Elaine, I’m tired of waiting. We’ve got to do it now. Dump everything, cash out, and get out of the city. Go someplace remote where we’ll have an edge. Do it now before we’re stuck.”

So she had stood there, dumbfounded, coffee grounds in her hand, wanting to tell him that she didn’t feel stuck, that despite her complaints, she felt pretty good about herself, but there was something in what he had said, those little worms of worry... Was she ever going to do that, write that novel? Fulfill that college-age dream? Sure, one of these days... and before you know it, the days have all passed by.

But she kept her mouth shut. For she had looked into his eyes, and for the first time — and, alas, not the last — she had been frightened at what she had seen.

Inside her New Hampshire house, she heard her footsteps echo loudly. Casey was gone on yet another business trip, stirring up potential clients, trying to get his business up and running, at least making it self-supporting; for right now, it was sucking away at their combined savings every bloody month, and lately Casey had been making sounds about having to tap into their IRAs, which scared her to death. That was retirement money, money to live a good life when you were older, for if you believed Social Security was going to do it for you, there were many Manhattan bridges that Elaine could name that she would try to sell you.

She went to the doorway of the spare bedroom that she had turned into an office. Quiet. Silent computer. Filing cabinet empty save for some unfilled folders. Notebooks, pens, pencils. Credenza with a little library of books on top of the polished surface. A nice little office in which to write a nice little novel, a nice little novel that she had yet to get beyond Chapter Two. My God, she could write stories about complicated SEC filings and business mergers with a fifteen-minute deadline, but facing that blank screen every morning to try to create something that would grab at people and make them read, to make a fictional universe come alive with characters that seemed to breathe and live and laugh... It got so that she hated her office, hated that mocking computer, could barely function when she sat in her expensive chair and stared at the blank screen.

She looked about the house some more — at how clean and tidy it was, and she felt that sick little ache in her, knowing if Mother was here, oh lord, what Mother would say. She would say, what do you expect, having dumped your dreams and desires in somebody else’s lap? That now everything was merged so that the household budget was examined every other week to make sure she wasn’t spending too much on groceries or newspapers or whatever, so that the funds were there to keep the Riley Financial Advisory Group up and running.

That’s what Mother would say. The usual bull about taking it to the streets, fighting oppression, making sure women had equality in this world, and Mother would look at her daughter and shake her head in disappointment.

Disappointment that she was taking a giant step backwards.

And the damn thing was, Mother would be right.

She went into the living room, looked at the shiny table, and folded her arms.

Remembered some more.

It had been a frustrating day. After the morning and early afternoon, the writing had produced exactly two pages, two pages of crap she was sure she would delete tomorrow. And so she had gone on a run, to clear her head, in sweats and sports bra and T-shirt, and halfway through her route, clouds had rolled in across the valley and had dumped themselves on her. So she had run home in the rain, the water drenching her, passing trucks and cars spraying water on her, and from the mailbox she had retrieved the mail.

Into the house she had gone, sneakers squishy-wet on the floor, dripping everywhere; she dropped the mail on the dining room table and had stripped her clothes and taken a hot, hot shower, embarrassed at the tears that had flowed down her cheeks while the hot water failed to warm her up, and then...

And then...

Well.

Terrycloth around her still-wet hair, she came out and almost shrieked, for Casey had come home early, was standing there, in the hallway, and those eyes.