Excerpt
Michaels red Grand Jeep Cherokee crept up slowly in front of the old residence at Valmontis, completing a long and unpleasant ride from D.C. He parked carelessly and pulled his two black bags from the back, before closing the hatch.
Grabbing a handle with each hand, he moved toward the residence, his eyes low, his shoulders slumping dramatically.
He climbed two steps and set his bags down beside one of the two wicker chairs that had been placed on the porch for leisure.
He was not in any rush.
He sat and peered out over the vast expanse of land. With many difficult days ahead of him, his life was not going to be easy.
The emotional recovery was going to be long and arduous. It was possible that it would never end.
He knew that he would have to be honest with himself and deal with things head on. Perhaps, what he feared the most was his newly-discovered ability to lie to himself, something that he had learned to do quite effectively after Kanatas death.
Yet, he loathed the idea of forced idleness.
Thinking about it almost made him regret his decision to take some time away from the office and come to Valmontis.
In fact, the case for a personal leave had been made by his law partner, Glen Marsham. A couple of weeks, maybe more, in a quiet bed-and-breakfast, Marsham had argued, would allow Michael to heal and begin to regenerate. With Marshams retirement impending, it was the time to go anyway.
Michael was suddenly very tired.
He moved inside and checked in. A red-haired bellhop escorted him to the Presidential Suite. This was a special room that had been reserved for him by Marsham. It consisted of a bedroom, a sitting room, and a full bathroom in the old nineteenth century style.
The man presented a chilled bottle of Seaview champagne, a fine vintage from Australia and left with a twenty-dollar tip.
Alone now, Michael sat down on the foot of the bed and rubbed his eyes.
The silence in the room was suddenly deafening and the lack of air movement was suffocating, causing him anguish beyond his ability to comprehend or even describe it. Yet, he had no tools to use against it, no training to apply. So, he was helpless, simply left to bear it.
He allowed his face to fall back gently into his hands.
Depression was hovering over him like buzzards circling in the sky, with Michael below, not yet dead but nonetheless defenseless.
He rubbed his eyes more vigorously now, digging in deeply with his knuckles for some time, before falling back onto the bed and staring up blankly at the ceiling.
His eyes tracked the concentric circles, providing him something to do, a necessary opportunity to count the thirty-two rings that made up the recursive pattern.
His mind returned to his conversation with Crosby on the steps of the Capital Building on the morning that they had all come to inform him that they were officially closing the investigation.
He actually remembered very little of what Crosby had said that day. With the exception of a nod of recognition at the funeral service, it had been the last time that Michael had talked to the man.
He had tried to call Cheryl Dewing twice without success getting through, so he had given up on that option. After weeks of torture, it had not gotten any easier for him.
He doubted if it ever would.
At the office, Glen Marsham had seen an understandable change in Michaels ability to concentrate and, as the senior man, had all but ordered Michael to take some time off work to adjust to the loss.
Although he had first seen it as concessionary and would have rather remained busy at the firm, Michael was compelled to accede to Marshams counsel.
He now toyed with the idea of calling Dewing to Valmontis. He had liked Cheryl and would have considered her great company.
Yet, he did not allow himself to give it any serious thought.
The pain of working through the depths of depression was his price to pay, not hers or anyone elses.
Kanata would have said that this was a guys thing.
Nonetheless, Michael would simply have to face it alone, and that was true enough.
He was already aware that the inactivity presented to him here at Valmontis was not going to work for him. His mind needed to remain active, to develop new memories and fresh history lines, so that every other thought that entered his brain may not be of Sterling Point, of Charles Crosby, or of the hopelessness of a life without Kanata.
He flipped on the television, suddenly eager to catch a Cubs baseball game. The feeble Cubbies were a diversion that he had always loved, and they were always on the superstation.
Since he was young boy in Chicago, like so many others, he had somehow found comfort in their suffering. Some things, at least, were not subject to change. He loved that and would have wallowed in it had there been a game on.
He turned off the television.
Already, it had been a long day.
He had suffered enough.
He settled back onto the bed, closed his eyes to the world, and fell asleep. 4
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