The day before I left Mick in New York, I became uncontrollably ill.
I wasn’t sure if it was a virus or if it was just the uncertainty of how he’d take the news, how he might react. I couldn’t move, so I made a list of pros and cons about him, the way they do in romantic comedies and such.
Pros … he was a musician in high demand, a very nice-looking one at that. He was destined for what turned out to be his destiny – wealth, fame, fortune … a seemingly fabulous life. He veered from being soulful at times to being downright trite … yet somehow satisfying.
He crossed all genres.
He was a renaissance man to his core. In the beginning, at least, he treated me like a porcelain doll, handled me carefully and with great respect.
Which brings me to the cons.
Success had made him dismissive to the point of sheer arrogance. Never present or in-the-moment. His focus had left him, or at least his focus on me. It was like he had fallen under some sort of spell and he was in a constant trance-like state.
I knew the truth, though. Toothpaste simply can’t be put back into the tube. His brain was elsewhere. I needed to be, as well.
When I woke up the next day, alone, I felt a surge of energy. No more stomach flips or sickness. I knew what I had to do to get out, and I went.
Now, suddenly, it’s like I never left.
In elementary school, we had a bully in our class. His name was Sully. Every day he’d shake someone down for lunch money. Every day we’d rat him out to the teachers. Every day, he’d lose a recess. And the next day it would happen again.
On one bright, warm Wednesday – I remember what day of the week because that was the day we had art class – Sully was out sick. He missed Thursday and Friday, then again Monday, and everyone was wondering what was going on. The teachers told us he had come down with chicken pox, and the entire class rejoiced. There was peace and order and everyone was nice to each other.
We had been lulled into a sense of complacency by the time he returned. We’d forgotten the havoc he caused.
On the day he came back, the shakedown victim was me.
“Sully, I’m not giving you my lunch money, and if you have a problem with it, my grandfather’s a cop in Brooklyn. I’ll be happy to give him a call.”
To my surprise, he left me alone – only to victimize Brian, the skinny guy with thick glasses and freckles. But Sully never bothered me again.
A few weeks ago, I believed I was free of my grown-up bully, lulled into the quiet, unassuming nature of this small river town. Before the murders.
Before.
Now, I’ll have to look at him every single day on my way to work, to a business that I own as a result of his dirty money.
Makes a girl want to turn around and run – fast.
Gunnar Olafsson