– 06:49 am Atlantic Time, Wednesday, June 25th, 2025 – +19˚C /+67˚F & Sunny in our little corner of New Brunswick, Canada –

{{{ – Well, Dangit – I just spent over an hour looking for the above Screen Shot / Graphic – and WordPress wouldn’t let me add a caption –  { This is a screenshot of what happened when our connection to the Cloud that my ‘Interactive 3D Role playing world’ resided on or in —> Crashed –  Those are pieces of ‘landscape’ that were part of this area before they ran away and, um, “Ya really can’t get there from here …” or – ya couldn’t until we fixed it with our magic world editing ‘super glue’ talents etc. } The screen shot should be titled “Broken World” — Jim }}}

— The official Novel begins below the imaginary line I probably better make visible here, ya think?

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– The Split –

“You wouldn’t believe what happened on this one fine spring day in May.”

 

{ This is set in a parallel universe – where the time line was more than slightly different from the one where you most likely grew up – }

Prelude:

— Mark stepped onto his back deck and yawned – He smelled coffee brewing through the screened kitchen window. Cool breezes thrilled his face as the sun warmed his arms. He heard something and turned to see a huge owl land on the bench at the edge of the deck and saw a young man appear, standing in his back yard. The young man asked, “Is this land, ‘Turtle Island’? Or ‘North America’? – Are your countries, ‘Canada, The United States, and Mexico’? – or the ‘Turtle Island Confederacy’? Is this year – 1930 or 2025 A.D.? – Or ‘7799 Common Era’?”

— He suddenly had the odd sensation that flames were shooting up through his upper torso – and especially up through his neck and head.

* * * * *

— He sat up in his bed and gasped – looked around and slowly realized he’d been dreaming.

— He sighed and let himself fall back down onto the extraordinarily comfortable bed with its just as extraordinarily comfortable pillows and smiled at the huge print of a photo taken by a deep space telescope – the print that had been ‘decoupaged’ against the ‘ceiling’ of the custom made ‘Cube Bed’ with its ‘top of the line stereo system, surround sound { Bose } speakers – and the three flat panel television screens that hung on an angle at the ‘foot’ of the cube { with its light blocking curtains, king sized mattress and ‘decadent’ ‘electric blue’ satin sheets. } He still couldn’t actually believe this bed, or the bedroom, or the house – was ‘his’.

— He shuddered at the idea that just a few months earlier he would have looked at anybody who owned a bed like as being ridiculously ostentatious. But the lawyer who’d found him and explained that his uncle had left him this not so humble house and property – PLUS an extravagant check – and explained: “A large part of that was supposed to be a wedding present – when he couldn’t find you – and after he learned of your divorce – from your mother when she was sick in the hospice – he had me change his will to include this amount -” the man pointed to a line on a printout of the section of Mark’s uncle’s will that pertained to him – ‘to Mark’ – He’d gone into shock reading that the wedding present was $25,000.oo US Dollars – and continued – “He’d come up with that figure before the housing bubble – thinking you’d want to use it as a down payment on a decent home for yourself and your – um – now ‘ex-wife’ – and he told me – off the record – to tell you that you should spend it on something extravagant for yourself and possibly your second wife if and when you choose to re-marry.”

— The check the lawyer had handed him was for three times that original amount.

— Mark had gone deeper into shock and listened through a fog as the lawyer went on to say – “No taxes are owed on this property or the fully paid for vehicles in your garage –”

— There was a four wheel drive Japanese SUV that his uncle had ordered and told the lawyer on his death bed to transfer the ownership to Mark, and told his friend the lawyer to pay for everything – all taxes – all license fees – any  possible the gift tax – and any amount of money associated with the transfer of any proof of ownership documents –

— Back then, Mark had stared blankly at the lawyer – who continued, “He knew your estranged father had forbidden you and your sisters and even your mother from having anything to do with him – Knew that your father had erroneously believed he was a homosexual -”

— Mark had shuddered again, then nodded, “My father drank himself to death when he was out on parole for manslaughter after he ran his truck into a parade of Gay Pride demonstrators in Chicago -”

— The lawyer had nodded, and looked ‘concerned’ Probably because Mark had told him that three times in the past half hour.

— Mark shivered, focused all his senses on the impossibly comfortable bedroom he’d just woke up in – Then he shuddered as the memories faded and he glanced at the clock on the near by dresser and yawned – He sighed, closed his eyes, and felt pretty sure he would have no trouble falling back to sleep.

* * * * *

 

Chapter One: Before The Split

— Mark Hendriks:

— Half an hour after he’d awakened, startled by an unusually vivid dream – he sighed and dragged himself out of bed much earlier than he’d planned, walked to the ‘home weather station’ in one of the ‘Master Bedroom’s windows, yawned, shrugged – assured himself that it was an unusually warm Saturday morning in middle May, yawned again and stared blankly around the room until he walked into the ‘ensuite’ washroom in the house he’d inherited from an uncle he’d barely known. He yawned one more time and leaned on the marble counter around the twin sinks in the washroom he hadn’t been able to get used to in the two months since he’d moved in.

— A man in his middle twenties stared at him from the other side of the mirror behind the sink. Stared for several long seconds – almost like he couldn’t recognize the reflected human out there in the ‘Real World’ with its vivid impression of the opulent surroundings a few yards away, off to the human’s right side, the refection’s left –

— Everything had felt so foreign to Mark when he first moved into the house that looked like an unassuming ranch style house from the road and then looked like an upscale raised ranch with a wide and deep second story porch from the back. He shivered and wondered why he’d begun to feel so comfortable in the strange surroundings after what for him was a very short time.

— The tallish, thinnish man in the mirror almost looked like somebody he thought he might have guessed at a first glance could be a potential friend – if you discount the fact that he was nearly naked – And he looked healthier than the reflection he was used to – not exactly muscular – but he didn’t focus on what his ex-wife spent the last few months of their marriage pointing out as what she believed were glaring flaws. … Face it – she was looking for excuses to justify her – ‘roaming eyes’ – ?

— It usually took him several weeks – or a month or longer – in any new environment before he could easily fall asleep – More often than not he would lie in bed staring into comparative darkness with all his senses on high alert – ready to jump up and fight someone or something – or run to escape some real or imagined life threatening danger. Battle Fatigue? He’d been drafted and spent almost two years in comparative safety, unlike the thousands of his fellow draftees and enlisted men who spent their time out in the jungle –

— A young nurse, back in civilian life – the girl friend of a co-worker and friend he’d made in Boston – told him he probably had PTSD. – a diagnosis that was new in those days – and something the nurse wasn’t qualified to diagnose – something that maybe most doctors and psychologists believed was a ‘kinder and gentler’ name for ‘battle fatigue’ or ‘shell shock’?

— It could have been worse – another guy’s girl friend had sneered at him after he said he’d really enjoyed working nights on a special assignment that had expired. She’d sneered and said, “Yeah, Schizophrenics should work nights.”

— He’d laughed then and he smiled now – remembering how flustered she’d looked when he didn’t crumble under her verbal attack.

— Most of the people he’d met in the Boston area had been friendly, accepting, easy going – funny how a couple not so friendly people can leave a nasty impression of an unfamiliar city – or town – or whatever?

 

— He sighed and looked around.

— This house was ‘nicer’ than any house he’d lived in – certainly nicer than any of the houses he’d grown up in – It looked like something from a ‘Better Homes’ magazine – He thought he should feel weird about feeling so comfortable here so quickly – It had looked like a show piece, sterile, homogenized – when he first saw it. Now it almost felt like the house really liked him.

— Mark yawned again, sighed and nodded. He vividly remembered walking around inside the house with the lawyer who’d read him the clause in his uncle’s will and handed him the keys. Mark nodded as he reminded himself that he really appreciated getting this house ‘free’ and clear’ after his divorce – { After my divorce? – No, really – that was Susan’s divorce. }

{ Mark’s House – Main Floor & ‘Multi-Car’ Garage – Above }

— Culture shock?

— He’d graduated high school maybe six months before the newspapers all went crazy describing students in several area high schools and even junior high schools buying marijuana from each other before and after the school’s doors opened and the final bell rang.

— ‘Underground FM radio stations “were a new ‘thing’-” back then and they were playing some very interesting music with very interesting lyrics –

— He was drafted and sent to South East Asia before he could start classes at a new community college – sent to a country that was basically stuck in the stone age.

— He’d heard about ‘hippies’ and ‘The Free Speech Movement’ and even done a report for his high school Civics class on Mario Savio and the movement he’d led in San Francisco – Mario tried to kick military recruiters off the university campus. Mark’s time in the military had left him with the impression that Mario Savio was assuredly right – and the military was hopelessly insane –

— He did not expect to be spit at and called a “baby killer” when he stepped off the plane in San Francisco – where he had to be ‘processed’ back into civilian life.

 

— But in those two years, just under two years, actually – the country had gone from transistor radios to home computers, internet, and wireless ‘cell phones’ – and more…

 

— In his first civilian job he picked up on computer ‘technology’ { and practice } quickly and easily – and found himself promoted into a pretty good job with the company that the combat medic { – who was beside him when they were both spit at and called names in San Francisco – } talked him into applying for in Boston – where he progressed from filling in forms as the only guy in a room full of secretaries – { The secretaries who kept coming to him for advice on how to deal with computers instead of electric typewriters } – progressed to running the ‘Information Technology’ department of the company that supplied medical stuff, including computers – and computer software designed specifically for hospitals – To Hospitals, clinics and Medical Offices – { “Not bad for a twenty one year old”- }

— And then he was transferred back to Connecticut – to the town across the river from where he’d grown up.

— Back in ‘reality? { Out of his memory loop? } He took a long hot shower and stood at the sink again – sweating, dripping – He scowled at the completely fogged mirror and wiped a small circle at about the height of his face and then more like stared at the foggy reflection that stared back at him. He frowned and sneered at the memory of Susan complaining that he did not have ‘Rock Star’ looks. Then he shrugged, thought about the rock stars he’d seen on MTV – and wondered why he’d want to look like them.

— He dried himself and wrapped a towel around his waist and walked toward the bedroom.

— But he stopped in the ensuite’s doorway and turned around, felt his day old beard and shrugged –

— He was still sweating and the moisture in the washroom had fogged the mirror over the sink again – completely.

— He sighed, walked to the bathtub with its sliding glass shower door, reached inside and turned the shower on – ‘cool’ – and stepped back, and – yes – a couple short moments of that cool cascading water drove the fog away. He turned the shower off, stepped out into the room, onto the bathmat he didn’t like, but hadn’t replaced yet. And he still had to wipe the moisture from the mirror to see his face. A day’s growth of beard? Everyone told him it would itch like hell, but it didn’t – He shrugged.

— The phone rang.

— There was a wall phone in the bathroom – near the toilet.

— He almost didn’t answer it. – But that phone had “Caller I.D.” And the name, “Erica Fischer” displayed above a phone number that must have been her cell phone number.

— He tightened the towel around his very wet waist and scuffed his feet across the bath matt – stepped across the cool floor tiles { real tiles, not fakes? } and took the handset from the wall phone, “Hello?”

— “Hello, Mark?”

— “Erica?”

— “Yes, it’s me – you recognize my voice?”

— He nodded, “Yeah – you probably have the most pleasant voice of anyone on our whole stupid team.”

— She laughed, “Actually, I thought that described your voice -”

— “Really?”

— “Yeah – I um – I’m glad you’re there – I followed that link – the one you gave me last Tuesday?”

— “The Journal?”

— “Yeah. Jenkens said it was just your run of the mill ‘Blog’- but – wow – it’s interesting.”

— “Did you use the password I gave you?”

— She laughed, “Yeah, it signed me in as Mrs. Mark Hendriks.”

— “Jenkens doesn’t have a password. He only gets to see the stuff designed to bore morons to death.”

— She laughed again, “Good call -”

— “Yeah – he’s so full of himself I wonder how anybody else can fit in the same room with him, even the freakin cavernous conference room where he holds court.”

— She laughed again, “You saw through him that first day, didn’t you?”

— Mark nodded, “Yeah, I grew up surrounded by bullies and mean drunks – seeing through people is my best self-defence mechanism.”

— “I guess – but while I think of it – are you going to their party this afternoon?”

— “Do I really want to go to Jenkens’ little McMansion address on “Conspicuous Consumption Row” and pretend I can stand the jerk while he smiles and takes credit for everything everybody else did and brags about what a big fat bonus he’s getting?”

— “Probably not – but, like – I have to go, and I’d feel a lot better if you were there and I could hide behind you.”

— Mark sighed, “Okay, you know I’m a sucker for any damsel in distress and you’re a good one.”

— “Thank you – before I read any of the stuff in your Journal – I thought you were cold and aloof – like what everybody else thinks about you.”

— “Sorry – I opened up to too many jerks in my time – and pretending I’m cold and distant was one stupid way I thought I could protect myself from any future public humiliation -”

— “I’m the only one you gave that password to, right?”

— “Well, there used to be a Mrs Mark Hendriks but she wasn’t interested – I didn’t bring home any six figure salary while we were married so she tried to take me for everything she and her lawyer thought I was worth.”

— “Yeah – you said you failed at trying to drink yourself to death when you thought you were a complete failure as a human being? – After she served you with the divorce papers?”

— He winced, nodded, “Yeah – guilty – I never claimed to shrug any traumatic experiences off.”

— He could almost see her smile, “Sounds like we’ve both been through that same wringer.”

— “Ahh – no – I don’t want to believe that you’ve had to suffer through that kind of nonsense.”

— “Oh yeah – I did. My knight in shining armour told me I wasn’t turning heads any longer and left me for an eighteen year old. I had a lawyer friend, so I got half the house, and half the income he expected to earn when my delightful ex had to sell the house. – But I didn’t call to cry on your shoulder – Your poetry – and those photographs – You’re really good -”

— He winced, “The Journal was something I started working on while I took the course on Computer programming, thinking, heck, something decent has to come out of my freakin indentured servitude to the daw-gone US Army – The previous ‘team’ I got mixed up with wanted to do something similar – and a perfect clone of Jenkens himself stole every line of code I showed him and kicked me off the team before they went public, saying I just wasn’t the kind of team player they needed.”

— She laughed again, “So you’re not giving Jenkens your best work?.”

— “Of course not – if you’re a company spy I probably just got myself fired again.”

— “I am no company spy, I kind of came to the same conclusion and added a bit of code to everything I gave him – wrote a back door so if he tries to steal my stuff and not even give me credit, I can bring it down and he’ll never know what hit him -”

— “Wow – I thought about doing that when I saw my previous team’s work and recognized too much of it, but I came to the conclusion that what they’re doing with it is slightly more positive than what would happen to all those happy bloggers if I blew it up in their face.”

— “But it looks like your version is a lot more user friendly – I’m pretty sure I figured out which team you were on – are they in the news lately for stealing private information about their users – selling that to their advertisers and surprising their subscribers with pop up ads for stuff they mentioned in their blogs?”

— “Yup- In their ‘We promise this blog will be free forever with no advertising!’ blog.”

— “I’ve got an idea – Your Journal looks like it makes adding photographs and putting them anywhere in the blog that any user might want to place them – why don’t you offer your blog free and lure all those exploited bloggers away from their exploiter?”

— He grinned, “You really think it’s that good?”

— “Hell yes,” she felt like she grinned, “That’s something I’d like to get involved with.”

— He almost blurted – ‘You’re kidding -‘, but instead, “-Um – everything’s on a computer in my basement – in a faraday cage – not connected to the internet – I have a portable hard drive that I copy all the changes onto and carry that upstairs and load it onto my other computer, plug it in, compile it – plug the updated version into the modem – and I almost felt like a certifiable genius when I figured out how to do that without deleting anybody’s content.”

— “I’d love to see what you’re doing there -”

— He shivered, he felt dizzy – “Part of me is screaming – this sounds much too good to be true – if you’re a bad guy I’m in trouble -”

— She laughed, “I assure you, I am not a bad guy – If you haven’t noticed that I’m not a guy at all, you’re the only one.”

— He heard the unmistake-able sound of the kind of power equipment that gas stations and ‘Automobile Fix-it’ shops used to work on cars.

— “They’re hitting on you?”

— “Constantly – and Jenkens is the worst.”

— “I saw Jenken’s wife, she looks like last season’s trophy wife of the year.”

— He could almost feel Erica nodding in agreement.

— Then the power equipment drowned her next words out.

— “Sorry – I didn’t hear that -”

— He imagined she blushed, “Yeah, I went out to pick up a few last minute things, and when I tried to leave the supermarket – my car wouldn’t start – I’m at the Triple-A Garage. – Oh hang on a second – here comes the mechanic-”

— He heard her hand cover her phone’s ‘mouthpiece’ part.

— A few seconds later she sighed, “Bad news- They can’t fix my car this morning.”

— He nodded, “Need me to put on my ‘Rescue Ranger’ hat and come get you?”

— “I can take a taxi -”

— “Afraid I’ll try to hit on you?”

— “Well – kind of – I’ve learned to avoid any kind of – relationship? Especially with people I work with-” she sighed – but then, “Would you think I was too forward if I asked you to invite me over to get a look at the computer set up you have there?”

— He was stunned.

— After a minute or so of silence, she spoke up, “I swear I am too honest for my own good, and I couldn’t steal anything from anyone I believe in -”

— “Uh,-” he shrugged, “I kind of have to dry myself off, you caught me in the shower – um- I probably need to shave -”

— “If you really want to go to all the trouble of coming here to pick my up – I could stand to see you with a couple days’ beard -”

— He nodded, “Where are you?”

— She told him.

— He reached back to the mirror and wrote the address in the fog that hadn’t completely evaporated.

— “Okay – I’ll be there as soon as I can-”

 

— He dried himself in a hurry, brushed his teeth, used his deodorant, ran into the bedroom, got dressed, almost ran through the kitchen and down into the garage. Pressed the automatic garage door opener and jumped into his Blue Japanese ‘S.U.V.’ – started it up and backed out into the sunshine, pressed the buttons on the gadget that closed the garage door and locked it behind him. Then he backed down the driveway’s slight hill, and turned left as he backed into the very quiet street, shifted into “D” and hurried off down the road.

— This side road with its street sign lying on the ground again – ended at a numbered county road. He signalled – no cars were coming either way, but he signalled, then turned left and drove out onto the county road, ‘County Highway 16 / Old Indian Reservation Road’.

— It took him fifteen minutes to drive from the end of his driveway and pull to a stop in front of the Garage’s office .

— Erica was standing there – on the raised bit of concrete slab in front of the door to where attendants would come out from – and go back into – the office with its cash register – any time a customer pulled up to the gas pumps – or drove away after paying for their gas.

— She was kind of short { 5’3”? } with blonde hair and ‘fine bones’? And she wasn’t dressed for a party – She was dressed in a blue-green loose fitting blouse with three quarter sleeves and grey { ‘pedal pusher’? } -three quarter length ‘slacks’ – and bargain store tennis shoes. Her blonde hair wasn’t exactly short – and almost looked like a 1950’s hair-do – that kind of flowed out around her face like waves on both sides and then curled outward just above her shoulders. She was probably ‘extraordinarily cute’ – somebody he might have guessed was so good looking she wouldn’t feel any need to be nice to anybody – someone he most likely would never even vaguely consider could be a friend. She looked like someone he would have believed might be part of the sorority at the University where he took his computer courses in Boston at – who walked around with pink sweat shirts printed with the quote that broadcast their attitude, “Yes – but not with you…”

— He thought he remembered sensitive blue-grey eyes – but they were hidden behind sunglasses.

— As he stepped out of his S.U.V. – she smiled, and knelt down, picked up a red plastic milk crate – which contained a couple brown paper bags and stuff she probably did not want to leave in her unattended car, plus her purse.

— As he walked around his S.U.V. she looked more than slightly guilty – “Sorry, I didn’t expect to need to be rescued when I called you – I just wanted to pass the time while I waited for these guys to fix my car – the first guy said it didn’t look like anything major -”

— He grimaced and nodded, “I’m no longer familiar with all the garages around here – but the ones in Boston seemed to be less and less honest all the time – and one friend up there went all the way through Volkswagen Mechanics school, got a decent job at a dealership, and like, on his second week on the job – a woman came in with a brand new ‘rabbit’ and it was his turn, he opened the hood and saw her problem right off – a vacuum hose had come loose – his shift supervisor came over to him and said, ‘Whatcha got here?’

— “He responded, ‘Oh, it’s nothing – a vacuum hose, I already fixed it-‘

— “The boss said, ‘I don’t think so – tell her she needs a major engine overhaul – it might cost up to three thousand dollars.’

— “My friend grinned, and said, ‘You’re kidding, right?’

— “And his boss blew a gasket, turned bright red and said, ‘Either you do as you’re told or you can pack up your tools and get the bleep out of here.’

— She grinned.

— “He didn’t say ‘bleep’.”

— “I didn’t think so – but that’s cute -”

— Mark shrugged, “So my friend closed the hood, drove the car around and handed the woman her keys and told her to get out of there, and never take her car to that dealership again, said ‘you had a vacuum hose come loose and the boss wants me to tell you you that need a major engine overhaul that might cost as much as three thousand bucks. I won’t do that – so I got fired.’ – he picked up his tools and went home and got a job working at a newspaper in the circulation department that didn’t pay him enough to live within thirty miles of the city.”

— She looked suitably impressed, nodded, “Can you drive me to my apartment? – I need to pick up a change of clothes for this party – and I still want to see your computer set up. If that’s okay with you – And I hope you wouldn’t mind driving me to that party -”

— He gritted his teeth, nodded, sighed, nodded again, “I’m not exactly a party animal.”

— She grinned, nodded, “Apparently, you’re the polar opposite to the jerk I married.” She nodded again, “And that’s probably a good thing.”

— He nodded, bowed, “Hendriks’ Rescue Rangers at your service, milady -”

— She shuddered, “Stop that-”

— He shrugged, nodded, “Okay -”

— She looked down into the milk crate she was holding and blushed, “I picked up a couple bottles of good wine – I don’t like going to a party without having something to give to the host.”

— He nodded, “I can’t promise to forget your address if I drive you home – the idiot who diagnosed me as having PTSD told me that one of my super powers was something she called ‘hyper-vigilance’, I can’t forget silly little details even when I want to.”

— Erica grinned as she nodded, “I read that in your blog – kind of gave me the impression that you can take a bad situation and see a bright side to it.”

— He shrugged, “I wish I could say that’s a constant thing with me – sometimes it depends on the weather – or maybe the phase of the moon.”

— She nodded, almost blushed, looked at his vehicle.

— He might have blushed and then opened both doors on the passenger’s side of his S.U.V. – and stepped back while she stepped to the back door and slid her milk crate into the space on the floor behind the passenger’s front seat.

— She closed the back door, he held the front door for her and closed it after she climbed up and into the front passenger’s seat.

— After he walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in, closed his door and buckled himself in, she blushed, “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since anybody held a door for me?”

— He shook his head.

— “Be careful, you just might spoil me-”

— He chuckled, “I met a pair of twins who were born on April Fool’s day – took me a while to be able to tell which one was which, one of them was like very quiet on the inside and talked a blue streak most of the time, her sister was more like very loud inside and never said much. They both worked as printers in a weekly newspaper office – and dressed in army fatigues and carried rucksacks for purses – we used to race to open and hold doors for each other – they were fun.”

— She looked like she didn’t quite know how to take that.

— He started the engine, shifted into gear and then signalled and made a left turn and drove to the edge of the road, where he signalled and made a right turn out onto the road – in the direction she told him to turn to head for her apartment,

— Then she grinned, “I’m more like an under-cover feminist.”

— He smiled, “They were smoking those little cigars with the plastic holders when I met them – they were the cousins of the guy who talked me into trying for that job that really worked out for me in Boston. He told me he thought they were Lesbians,” Mark shook his head.

— “Would it have made a difference if they were?”

— He shook his head, shrugged, “I don’t let anybody hand me their opinion – too many times they’re way off and I would have missed a fun friendship with those two if I let him scare me away from them.”

— “Are you afraid of Lesbians?”

— He shook his head, “One of our co-workers up there introduced me to her cousin, who’d been molested by a family member – I mean raped, several times. My first impulse was to give her a hug – she recoiled in what looked like sheer terror. After I told her that both my sisters had been groped by a grandfather and I didn’t know how else I could let her know I sympathized – she shuddered and told me that my simple act of offering to hug her made her think I was as bad as the guy who’d raped her. He came on all friendly and turned out to be a monster.”

— Erica looked slightly confused and then nodded, “I had a friend who was almost raped, somebody – a friend of a friend – blundered along and chased the rapist away – He offered to take her to a hospital and when she said no – he walked her home – she told me she really liked the guy who saved her – but she was afraid to trust anybody after what happened – that guy asked me how she was doing and when I told him what she told me he nodded and said, ‘Sometimes I think it’s almost worse on someone to be nearly raped that to actually be raped.’ – He tried to be her friend, but eventually gave up.”

— Mark reached out in front of her as he slammed on his brakes when a couple teenagers ran out into the road without looking.

— She braced herself against the dashboard, looked almost shocked when she saw his arm in front of her – held her breath for several seconds – then drew a deep breath and, “Nobody raped me – or tried to – so you don’t have to walk on eggs around me or anything.”

— He nodded, “Maybe we should figure out an easy code word so you can let me know it’s okay to hug you if you tell me about anything traumatic that happened to you -” he shrugged.

— “How about I hold out my arms and make like I want to hug you – traumatic experience or not.”

— He nodded.

— “So – was the woman who was raped – a Lesbian? I didn’t quite get the connection.”

— He nodded, “Her cousin told me that she was seriously considering that.” He shrugged, “I never saw her again.”

— Erica nodded, “You’re a good driver – my husband was an idiot – he would have hit those kids,” She let out a nervous laugh – “You’ve got quick reflexes – I appreciate the fact that you were ready to protect me and hit the brakes at the same time.”

— “My ex would have accused me of trying to kill her if I slammed on the brakes like that. She hated seat belts, thought they were for wimps.”

— Erica smiled as she patted the seat belt she was wearing.

— They slowed to a stop at a yellow light when several people stepped out into the crosswalk before the light had fully changed.

— “I guess I’m lucky you were awake when I called. Some of the time stamps on your blog’s articles are from the middle of the night.”

— He nodded, watched for the light to change.

— She could tell his eyes were constantly moving, glancing left and right and up at the traffic light, “I’m sorry, I should have asked – did you have something planned to today?”

— He shook his head, then, “I was surprised I woke up so early – and because I live by a lake and I’ve been taking a run around it most mornings to clear my head, and that’s been working – I thought I’d do that – maybe it’s a good thing I hadn’t already taken off on my morning run.”

— She smiled and nodded, “I’ve seen your photographs – it looks wonderful. Do people swim in that lake?”

— “A developer bought all the land around the lake except for the plot I’m on there – he thought he’d build a lot of overpriced McMansions and retire – but then the ‘bubble’ burst and he lost his shirt. One of the people who wanted to buy into that scheme was a chemist, he tested the water in that lake and apparently somebody up the line was dumping raw sewage into a stream that flowed into the lake and the chemist brought that to the town council and they found the perpetrator and fined him big time – the chemist did buy a couple plots from the bankruptcy court and the last time I saw him he said the lake was fifty percent healthier than the first time he checked.” Mark shrugged, “So – yeah, maybe someday the water will be clean enough to swim in -”

— “How much are those plots going for?”

— “I’m not sure, but nothing like the two and three hundred thousand dollars the developer thought he could get for five acres and a prefab McMansion-”

— “I’d like to see what’s there.”

— “Do you have my address?”

— “Well, yes, you published it on your ‘About’ page.”

— “Do you think you can find the street – I’m in the only house that’s ever been built on that road.”

— “Number 5 Willow Lake Road?” she sounded uncertain.

— He thought he could feel her smile again, “That’s off the old Indian Reservation Road – which would not be politically correct these days – better known as County Route 16?”

— “Better known as North Main Street down in my neighbourhood-” she grinned, “I live in one of those older condos off Deerfield Avenue- I don’t know? How long would it take to drive there?”

— “Which older condos? There’s one group near Five Mile Park or the other one – by the shopping centre at Lincoln Green.”

— “The one near the shopping centre.”

— “You’re about twenty minutes from my front door – if you jump on old Highway 15 and get off on the Upper Old Farm Road exit, I think that’s exit number 49 south.”

— “Really? A short cut?”

— He nodded, “Trouble is, every time the town puts the street sign back up for Willow Lake Road, somebody comes along and knocks it down again.”

— “Um, take the next right turn here– then a quick left-” she pointed

— He nodded, “I know this area – I used to live abut a mile down that way-” he pointed.

— “We’re almost there – do you want to come in, or can you at least wait for me and drive me up to your place? I’m not a runner – but if you want to take a run around the lake -” She shrugged.

— “Can you ride a bicycle?”

— She nodded, “What kind?”

— “Looks like a powder blue ‘english style’ five or ten speed ‘Girls’ model.”

— She grinned, nodded, “The party’s not supposed to start until after one in the afternoon, do we have time?”

— He nodded, “Depends on how long it takes to pick up your stuff here and get back there-”

— She nodded, “I am not the most highly organized person I know, but I did get my party dress out and laid it on my bed, should only take me a couple minutes to pick it up – and I have a little travel bag with all my girly things like make up and all that so we can be in and out quickly.”

— “Do you want me to come in with you?”

— She hesitated and then nodded, “Well – yeah – one of my neighbours is one of the jerks who’s been hitting on me and I think if he sees me with you that might put a permanent damper on his intentions.”

— Mark nodded, “Okay -”

— “-And after the new ‘personal assistant’, Sylvia came to visit me, after work last Friday – not yesterday – a week ago – she stayed and unloaded all the complaints she had about guys hitting on her and Jenkens cornered her in his office and groped her on the way out – I told her to take it to the better business bureau and the labour board – she left in grateful tears hours after she knocked on my door – the jerk leered at me the next morning and said he has a thing for Lesbians and wanted to know if we’d let him watch -”

— Mark winced, shuddered, “Jeeze!”

— Erica nodded, “Exactly-”

— He turned into the road that looped around inside the row houses of her condominium.

— She leaned forward, “That’s my spot, number 14 -”

— “Town houses? – I tused to think that the units in here were all in that -” he pointed, “Apartment building over there -”

— She shook her head, “No – all the apartments in the security buildings were fully leased – I had to take what I could get.”

— He nodded, “Did they import you here too?”

— She nodded, “I’m originally from Teaneck, New Jersey.”

— “I know absolutely nothing about Teaneck.”

— She grinned, “It’s a town full of progressive Liberals across the river from the ‘big apple’.”

— He almost laughed – “Why did they ever start calling it the ‘big apple’?”

— “Who knows?”

— One of her neighbours was outside, watering his little bit of front lawn, she winced, “That’s the jerk.”

— He nodded, “Let me climb out and open your door,” he shrugged, “I don’t know, but maybe that will send a message.”

— “Maybe -” she looked slightly nervous, but nodded.

— He eased into her parking spot, shifted into park and turned the engine off, got out, walked around and opened the passenger’s side front door.

— She climbed out, safely behind the car door and Mark, and opened the back door, picked her purse out of the milk crate, looped its strap up over her shoulder, closed the back door, opened her purse, picked her keys out and held them like somebody had shown her how to hold the keys between her fingers for self defence if needed.

— Mark still had his keys in his right hand, reached for the button on the front passenger’s door that produced an annoying beep as that locked every lock on the S.U.V. – and closed the door, tested the door to be sure it locked.

— She smiled up at him, almost blushed, and let him take the first step toward the sidewalk and walked beside him, trembling slightly, then, probably impulsively, stepped closer and held his right arm with both hands and smiled at him like she was trying to look like they were long time lovers – as she also tried to keep Mark between herself and her neighbour.

— As they approached the sidewalk that led to her front steps and walked closer to her neighbour, he could feel her hands trembling as she gripped his arm, and tried to hide her face against his chest and whispered, “I hope you don’t mind -”

— He shook his head, and moved his arm around her shoulders and she reached around his back, put her hand in his left back pocket and tried to sound like they were in the middle of a conversation, “Yeah – I have no idea what your sister meant by that-” he shrugged.

— She looked up at him and grinned, “Well, you know Helen – nobody has any idea what she might say next. I’m just glad you realized I wasn’t as ditzy as she is the first time you asked me out.”

— He smiled at her.

— She looked like she appreciated his ability to play along like that.

— Mark didn’t obviously keep his eyes on the neighbour, but could tell the guy did not look happy.

— They climbed the four concrete steps to the prefabricated concrete porch and Mark stood back while she chose her key and quickly unlocked her door, opened it and almost jumped inside, He stepped up behind her and she quickly shut and locked the door, shuddered and drew a breath, “I’m sorry, but like I said, that guy really gives me the creeps.”

— “No need to apologize – remember – I have a couple sisters.”

— She smiled, nodded, “And you probably feel guilty that you weren’t there to protect them from your grandfather.”

— He frowned, nodded, “I wasn’t there for that whole ugly time – I spent that summer in Vermont with my other grandparents – being their virtual slave – grounds keeper, bug sprayer, pavement sweeper – gas station attendant – opened the station and closed it every day – did all the paperwork, counted all their pennies and then sometimes had to fill in for a sick or otherwise absent dishwasher and I really hated that dish washing machine -”

— “But they paid you, right?”

— “Ten dollars a week?”

— “And you were under age?”

— “Fifteen years old that first summer, but at least I didn’t have to deal with my alcoholic father.”

— “And your blog said you made some good friends up there.”

— He grinned, “The neighbourhood kids thought I was a real cool guy from the big city -” he chuckled, “Their church youth group met once a week all summer and I was almost too dense to realize the girls all wanted to dance with me the couple times we had a dance with a cheap record player and a couple guys taking turns putting forty fives and even L.P.s on the turn table.

— “They liked your record collection-”

— He nodded, “At first they thought I had the weirdest records they’d never heard of – but then they thought I was even more cool than they first thought – The last dance of the summer – one girl made it a ladies’ choice and put on a ten minute slow dance record and practically grabbed me and danced me into the shadows and got me all turned on and then had me walk her home and pushed me into even darker shadows and kissed me – and I think that if her mother hadn’t come outside and called her we might have really gotten into trouble that night.”

— Erica laughed, “Is she the one you said you wrote to?”

— He shook his head, “No, she’s the one who sent me the ‘Dear John’ letter – and probably dropped out of school before graduation and got married with a bulging stomach.”

— Erica nodded, “I knew a few girls like that – most of them were desperate to get away from terrible family situations -”

— Mark winced and nodded, “The one I did write too kept me informed on all the gossip like who was dating who and then who liked which rock and roll band and stuff like that – My uncle up there told me she was a passenger in a car that was clobbered by a drunk driver and ended up brain damaged and in a wheel chair for the rest of her life.”

— “Oh no-”

— He nodded.

— She gritted her teeth, “I was hoping you wouldn’t take it the wrong way when I grabbed your arm like that -”

— He shook his head, “No – I think I could tell that you wanted to try to convince that guy that you were – um – going steady? – With a guy who was bigger than he was.”

— She nodded, blushed, “And I really hoped I could trust you. Thank you for playing along like you did – that was quick thinking.”

— He shrugged, nodded, “I think the odds are in my favour – it’s about time I caught on to a subtle hint and took the right cue -”

— She grinned and nodded, “Wait here-” and left him in her kitchen and ran to her bedroom and hurried back with her dress in a suit bag and a canvas shopping bag with her shoes, her overnight toiletries bag and another bag with whatever else she needed. “Okay – I’m ready-” she smiled. And yes – her eyes were very sensitive and maybe even blue-grey-green before she put the dark glasses back in place and led him back to her condo’s door.

— Her neighbour was still out there – still watering his lawn – and glaring at them.

— Mark grinned and waved.

— The guy frowned and turned away.

— Erica stepped in front of Mark { with his back to her neighbour } and laughed silently, “That worked-”

— He opened her doors again and she hung the suit bag up and set the shopping bag on the floor beside her milk crate, and kept her purse with its straps over her shoulder this time as she climbed back into the front seat, smiled at him as he closed both doors, buckled herself in, and then watched him as he scurried around to the driver’s side and climbed in.

— She was still trembling, barely visibly, until he drove out of the parking lot, “I hope you didn’t mind that I kind of put my arm around you – and maybe shouldn’t have been – um – so – intimate?”

— He took a breath – “Um – If you need to pretend we’re an item to hopefully convince Jenkens that you’re not available – I think he believes I had more intensive combat training than I really did – just let me know ahead of time whether it’s pure acting or flirting without intention – so I can hopefully not start to believe that anything real could happen between us.”

— She looked deadly serious as she nodded, then smiled, blushed, looked away and looked back, nodded like she decided to say, “Okay – I do find you attractive, and – well – as I’m beginning to believe that I can trust you -” she shivered, shrugged, looked vulnerable – “I almost fell into the kind of – gestures? – that my ex encouraged?  and I was happy to go along with when I got the crazy idea that he really loved me at first – “ she shuddered and sighed, “So yeah – we can flirt like we’ve been a thing for months while we’re at the party – and -” she winced, looked away, looked back – “If I start to think that I’m strong enough to give any kind of – relationship? – a real try – I’ll try to let you know in so many words.” She nodded like she was trying to convince herself that she either had enough self control to avoid thinking that anything intimate between herself and anyone could work, or that she could hold back and not give in to any purely physical desires that could lead to regret.

— He nodded, “I should probably admit that for a long time I thought I was allergic to blondes.”

— She grinned, “You did mention that the sorority girls with the pink teeshirts and “Yes – but not with you” printed in bold letters across their chests were all blondes. – Sorry – I was born this way.”

— “Sorry?”

— She gritted her teeth in a comical frown – shrugged.

— He shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road and maybe everything around that road – “I’m in danger of believing my own silly words – that no generalization is ever true.”

— She nodded, turned away, smiled at nothing through the window and silently mouthed the words, – ‘Never say never-‘.

— Then she shuddered and tried to change the subject as she pointed to the digital clock in the dashboard and at least pretended to be totally engrossed in timing their journey.

— It took them twenty one minutes from the end of the parking lot in front of the security apartment building – until he pulled inside his garage.

-“Wow – your garage is bigger than some of the apartments I’ve lived in.”

— He looked at the five year old pickup truck with its snow plow still attached – facing the garage door – and the snow blower behind it – and enough space in front of that for a good sized car – on the far right side of the garage. And on the left the side, left of where he’d pulled his S.U.V. in and parked it – there was enough room for two mid sized cars, one behind the other – and beyond that space, farther off to the left – there were several huge boxes that kitchen appliances had come in – and a raised platform with two ’emergency household generators’ and half a dozen five gallon gas tanks – four of which were almost full, “the lawyer told me this was a three car garage – but I think more like six cars can fit in here with room to spare.”

— And behind the pickup truck that faced the triple wide garage door – out of sight from where he’d parked – beyond the snow blower – he knew there was a riding lawn mower, a smaller lawn mower, a pair of bicycles, and another large box that something the size of a clothes washer or dryer or a dishwasher might have come in –

— And along the walls there were half a dozen boxes of Mark’s stuff that he hadn’t opened since he’d moved in. Beyond the boxes there were snow shovels, garden implements, rakes and hoes and the like.

— At the back of the garage there was a wide work bench with a vice that was screwed onto the bench – plus a couple circular saws, a pair of finished bird houses and several cans of paint, some of which had never been opened – and a peg board with hooks designed to hold tools against the back wall between the windows that looked out into his deep and wide back yard. Tools and projects he felt funny about and hadn’t touched, thinking his uncle had plans for them that he didn’t want to somehow callously disregard or get wrong.

— Erica stepped out on her side of the vehicle and looked around like she was amazed at what she saw there, and laughed.

— He shrugged, “I’m still not used to this.”

— She nodded, absently – then sighed, “What time is it?”

— “Almost ten -”

— “How long does it take to run around your lake?”

— He shrugged, “An hour – maybe an hour and fifteen minutes if I take it slow.”

— She sighed, nodded, looked at the suit bag and frowned, “Do we have time?”

— He nodded.

— She smiled.

— She opened the SUV’s back door, retrieved her suit bag and the shopping bag.

— He gestured and she let him pick up her milk crate.

— She shut the back door, “Got your keys?”

— He nodded, held the crate with his right hand and showed her his key ring with his finger through the loop – in his left hand, “-Habit-” he shrugged.

— “And you locked the garage door?”

— He nodded, “Automatic when we’re inside. The gadget in the car has a couple buttons – it beeps when it locks or unlocks the door.”

— She looked partially befuddled, or maybe amazed – then followed him toward the stairs and up – through the door and into the kitchen.

— The kitchen had yellow painted walls and a lot of ‘butcher block’ counter space – with white tiles with blue designs forming a back splash behind every inch of counter pace. There was an island with more of those blue and white tiles – this time lying horizontally – flat – and an overhead strip of stainless steel with hooks hanging down from the ceiling – the hooks held an assortment of stainless steel pots and pans. The stove had six burners. The refrigerator was double wide with an ice dispenser and cold water fountain thing on the right side.

— “Your uncle must have been quite the cook-” she smiled.

— “I think it was his wife -” Mark winced.

— “Sorry -” she frowned.

— “Don’t be- I found a notebook he used as a journal – it kind of traced his grieving process – I couldn’t read the whole thing, but his last words on the subject sounded like came to realize that the two of them had an amazingly wonderful life together – his lawyer assured me that his death was instantaneous and I got the impression that he had a blissful reunion with his wife and son in the ‘Happy Hunting Grounds -”

— She wrinkled her forehead in momentary confusion, “Do you have Native American blood?”

— He shook his head, “Swedish, Norwegian, and Dutch on my father’s side, French, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English on my mother’s.”

— Erica winced and looked down.

— She didn’t say anything, but he guessed she read enough of his blog to know that his mother died just before he was transferred back to the area he grew up in. – Spent her last few years in a ‘rest home’ unable to recognize anybody – even her children and her brother.

— He gritted his teeth and led her out of the kitchen, into the hall and down toward the bedrooms, “The ‘Guest Room’ has its own ensuite – should we head for that?”

— She nodded.

— “I don’t think that bed was ever slept in – the mattress on the bed was still covered in plastic – the lawyer paid a woman to come in here and clean up the place and she told me she made the bed with sheets and blankets that were still in their department store packages.”

— Erica shuddered, “I think I would have washed them at least once before I used them -”

— He nodded, “We can still do that if you ever decide to spend the night -”

— She grinned, then looked slightly worried.

— They entered the guest room. The walls were ‘Robin’s Egg’ blue – the bed was queen sized, and probably had a ‘pillow top’ mattress. There was a white bed spread with blue and yellow flowers and green leaves on raised vines that curled up along both edges of the bed, and disappeared beneath at least half a dozen pillows arranged like a “Better Homes” magazine photograph – at the head of the bed. She laid her suit bag on the bed, “Almost feels like a shame to mess up that cleaning lady’s work, I’ll be careful -” she nodded, looked around, set her shopping bag on the low, extra wide dresser with its huge mirror above the drawers, against the wall – She took her overnight toiletry bag out and set that on the dresser, took her dressier shoes out and set them on the floor. She sighed and looked around, took the crate from Mark, blushed, “Maybe we should have put the wine bottles in the fridge -”

— He shrugged, “We can do that-” he nodded and accepted the bag with the wine bottles before he turned and headed for the door.

— “I think I’ll just freshen up and then we can get going -” she pointed to the ‘ensuite’.

— He stopped, turned around, nodded, then turned around again and headed for the door.

— She grinned, “Stay within shouting distance – I get lost easily.”

— He wrinkled his forehead, then nodded, pointed, “I have a little freshening up of my own to do – We walked past my room, it’s the only door on the other side of the hall -”

— She grinned as she nodded, “I caught a glimpse of your famous bed cube.”

— He groaned, “You didn’t share that with anybody at work did you?”

— She shook her head, “I try to keep my private life away from work – very private -”

— He nodded and smiled, “Good Idea.”

— He walked the wine to the kitchen, looked into the bag – saw the corks and very carefully laid the bottles on their sides { still inside their individual bags } – then hurried back to his bedroom, changed into a pair of shorts, a tee shirt and running shoes – went into his washroom, used the facilities, splashed cold water on his face and wondered if he had time to shave before they went for his run and her ride, but she knocked on the bedroom door and called, “Are you in here?”

— “No – I’m in the washroom,” he laughed, dried his face, opened the door and stepped out into the bedroom.

— She had remained out in the hallway, nodded at him, “Your bedroom is bigger than some apartments I’ve lived in. I thought the guest room was big.”

— He shuddered, “I’m still not used to that, either – I wake up and wonder where the heck I am most mornings.”

— She nodded while she smiled, “Are we ready?”

— “To run around the lake?” he nodded, shrugged, “If you’re ready?”

— She nodded, “As long as it’s true that you never forget how to ride a bicycle -” she shrugged.

— They walked back to the kitchen and through it – through the door into the garage – down the flight of half a dozen steps, and around to where he picked the woman’s bicycle down from the hooks that held it on the wall, just above the floor near the side door out into the yard, behind the pickup truck with the plow and the huge box some appliance must have come in.

— He set the bicycle down on the cement floor – put the kickstand down – made sure it maintained its balance – walked to the side door, pulled a smaller set of keys from the pocket of his running shorts – unlocked the door – walked outside – looked around, turned around and walked back inside, kicked the kickstand back up to where it locked into place – held the bicycle with one hand on its handlebars and the other hand on its seat – pushed down on it hard enough to be sure the tires still held enough air – nodded, wheeled it out through the door to where he was almost surprised that she’d followed him so closely.

— She took the handlebars and wrinkled her brow as she looked at the shifter, then turned her head to watch him close and lock the door and put the keys back in his pocket.

— They walked together – she stayed on the cement sidewalk while he walked in the grass beside her.

— The narrow sidewalk curled around beyond the garage wall and ended at the asphalt driveway.

— They walked out onto the driveway where it was almost perfectly level after ‘climbing’ up the slight hill from the road.

— She stepped through to stand with one leg on each side of the bicycle, looked slightly nervous, glanced back to notice that the seat was not so high that she might lose contact with the ground when she sat in the seat, blushed, “This was your aunt’s bicycle?”

— He shrugged and nodded, “I think so – I think it was a winter holiday present and she and their son were killed in a traffic accident by a drunk driver on New Year’s Day. I’m pretty sure she never rode it.”

— She winced, “Sorry-”

— He nodded, “Thanks – I never met her – I’ve just seen photographs -”

— “Was she as short as I am?” Erica grinned.

— He shrugged, “The last time I was allowed to see my uncle I was ten years old – playing baseball with a losing little league team – He took photographs at the only game we won that year – when the coach didn’t want his son the pitcher to be humiliated in front of the press and had me pitch,” he shrugged, “My uncle took – I don’t know how many photographs and published the one with me on the mound after I threw my last pitch and the batter on one of the best winning teams in town swung and missed. I found out that my uncle was one of three reporters for a weekly town newspaper when my mother showed me the article with my photo and the caption that spelled my name correctly – under the headline, ‘North End Yankees lose to Elm Street Dodgers.”

— She grinned, then looked very serious – “You look like you concentrate furiously on every little detail.”

— He shrugged and nodded, “PTSD – A nurse friend in Boston had me see a Psychiatrist and he prescribed something that had me in a fog until we realized it was probably the wrong prescription – I had to fiercely concentrate on everything – all day long – until the effects wore off – then everything seemed like it was happening in slow motion -” he shrugged again, “Sometimes that feeling comes back – it doesn’t scare me any more – sometimes it’s almost enjoyable,” he wondered if he blushed as he nodded, then pointed, “Are you familiar with a ten speed bike?”

— She grinned at the controls and nodded, “I had a bike just like this at my grandparents’ farm in Pennsylvania, even the colours are the same – I loved that bike. Couldn’t keep one in the city – even in semi suburban Teaneck.”