were unusual.
This morning, Thule lay snorting and whimpering on the kitchen tiles near the back door that let out to a covered walkway and Michelle’s greenhouse. Last night’s storm had arrived in furious glory. Rain poured down the windows. Wind slammed the roof and rapped the doors, whistled in the gutters and the chimney. The buzzing transistor on the counter reported heavy weather was here to stay—three or four days minimum. High wind and flood warnings had already been issued for Pierce and Thurston counties.
Don sat at the kitchen table in the predawn gloom. He wore his bathrobe and a pair of fluffy slippers and sipped a mug of instant coffee. The porch light shuddered with each savage buffet and momentarily dimmed as if plunged underwater. He listened for the sound of Michelle stirring from bed to make breakfast in advance of the kids’ arrival, but she was still sleeping it off, for which he was thankful. She absolutely never slept in, unless she’d been drinking or taking heavy duty cold medication, and even then she usually dragged herself out of bed to carry on. Carry on, carry on , was Michelle’s motto and Don could only surmise this comprised a Mock family tradition.
Don knew precious little about the Mocks beyond hints and rumors. As with Don, Michelle’s parents died young: Theresa Mock (none of the women took married names) from tuberculosis contracted during an adventure in China at the age of forty-eight, and Landon Caine by a stroke eleven years and one remarriage later. Don shook hands with the parents during his own wedding, the sole occasion he’d ever seen or spoken to them. Michelle had made it clear early on that her familial relations were strained. She wasn’t kidding.
On Holly’s sixth birthday, Michelle flew her (but not little Kurt) to a family conclave in New England, but as for Don, besides his brief encounter with the parents, he’d only met a younger sister, and before that, an aunt Babette; a mummified lady who dressed in basic black. Her eyebrows were permanently inked in lieu of the real thing. Babette Mock grudgingly consented to meet Don after she discovered he moonlighted as an antiquarian and a journeyman bibliophile with expertise in geomorphic history. In her declining years (that dragged on for two and a half decades) Babette had frequently toured the West Coast for rare manuscripts, which sounded far more interesting than the reality. Unfortunately, Don had been unable to procure certain texts pertaining to geophysical anomalies and that was the last they’d spoken.
There were several other aunts, a bushel of female cousins and Michelle’s stepmother Cornelia, but no uncles. Michelle’s twin brother Michael had served as an Army sniper. The military loved his hands; stone steady were those hands, those steely fingers that once tapped the ivories of classical piano. No Millers possessed musical talent to speak of, although most suffered an acute appreciation of the sublime art, and thus Michael fascinated Don.
The subject of Michael inevitably provoked a melancholy sigh from Michelle. Mom wanted to ship him to Julliard. Damn it, Mikey, you decided to be a lifer in the military instead. Selfish bastard . He and eight other soldiers were lost in a helicopter crash during a mission near the South Korean border in the fall of 1952. An eerie analogue to how Don had lost his own father a few years earlier. Mock men die young , his wife said with grim cheer whenever he’d pressed the issue. Don had last spoken to her brother over the phone when he called for Christmas. They’d vowed to buy one another drinks when Michael’s tour in Korea ended.
Sometimes Don pondered on the sort of man Michael would’ve become if the rocket had spun eight feet to the port side. He imagined the clean-cut boy from the pictures in Michelle’s wallet coming home, eyes a bit wiser, face worn from the jungles and the worry, dressed now in the formal wear of a Beethoven or a Bach in
This morning, Thule lay snorting and whimpering on the kitchen tiles near the back door that let out to a covered walkway and Michelle’s greenhouse. Last night’s storm had arrived in furious glory. Rain poured down the windows. Wind slammed the roof and rapped the doors, whistled in the gutters and the chimney. The buzzing transistor on the counter reported heavy weather was here to stay—three or four days minimum. High wind and flood warnings had already been issued for Pierce and Thurston counties.
Don sat at the kitchen table in the predawn gloom. He wore his bathrobe and a pair of fluffy slippers and sipped a mug of instant coffee. The porch light shuddered with each savage buffet and momentarily dimmed as if plunged underwater. He listened for the sound of Michelle stirring from bed to make breakfast in advance of the kids’ arrival, but she was still sleeping it off, for which he was thankful. She absolutely never slept in, unless she’d been drinking or taking heavy duty cold medication, and even then she usually dragged herself out of bed to carry on. Carry on, carry on , was Michelle’s motto and Don could only surmise this comprised a Mock family tradition.
Don knew precious little about the Mocks beyond hints and rumors. As with Don, Michelle’s parents died young: Theresa Mock (none of the women took married names) from tuberculosis contracted during an adventure in China at the age of forty-eight, and Landon Caine by a stroke eleven years and one remarriage later. Don shook hands with the parents during his own wedding, the sole occasion he’d ever seen or spoken to them. Michelle had made it clear early on that her familial relations were strained. She wasn’t kidding.
On Holly’s sixth birthday, Michelle flew her (but not little Kurt) to a family conclave in New England, but as for Don, besides his brief encounter with the parents, he’d only met a younger sister, and before that, an aunt Babette; a mummified lady who dressed in basic black. Her eyebrows were permanently inked in lieu of the real thing. Babette Mock grudgingly consented to meet Don after she discovered he moonlighted as an antiquarian and a journeyman bibliophile with expertise in geomorphic history. In her declining years (that dragged on for two and a half decades) Babette had frequently toured the West Coast for rare manuscripts, which sounded far more interesting than the reality. Unfortunately, Don had been unable to procure certain texts pertaining to geophysical anomalies and that was the last they’d spoken.
There were several other aunts, a bushel of female cousins and Michelle’s stepmother Cornelia, but no uncles. Michelle’s twin brother Michael had served as an Army sniper. The military loved his hands; stone steady were those hands, those steely fingers that once tapped the ivories of classical piano. No Millers possessed musical talent to speak of, although most suffered an acute appreciation of the sublime art, and thus Michael fascinated Don.
The subject of Michael inevitably provoked a melancholy sigh from Michelle. Mom wanted to ship him to Julliard. Damn it, Mikey, you decided to be a lifer in the military instead. Selfish bastard . He and eight other soldiers were lost in a helicopter crash during a mission near the South Korean border in the fall of 1952. An eerie analogue to how Don had lost his own father a few years earlier. Mock men die young , his wife said with grim cheer whenever he’d pressed the issue. Don had last spoken to her brother over the phone when he called for Christmas. They’d vowed to buy one another drinks when Michael’s tour in Korea ended.
Sometimes Don pondered on the sort of man Michael would’ve become if the rocket had spun eight feet to the port side. He imagined the clean-cut boy from the pictures in Michelle’s wallet coming home, eyes a bit wiser, face worn from the jungles and the worry, dressed now in the formal wear of a Beethoven or a Bach in
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