Disturbance Read Online Free Page A
Author: Jan Burke
the rough mat all the same. He moved inside, sliding the glass door shut behind him. He locked it and listened for a moment.
The house was quiet.
He liked that so much.
It had not been quiet when his second wife lived with him. She had been unhappy, and what she would not say to him directly she expressed by loading and unloading the dishwasher in a noisy way, by banging pots and pans on the stovetop, by starting the vacuum cleaner when he would lie down for a nap.
When Donovan refused to acknowledge these acts for what they were, she escalated her attempts to get a combination of revenge on him and his attention. If, in the evening, she felt displeased with him—and near the end of the marriage, she so often was—she would set her alarm to go off the next morning with loud music and a buzzer an hour before the time for which his own was set. He would try to fall back to sleep, but she would pour cereal in a bowl and eat in a manner that hethought worthy of a chimpanzee annoyed with its keepers—she would cause the bowl to ring in a maddening arrhythmic staccato as she tapped her spoon against its sides.
When this failed to get a response, she prolonged her morning campaign. After breakfast, she would enter the bathroom off the master bedroom. She would flush the toilet, sing off-key in the shower, and just when the water was off and he thought he might get a minute of peace, she would turn on her blow dryer.
Once Donovan was up, she would wait until he was in the shower to run the washing machine and the dishwasher, so that the hot water was gone within seconds.
Donovan let her get away with it for a while. One morning, he rose from the bed and strode naked into the kitchen, took the bowl of cereal from her, and calmly dumped it down the sink. He said, “You should stop this little warfare. You don’t know who you are up against.”
He had not raised his voice, or lifted a hand to her, but there must have been something in his face or his stance that conveyed a little of his real nature to her, because she shrank back from him. He could not suppress—or hide, in his state of undress—his arousal when her eyes widened, her lower lip quivered, her breath quickened in fear.
Disgusted with himself, he left the kitchen and took a shower.
When he emerged from it, she had left the house.
The first thing he had noticed was the quiet.
She filed for divorce, did not ask for anything from him—he had bought the house before he met her, but she might have had a go at his military pension—and she never came back to retrieve so much as an article of clothing. He did not fight it, attempt to reconcile, or seek a new partner. He had already decided that marriage was not the answer he had hoped it would be.
He had tried it twice. The first experiment had failed mostly because of mutual immaturity, but over time, he was sure, the result would have been the same. She had protested when he went into the service, claiming she couldn’t stand knowing he was in so much danger. Shortly after he shipped out, she filed for divorce. Ironically, getting on the freeways in L.A. proved to be more dangerous to her than his military duties were to him—after the divorce was final, and long before he returned home, her mother wrote to tell him that she had died in a car accident.
He turned his thoughts away from her, back to the quiet.
No, marriage was not for him. If he ever changed his mind about that, he knew he would have no difficulty finding a woman willing to be his wife. Without entirely understanding why, Donovan knew he was considered to be attractive. He did understand, because he worked at it, that he was in excellent physical condition. He had a good job, and knew how to be personable. But he didn’t want to think about any woman in the way he had started to think about his most recent ex-wife, so he would probably stay unmarried.
Donovan’s ex thought he didn’t know where she lived now. She was wrong about
The house was quiet.
He liked that so much.
It had not been quiet when his second wife lived with him. She had been unhappy, and what she would not say to him directly she expressed by loading and unloading the dishwasher in a noisy way, by banging pots and pans on the stovetop, by starting the vacuum cleaner when he would lie down for a nap.
When Donovan refused to acknowledge these acts for what they were, she escalated her attempts to get a combination of revenge on him and his attention. If, in the evening, she felt displeased with him—and near the end of the marriage, she so often was—she would set her alarm to go off the next morning with loud music and a buzzer an hour before the time for which his own was set. He would try to fall back to sleep, but she would pour cereal in a bowl and eat in a manner that hethought worthy of a chimpanzee annoyed with its keepers—she would cause the bowl to ring in a maddening arrhythmic staccato as she tapped her spoon against its sides.
When this failed to get a response, she prolonged her morning campaign. After breakfast, she would enter the bathroom off the master bedroom. She would flush the toilet, sing off-key in the shower, and just when the water was off and he thought he might get a minute of peace, she would turn on her blow dryer.
Once Donovan was up, she would wait until he was in the shower to run the washing machine and the dishwasher, so that the hot water was gone within seconds.
Donovan let her get away with it for a while. One morning, he rose from the bed and strode naked into the kitchen, took the bowl of cereal from her, and calmly dumped it down the sink. He said, “You should stop this little warfare. You don’t know who you are up against.”
He had not raised his voice, or lifted a hand to her, but there must have been something in his face or his stance that conveyed a little of his real nature to her, because she shrank back from him. He could not suppress—or hide, in his state of undress—his arousal when her eyes widened, her lower lip quivered, her breath quickened in fear.
Disgusted with himself, he left the kitchen and took a shower.
When he emerged from it, she had left the house.
The first thing he had noticed was the quiet.
She filed for divorce, did not ask for anything from him—he had bought the house before he met her, but she might have had a go at his military pension—and she never came back to retrieve so much as an article of clothing. He did not fight it, attempt to reconcile, or seek a new partner. He had already decided that marriage was not the answer he had hoped it would be.
He had tried it twice. The first experiment had failed mostly because of mutual immaturity, but over time, he was sure, the result would have been the same. She had protested when he went into the service, claiming she couldn’t stand knowing he was in so much danger. Shortly after he shipped out, she filed for divorce. Ironically, getting on the freeways in L.A. proved to be more dangerous to her than his military duties were to him—after the divorce was final, and long before he returned home, her mother wrote to tell him that she had died in a car accident.
He turned his thoughts away from her, back to the quiet.
No, marriage was not for him. If he ever changed his mind about that, he knew he would have no difficulty finding a woman willing to be his wife. Without entirely understanding why, Donovan knew he was considered to be attractive. He did understand, because he worked at it, that he was in excellent physical condition. He had a good job, and knew how to be personable. But he didn’t want to think about any woman in the way he had started to think about his most recent ex-wife, so he would probably stay unmarried.
Donovan’s ex thought he didn’t know where she lived now. She was wrong about