The Tent: A Novella Read Online Free Page A

grateful for the temporary reprieve from the backpack’s weight.
    “So, where the hell is he?” Emma asks, and when he looks at her, he sees the anger has returned. He watches her pallor deepen as the storm clouds scatter, uncovering a three-quarter moon that somehow looks as stained and wretched as the boulder upon which he rests. Unzipping his windbreaker and shrugging off the pack, he raises a hand. “ Just a second.”
    Her body thrums with impatience. “You’re just going to sit there?”
    “My feet hurt. Trust me, he’ll be here. We just need to wait.”
    She stares at him for a moment. It only takes another one for her to be in his face.
    And at last, the dam breaks.
    “Wait? Trus t you? Neither of those suggestions sound reasonable to me, Mike. We’ve been waiting for hours for you to show some sign that you’re even slightly capable of getting us out of this mess, despite there being no evidence of you being able to do anything of the kind as long as we’ve known you.”
    We . Mike wonders if perhaps his earlier paranoia about what she might be saying to the boy was not so misguided, after all.
    Her voice is very loud in the eerie stillness left in the wake of the storm.
    “And: trust you? That’s all I’ve ever done, Mike, is trust you, and look where it’s gotten me. I gave up my job because you promised to take care of me, even though I loved being a teacher. You said ‘trust you’ then too. I look forward to the vacations you promise you’ll get us with your bonus every year but those vacations never happen because the fucking bonuses never happen. And I’m still waiting for you to take care of me . But instead what I get is you forever looking at me waiting for me to tell you everything’s all right, that I’m happy with you, that nothing’s your fault. All you want are reassurances that I still love you, that I’m happy with you, when you’ve never been able to provide good enough reasons for that to still be the case. You moon about looking as if you believe nobody should love you.  And maybe you’re right.”
    The color has returned to her face, the fury warming her from the inside out. Her breath steams in her face as she rages; her eyes glitter like elliptical shards of volcanic rock. “ So here I am, a prisoner of my own cowardice, trapped in a marriage of habit, forty-seven years of age with my looks gone to shit, my weight all over the place, and I’m stuck in these goddamn woods with you . My son is missing, none of us even wanted to be here. I fucking hate the woods, Mike. I don’t know how many times I’ve told you that, but because you like them, here we are, and now that it’s gone to shit like everything else you touch, you’ve been looking at me with your sad eyes for hours hoping I’ll take pity on you and as usual tell you it isn’t your fault. Well, you want to know something, Mike? It damn well is your fault. Every time you fuck up, it’s your fault, because you’re a gutless piece of shit who makes life miserable for everyone because that’s all you know how to do. You waste away at a job you despise, transferring calls to everyone else because—and I swear this should be your motto—“It’s Not Your Department”. And I hate it, Mike. I fucking hate the way you suck the life from me. I hate the way you mope around depending on me, and on Cody, to make you feel better about yourself, and to make for you your excuses for the way you are, and I hate…I…” Breathing hard, she shakes her head and brings her hands up to cover her face. Then she turns away from him, her body convulsing as she begins to sob.
    Mike sits stunned, the wind knocked from his sails as he tries to digest what she has just said. It is as if the storm passed because she inhaled it, only to vomit it forth again into his face. Never in all their years together has he seen her lose her temper like this, at least not with him. He has seen her frustrated, irritated, morose. He has