LITMIR.BIZ

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of feeling frustrated, trapped and unhappy…How long before his friends got bored with him, before women like Martine started viewing him as a crabby old bachelor who was better avoided?

      The buzzer rang on the oven. Troy shoveled the pizza on to a plate and sat down at the counter. He chewed the crust and the layered cheese and mushrooms as if they were cardboard, his convictions—and his angerhardening.

      He was going to go and see Lucy. And this time he’d tell her she could come back and be his wife—in fact as well as in name—or else he’d file for a divorce. A simple choice. Yes or no.

      No more begging. No more opening himself to the kind of rejection he’d suffered in April. No more of the dull ache that had lodged itself in his belly months ago and never gone away. He was through with being a zombie. Enough was enough.

      Marriage or divorce. A straightforward choice. And then he’d know where he was, even if he didn’t like it very much. Because the hard fact was that Lucy, in the year since she had stormed out of the house after the worst fight in their marriage, had not once gotten in touch with him. No phone calls, no letters, not even a Christmas card.

      Divorce. Troy played with the word in his mind, hating the very sound of it, yet knowing he’d be a naive fool to imagine that Lucy was going to throw herself in his arms the minute he walked across the threshold of her apartment. There was a very strong possibility she might slam the door in his face.

      If she chose—for the third time—to reject him, then somehow he’d have to learn to let go of her. With the sharpest of scalpels he’d have to amputate her from his body and his soul, and afterwards he’d have to allow himself to recuperate, to heal, so that he could rebuild a life that would include risk and intimacy and, eventually, children.

      But in order to let go of her, he had to see her first.

      The pizza seemed to have disappeared. Troy poured himself a beer, grabbed the latest medical journal and went upstairs to read it.

      

      Troy slept better that night than he had in weeks, and the next morning his resolve was unchanged. He was going to get on with his life, Lucy or no Lucy. And the sooner he saw her, the better. It had, however, occurred to him that before he went banging on the door of her apartment it might be sensible to check that she hadn’t gone away on holiday. So that afternoon he phoned Evelyn Barnes, his mother-in-law, who also lived in Ottawa.

      “Troy here. How are you, Evelyn?”

      With genuine pleasure Evelyn said, “How nice to hear from you. I’m snowed under at work and otherwise fine.”

      Evelyn was a forensic pathologist; while she lacked the emotional warmth of her middle daughter, Lucy, Troy had always known she was fond of him, and that she had been upset when Lucy had left him. He said, “Is Lucy around? While I’d rather you didn’t warn her ahead of time, I need to see her.”

      Evelyn hesitated. “No…no, she hasn’t lived in Ottawa since May.”

      She’s found another man.

      The words had sprung from nowhere, and the rush of emotion that churned in Troy’s chest had nothing to do with detachment. “You mean she’s moved?” he said stupidly.

      “She’s working on the east coast for the summer.”

      So it was temporary. Troy loosened his hold on the receiver. “When’ll she be back?”

      “Not until October, as far as I know.”

      It was now the end of August. Suffused with an anger that he made no attempt to subdue, Troy said, “I can’t wait that long. Give me her address and I’ll go wherever she is.”

      The pause was longer this time. Evelyn said reluctantly, “She made me promise not to tell you her whereabouts.”

      “For Pete’s sake,” he exploded, “what’s she playing at?”

      “She’s trying to sort things out, Troy, as best she can.”

      “Good for her,” he snarled. “You’ve got to tell me where she is, Evelyn—I’ve been offered a job in the States and I’d have to sell the house. I can’t do that without at least consulting her.”

      “Fax me the details and I’ll see she gets it right away.”

      “Thanks, but no, thanks—she’s my wife, Evelyn!”

      “If she hadn’t been so insistent, I wouldn’t have promised.”

      Insistent. Determined to stay away from him. To hide so he’d never find her. Too bad, Lucy, he thought grimly. This time it’s not going to work. “If I’m to move from Vancouver, if I’m to divorce her, then I have to see her first. You surely must understand that.” There, he had said it. He had actually used the word.

      “Oh, Troy,” Evelyn said faintly, “has it come to that?”

      “I’m tired of being in limbo. Neither married nor free,” he replied implacably.

      “I do understand that your position’s untenable.” There was another of the long pauses that were quite out of character for Evelyn. Then she said slowly, “I believe Marcia’s in touch with Lucy—you might try her… Oh, there’s my doorbell—I’m going to a play with some friends. I’ve got to go, Troy.”

      Marcia was the eldest of Evelyn’s three daughters. Marcia and Troy rarely saw eye to eye on anything. After saying goodbye to Evelyn, he dialed Marcia’s number and made a huge effort to modulate his tone. “Marcia? Troy here. I wondered if you would give me Lucy’s address. Evelyn was busy when I called her.”

      You lying bastard, he told himself. But it’s all in a good cause.

      One of Marcia’s virtues, in Troy’s opinion, was her supreme incuriosity about other people’s lives. “She’s staying on an island off the coast of Nova Scotia,” Marcia said. “Let me think…Shag Island—that’s it. Near Yarmouth. She’s working at a guest house called the Seal Bay Inn. Sounds like the end of the world to me, but you know Lucy—she always was a bit off the wall.”

      If Lucy hadn’t decided on impulse to go sailing for four weeks in Tortola, he, Troy, would never have met her. “Thanks,” he said and, not above pumping her, added, “Have you seen Lucy lately?”

      “Goodness, no. You wouldn’t catch me going on a smelly old fishing boat to some godforsaken island. Not my thing at all. She’ll be home in a month or so; I’ll see her then.”

      “What took her there, do you know?”

      “She got laid off at the bookstore where she was working. A friend of Cat’s knows the couple who runs the inn—they needed someone for the summer, I guess.” Marcia yawned. “The sort of harebrained scheme Lucy loves.”

      Cat was Lucy’s younger sister. “Well, thanks for the information, Marcia. Should you be talking to Lucy, you could forget we’ve had this conversation—okay?”

      “Whatever you like,” Marcia said indifferently. “If you were to take my advice, Troy, you’d cut your losses as far as Lucy’s concerned.”

      “I may just do that.”

      “Well,” she replied with patent surprise, “I’m very glad to hear it—I think she’s behaved deplorably the last couple of years.”

      It was one thing for Troy to think that, another to hear Lucy’s sister say so. “She lost her child, Marcia.”

      “So did you. But she’s the one who’s been running away from her responsibilities ever since.”

      He could feel his throat closing with the old pain, and in his heart of hearts he recognized the kernel of truth in Marcia’s judgement. “Thanks for the address,” he said huskily. “Don’t work too hard.” Very carefully Troy replaced the receiver in its cradle.

      One of the many things which had distressed him

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