Chapter 16
Josh
I watched them from a distance. The day was unseasonably cold and bleak—gray skies with heavy clouds, which the lake reflected back in a roiling liquid mass of nearly charcoal. It almost seemed like dusk instead of midday.
The woman, frizzy-haired, older, wearing a plaid mohair coat, clung to Ted’s arm as they moved through the courtyard and out to the street in front of it.
Ted looked around surreptitiously as though he were up to something and, in my book, he was.
Who betrays the person they proclaimed to love?
Who shuts them out so completely without even the smallest attempt at communication?
And who was that woman? A relative? A friend? I thought Ted didn’t really have many friends, and he certainly never mentioned a woman old enough to be his mother.
They got into a gray Prius parked on the west side of Sheridan Road. I wanted to follow. But my car, parked in the lot at the end of Touhy Avenue farther north, would have taken me too long to get to. They’d be long gone in the morass of Chicago traffic.
But I could go back, move my car—hopefully closer—and wait for their return. I needed the full story of what was going on here before I made any kind of move.
But I would—and will—make a move soon.
And Ted will be so sorry he ever crossed me. We could have had a good thing if he were only more trusting, more loyal. Flannery O’Connor was right when she said that a good man was hard to find.
I wasn’t sure what I’d do, or how, but Ted needed to understand his behavior toward me, his rejection, was unacceptable.
Like so many other men who’ve disappointed me, all he wanted to do was take my love and give nothing in return.
All I ever asked for was that. Why was a little fidelity and loyalty so much to want? I deserved it.
But what did he deserve?