Chapter 7: The Separation

The soup had looked good when Duncan took it off the stove but when he sat down to eat it, there was no taste. After a few trying a few spoonfuls he disgustedly dropped his spoon. Pushing the chair back he got up and bussed his lunch dishes, rinsed them and popped them in the dishwasher. Since his return to Seattle nothing tasted good.

Restlessly prowling his living room he stopped in front of the big picture window to watch the happy crowd promenading around Green Lake. A light wind rippled the lakes surface, sending sparkles across the surface. Even the placid, happy view from his living room couldn't soothe him this afternoon. Nothing he did was able to snap him out of the blue funk he'd fallen into in the week since returning from Spokane and his brief adventure with Helen in Ritzville.

Duncan snorted. "Be honest with yourself at least," he thought. "The blues hit as you watched her drive away, leaving you behind on her way to meet her husband."

Standing at the window his mind shifted again to those few days in Ritzville. In his mind the moon was full and bathed a woman who was naked perfection in its soft magic. She came to him, pressing herself against him, giving herself to him. As the picture played in his mind he was again holding her hand, leading he off their mountain.

As he remembered the picture shifted, the ambient light changed from silver and gold to blue and he was again standing beside the road, watching his perfect woman drive away. Tears streaked his face again as he remembered her car disappearing down the road.

He'd not heard from her since she phoned telling him she made it safely. But then he hadn't expected to hear from her.

"She must be appalled at the enchantment we'd fallen under in Ritzville." He hoped she didn't hate him for seducing her. Lord knows it wasn't something he planned. Not that it wasn't something he didn't want but he just didn't mess with marriages and married women. How could something like that just happen? But it had.

For a moment he fell into the now familiar daydream remembering those few days he'd spent as Helen's Lochinvar. Since returning to Seattle he'd just wandered restlessly from one thing to another. He had managed a few productive hours on his consulting business, but it didn't seem fair to charge the clients for more than half the time he spent trying to concentrate on their problems.

He walked miles around Green Lake every day since his return.

The comfortable, cheerful old mansion he and his wife had moved into early in their marriage overlooked Seattle's own back yard. The three-mile walk around the urban park that was Green Lake was the most popular exercise in the city. Almost any time, day or night, crowds of a few dozen to several hundred walkers, runners, bikers and inline skaters could be seen strolling, biking, and skating around the charming natural park.

One of Duncan's favorite jaunts was walking around the lake on a warm sunny day. The crowd of sunbathers always made wonderful eye-candy. With his house lying just across the road from the parks grass, he wryly considered the scantily clad sunbathers to be his own personal lawn ornaments. Kicking off his loafers he had barely sat down to tie on his running shoes when the telephone rang.

"This is Duncan. What can I do for you?"

"Duncan, glad I caught you in," came Colin's familiar voice. He was head of the investigating agency he had asked to check on Helen's husband, Gerald. "We have the report you asked for on Gerald Conningham. Do you want me to mail it to you or do you want to stop by the office to pick it up?"

"I'll swing over and pick it up this afternoon. Can you give me a run down on what you found over the phone?"

"Sure, already told you the man met a woman named Myra Jenkins at SeaTac Airport. She is, or was, his Executive Assistant. They cashed in tickets to Manila, then we were able to verify they took a JAL plane to Singapore, First Class. The next four days they spent in Singapore living the high life."

"They were scheduled to take an inland tour of one of the classic ruins, Ankwar Wat. Gerald left their hotel early to do some shopping and was supposed to meet Myra where the tour started. She never showed and the guy has been tearing the place apart ever since looking for her. She's a pretty little piece; late 20's, blond, and built very nicely. Our informant at their hotel told us she slipped off fifteen minutes after Gerald left that morning. It looked like she was heading to the airport alone. Gerald has no idea what happened to her and it's driven him crazy."

"I'm sorry we didn't keep track of her but the operative in Singapore had instructions to keep tabs on the guy. He had no more idea she was planning a skip than Conningham. We'll get on her trail if you want but Conningham looks about through with his trip. He tossed a real bundle on the broad and he's been bitching under his breath that she walked off with the rest of the money they had with them. It's handy to have a hotel room bugged."

Duncan thanked him for the summary, promising to pick up the written report at his office later. After hanging up he glanced at his watch before trotting out the door to make the run around the lake. Despite his hopes those few miles were not enough to clear his troubled mind.

On the drive back from picking up the report Duncan tried making sense out of what he knew. The drive only took half an hour and he ended up with more questions than he started with and no answers. Gerald had to have been an unusual man for a woman like Helen to have married him much less stayed with him for twenty years. What had happened? When did the change start? How was Helen going to face this?

That one had an answer. She would face it quietly and courageously. She would face it with compassion and she would come out of this stronger than she went in.

Not that she would believe it right away but he knew it was true.

Duncan had faced the truth about himself since that second day in Ritzville. Helen was one of the most remarkable and resilient women he had ever met.

The rest of that truth was uncertainty. He knew how he felt. That didn't help when she was honorably married to Gerald. Without knowing what she was going to be doing. Without that he was lost. Could he somehow reach out and try to win her? He had promised her not to interfere in her life, certainly not her marriage, as long as she was committed to her husband. Despite what Gerald was doing she was committed.

For that matter, she had no idea what Gerald was doing.

He could not even try to influence her decision about this mess. If she felt he was selfishly trying to break up her marriage he would be gone so fast he'd cause a sonic boom. The fact he would agree with that decision didn't make things any easier.

All he could do was the honorable thing; support her, answer any questions she had truthfully and hope like hell what ever she decided would be something he could work himself into. A man had no right to find a woman like his wife, to find discover another like her, Helen, was too much to expect. Still, he could place himself in position to help her and hope.

As he locked the car he vowed to spend every waking moment hoping.

He had to tell Helen what her husband had been doing. But how was he going to explain he had sicced a detective agency on her husband? How in the world was she going to respond to that?

He knew the answer to that was, "Not good!"

He had to go to her. He had to be there to give her comfort when she heard of her husband's perfidy, to make her understand this didn't end her world.

He had to go because in just three days she had become his dearest friend. How could he bring her to see her first assumption was wrong? It would be natural for Helen to assume he was there to take advantage of her distress. He knew outsiders would not believe anything else.

Did Helen understand him enough to understand, to know why he was really there? For that matter, did he understand himself enough or was he only fooling himself into thinking he wasn't there to make a play for her?

Leaving Colin's office he knew he was heading home to pack for an indefinite trip to Lake Chelan in his motor home. While assembling the needed items he began trying to call Helen at the Chelan number she gave him.

The packing was completed and he had just hung up the telephone after reserving a space in an RV Park in Chelan when the phone rang. It was Helen replying to the messages he had been leaving on her answering machine.

"Helen, I was calling to tell you I'll be in Chelan tomorrow. I'd like to say hello while I'm there, is that OK?"

After a pause, Helen replied, "I guess so, Duncan. I'm hoping Gerry will be back tomorrow, and I'm sure he would be glad to see you." After another pause, "Call me when you get in. Maybe we can have dinner."

Duncan agreed then hung up, feeling like a complete fool. Helen was trying to keep distance between them. Yet he respected her for it. More troubling but not unexpected was her attempt to keep the fiction alive of rebuilding their marriage. She had been in Chelan a week now and hadn't accepted Gerald's disrespect and desertion. It was a blow to her self-esteem and hard to accept. Even more critical and difficult to accept was that it was a signal of the end of her marriage. How would she respond when he told her about the detective report and what it implications?