She wasn’t awake when his alarm clock rang. At least, the bedroom door was closed. Frostily indignant, he made his own breakfast and drove off into a dim false dawn. Hadn’t he told her he must rise early today? He’d be showing the man from John Deere around, which could result in a seven-figure subcontract, which could get Leo Tronen promoted out of this hole.
He was a country boy by origin, but had the lights of New York in his eyes. His corporate employer had made him the manager of a die-cutting plant it had built outside Senlac, where land was cheap. “A fine opening, especially for a young fellow like you,” they told him. But he saw the blind alley beyond. You can only go so far, producing stuff people actually use. The real money, prestige, power lie in operating the people themselves and the paper which governs them. Well, let him make a good showing here
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much more important, let the right men know he didand he’d get the big offer.
However, for this the right wife was essential: attractive, alert, intelligent, skillful as hostess or as guest. And he had reached Senlac newly divorced. He met Una Nyborg at a party, zeroed in and, being a handsome redhead with a quick tongue and some sophistication, succeeded before long. She lived near Holberg College then, pursuing graduate studies which he agreed she might continue on a part-time basis after they were married. He didn’t expect she would for many months. He had shown her such dazzling visions of wonderful places and wonderful persons they would meet all over the world. At first, when she nonetheless persisted in her private undertaking, he was annoyed. Later, when it became inconvenient for him, sometimes an out-and-out business handicap, he grew angry.
At lastenough was enough. Una simply must straighten out and fly right. He’d start seeing to that this very day after work.
Dusk was falling when he came home. There were no street lamps in this new residential district, and windows glowed well apart, picking out bare trees and a crust of old snow. The air was hushed and raw. The tires of his Cadillac made a susurrus that was nearly the single sound. His multiglassed split-level stood dark. Nothing but an automatically opened door and lit bulb in the garage welcomed him. Una’s Morris Minor was gone.
What the devil? He let himself in at the main entrance and switched on lights as he passed
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through the hall beyond. Long, wide, creamy of walls and drapes, thick and blue of carpet. Swedish modern of furniture, equipped with fieldstone fireplace and picture window, less militarily neat than he desired, the living room felt somehow emptier than the garage, somehow colder in spite of a heating system that mumbled like the ghosts of important visitors he had entertained here.
Was Una off shopping? A strange hour, but she was poorly organized at best, and doubtless distraught after last night’s showdown. An envelope propped against a table lamp caught his glance. He strode to investigate. “Leo” said her handwriting. Fear stabbed him. He snatched a paperknife and ripped. The sheet within was covered by her scrawl, worse than usual, here and there water-blotted. He read twice before he grasped the meaning.
“.. . can’t go on . .. think I still love you, but … no alimony or anything . .. please don’t try to. find me, I’ll call in a few days when this isn’t hurting so hard.…”
“Why, how could she?” he heard himself say. “After all I’ve done for her.”
Savagely he crumpled note and envelope, tossed them in the grate across the remnants of her thesis, sought the liquor cabinet and poured a stiff slug, flung himself onto the couch, popped lighter to cigarette, and dragged in a lungful.
What an absolute hell of a moment for her to desert. Where could she be? He mustn’t make frantic inquiries. Discretion, yes, that was the word, heal the breach behind the scenes or at
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least finalize it inconspicuously. But could he trust her not to make a fool of him? If she’d sought shelter from a friend . .. No, hardly that. She’d likeliest gone to the city and entered a hotel under an assumed name. She was dreamy but not idiotic, unstable (Quartersand now this!) but not disloyal. What had she said, during a recent quarrel? “You keep a good man locked away behind your ego. I know. You’ve sometimes let him out … on a chain, but out, to me, and he’s who I love. Oh, Leo, give him a chance. Let him go free.” Some such slush. Quite possibly she hoped her action would force a reconciliation.