FIVE
And grace, my fears relieved…
CHAD
Chad navigated the roads through the Portola Valley neighborhood until he was at the location he’d driven forty minutes to get to.
At the gate, he punched in the security code not withheld from him and drove through the gates.
The home he approached was a grotesquely large, wood and weathered brick construction of country luxury. Hidden among pine trees, maple trees, tall trees, short trees…a whole crowd of fucking trees.
This was how people who had to hide lived. Behind the beautiful face of nature. Away from too much light and civilization, from narrowed eyes and curiously arched eyebrows. But into coarse tree barks and sharp greens, behind shrubs of shades and shadows where the eyes would have to squint too hard to see.
Switching off his car engine, he got out and walked up the gravel-stoned pathway to the house, appreciating the blooming, flamboyant plants lining the pathway as he did.
Up the steps and to the front door, he produced his given key, opened the door, and entered. Because he was welcomed.
He was always welcomed here.
As he took a left from the foyer leading into the living room, he heard happiness. The sound of happiness teased him each time he came to this place. He was so unfamiliar with the unfelt emotion, yet it made him yearn. He wasn’t sure what precisely he yearned for. He only knew that that sound, happiness, was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard. Happiness was always present there, in that home. So much he envied the residents. Envied the ones who created the sound.
How was the sound of happiness made? Where did it begin? Did it ever end? Was it a thing that lasted? Could it be found in the dark? Did he have to come out in the light and watch his ugly ass burn?
Is that where happiness was? In the light?
Fuck this place. It always made him think like a big, butt-fucked sissy.
Stopping at the archway that led into the living room, Chad soundlessly slipped his keys into his pocket.
Now he wasseeinghappiness.
A man and a woman, fiercely in love with each other. The woman was straddling the man, writhing against him, her honey-brown hair spilling to one side as she bent her head and melded their mouths together. When the man whispered something against her lips, she giggled and pushed harder against him, her stomach, swollen with a four-month-old fetus, restricting them from being tightly pressed together.
Chad leaned against a tall log post at the archway and waited for them to feel him. They laughed and flirted and kissed some more, their contentment as tangible as the Glock 30S in his waist.
Until the man, as though finally sensing him, turned his head in Chad’s direction. With narrowed eyes, the man grumbled, “Your voyeurism disgusts me.”
Chad said nothing.
The woman, who was a tiny wisp of a thing with a voice that sounded like happily-ever-after fairy tales, followed her husband’s gaze. Her eyes rolled when they landed on Chad.
“Tell me how you do it,” she demanded. “Tell me how you move so quietly like fragrance on the air?” Then she tilted her head and looked at him in that way she always did, like he was a puzzle she couldn’t seem to figure out. “It’s so…creepy. But so mesmerizing at the same time.”
The man clasped his wife at the hips and lifted her off him. “Okay. Rule number 37: No being mesmerized by anyone but me.”
The woman giggled, her voice soft and fine like mosquito wings. “You and your silly rules. I can barely remember the first ten.”
Annoyed by both the sound and the sight of happiness, Chad addressed the man: “We need to talk.”
He pushed away from the log column and strode off in the direction of the man’s office before he could utter another syllable.
Chad was at the wet bar pouring himself a finger of whiskey when the man finally came in the office and closed the door behind him.
“Help yourself, won’t you?” said the man through sarcasm, but there was no annoyance.
Taking a sip of his stiff drink, Chad waited for the blend of toffee, honey and white chocolate to settle on his taste buds in an enriching warmth, before turning to the man. “Clementine’s stomach is growing. Are you any closer to coming clean with her?”
The man glared at Chad for a beat, then sighed noisily as he went to sit behind his desk. Without grace, he flipped open his cigar box, took one out and lit it up, sucking in deep before bringing his attention back to Chad. “What if she leaves me? I…I can’t lose her, dammit.”
