Shadow Season Read Free Page B

normal. When he sees Judith he sees his mother. It’s both strange and calming. He has to stay especially focused because it’s easy to go along with the fantasy, and he has to stop himself from calling her Mom.
    Judith shares other traits and particulars with his mother. She’s twice divorced, on the downside of a third marriage, and has an ungrateful adult child. She is probably bipolar. She’s had several affairs that she believes to be secret but are common knowledge to anyone paying even a little attention. Judith believes herself to be fatbut she’s only brawny. Touch her arm and you can feel how physically powerful she is. You wouldn’t want to roll around in the mud with her, but you might throw down in the sack.
    That strength doesn’t seem to mean anything to her. She’d prefer to be dainty and delicate, a starved wisp that men would fawn over. She uses too much perfume and hair spray and bathing oils in an effort to be more feminine. She doesn’t know how to laugh. Her sense of humor pretty much sucks ass. She’s always on the edge of a world-class sulk.
    When they find themselves alone like this without any need for going over reports, they speak honestly and with some real depth.
    People open up to him because they can see him and he can’t see them. It’s like playing the peekaboo game with a baby. If you can’t watch them, you can’t bear witness. You’re not really there.
    The snow begins to fall, ice crystals brushing against the glass.
    Judith tosses her cigarette out the window, flicking it hard with her fingernail. After the thaw, Murphy and his crew will be out there plucking bits of cotton filters out of the bushes for days. He’ll shout up to her, “Shite, can’t you smoke unfiltered Camels or get the hang of a good pipe, now?”
    She very carefully latches the window shut and fights to keep from sighing. She only partially succeeds. He knows she’s pining for Murph. Or at least lusting for him.
    Finn sits in the comfortable leather visitor’s chairand extends the question. “What are you still doing here, Judith? Why don’t you head home to your family?”
    “And why would you want to wish that hell on me?”
    He can’t help but smile. “Troubles again?”
    “Troubles, dependable and enduring.”
    “You’d better leave now or you’ll get caught in the storm.”
    “A ready-made excuse, not that I need one.” She shifts her stance, comes down hard on one heel. “There’s no one to tell it to.” She clears her throat. “I’m maudlin, I know, but bear with me.”
    “You’re not thinking of staying here for the whole two weeks, are you?”
    “Why not? It’s supposed to be a vacation. If I go home, it’ll be anything but relaxing. The tree’s still not up. The presents are unwrapped, what few there are. My son has been out of work for the last eight months. I don’t have the energy to argue with him, so I’m just as responsible, irresponsible really, as he is. My husband put twenty-five years into the fire department, retired, and still works in a volunteer capacity every holiday. He hasn’t been home for Christmas or New Year’s for the last four years, which is eighty percent of our marriage. He doesn’t even have the ambition to cheat on me, which would do him a world of good and make him at least a bit happy, and that would be pleasant. No, I really see no reason why I should rush home.”
    Home is forty minutes away over the Connecticut border in a posh township. Her husband’s name is Mike or Mark, but she never addresses him as such. Her son’s name is Billy. Or maybe Bobby. Billy-Bob? She refuses to say his name either. Finn wonders what his psychiatristwould think about that. Is it simply detachment or de-humanization?
    But he never thinks of his shrink by her name either, she’s just his shrink. Maybe he’ll broach the subject of replacing names with titles and what the psychological ramifications might be the next time he visits her. If he ever