Storm Runners Read Free

peninsula, on Fifty-second Street, two blocks in from the ocean. It was white. There was a fence around it and you could hearthe waves. It was a nice little place, yet in the month that Stromsoe had been home from the hospital, he had come to hate it because it seemed complicit in what had happened.
    But he loved it too—it had been their often-happy home—and the power of the two emotions made him feel paralyzed.
    He thought about selling the place, fully furnished and as is, and moving away. He thought of selling the place but renting storage space for Hallie’s and Billy’s things, so he could visit them when he wanted to. He thought of just staying here and living in it as it was. He thought of burning it down and never coming back, and of burning it down with himself in it. The idea of never seeing his son’s stuffed bears again broke his heart a little more, and the idea of seeing them every day broke it again in a different place.
    He took off his sunglasses and noted again the odd sensation of breeze cooling his good eye while his prosthetic eye felt nothing at all.
    “How long did your friendship with Mike last?” asked Susan.
    “Four years. It was a good friendship. We disagreed about a lot of things and argued about everything. But always the big stuff—does God care or does God laugh at us? Is there heaven and hell, do we determine our lives or is there a divine or a satanic plan?”
    “I had a friend like that too,” said Susan. “Funny how we talk about those things when we’re young, then stop talking about them when we get older.”
    Stromsoe thought back to the endless games of eight ball on the slouching table in Mike’s garage. The talk, the competition. Two boys looking for a way to face the world.
    “We both went nuts for Hallie Jaynes when she transferred in but we were good friends by then. We figured she was out of our reach. That was our sophomore year. She was pretty and smart. Stayedabove things, had an edge. Unafraid. Unfazable. Always said what she thought—called Mike and me the marching gland. Sarcastic twinkle in her eyes. Nice face, curly blond hair, pretty legs. Our senior year, I finally got her to go steady. I knew her heart wasn’t in it, but I was flattered that she’d do it for me. We didn’t want to leave Mike out, so the three of us did a lot of things together. The summer after we graduated, Hallie took up with him.”
    Sometimes, as he remembered something good about his wife, terrible visions rushed in and destroyed his pleasant memories. How could he keep Hallie in his heart with these hideous pictures attached?
    He cleared his throat and focused his attention on a hummingbird.
    Talk on, he thought. Tell the story, shed the skin.
    “That must have hurt,” said Susan.
    “Sure. But I was busy. I was getting ready to go to Cal State Fullerton. I was set to study prelaw because I wanted to be a cop. He was on his way to Harvard on scholarship because his grades were high and he was a great musician. He made the news—barrio kid bound for Harvard, all that.”
    “Did you see it coming, Hallie and Mike?”
    Stromsoe nodded. “I wasn’t totally surprised. Hallie always liked the hidden side of things and he had secrets. One of them was that at the same time he took up with Hallie, he was taking up with the Delhi F Troop. He hinted what he was doing. She dug it at first—the secrecy, the whiff of violence.”
    “Unafraid and unfazable.”
    “The minute that game started, she was out of her league.”
    Susan finished writing and looked at him. “You don’t like to say his name, do you?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “Does it bother you when I say it?”
    “That’s okay.”
    “I’ll get you another beer if you’d like.”
    A minute later she was back with a cold bottle, then she set out the cheese, meat, and crackers on a plate that she had found in his kitchen. Stromsoe was annoyed that this reporter would commandeer a dish last touched by Hallie.
    “When