Age of Monsters by John Schneider (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📗

Jonah gritted his teeth – not for the first time or the hundredth.  He had learned that was her way.

In the last couple of weeks, he had learned a lot about Mrs. Naomi Walker – who still sometimes thought of herself as Naomi Kathryn Anderson – a military brat – raised on bases – valedictorian of her high-school class, but never went to college – met her soon-to-be husband while partying on her twenty-first birthday.

Jonah knew this about her – he had learned a lot about her.  Among other things, he learned she had high-standards – standards that he wasn't near living up to.

She had been utterly appalled at his cabin: “You live here? Are you a transient, or an alcoholic or something?”

It also turned out Jonah shared a lot of her husband's faults – 'man-faults', she called them – but apparently none of his virtues.  Or if he did, she hadn't mentioned one yet.

A lot of it was certainly cabin-pressure, but Jonah wondered if this was how she always handled her husband's absence during deployment – talking aloud to him as if he was right in the room – actually getting angry over things he would do if he was – and then seemed to hold it against him that he wasn't.

Or maybe she was simply nuts.

Either way, those were conversations Jonah had learned not to get involved in.

You might have thought just by looking at her that, if you had to be trapped for an extended period in an isolated cabin, it might as well be with her.

You would have been wrong.  It was actually a good deal worse than being stuck up there alone.  Jonah had never experienced cabin-fever in his life, before two weeks ago – this place had been his refuge.

They hadn't gotten off to a good start – as he had let her into his single-bedroom dwelling, she had set that boundary immediately.

“Look,” she said, “I'm married.  Don't be getting any ideas.”

In light of current circumstances, that had knocked Jonah's nose just a little out of joint.

“Little presumptuous?  I didn't exactly slip you a roofie to get you here, you know.”

She smirked.  “Please.  You're a guy.  I look like this.”  She eyed him knowingly.  “I saw you eyeballing me back at the store.”

Jonah colored briefly – he'd thought he'd been more subtle.

“I'm not that type of guy,” he said.

She gave him another one of her appraising up-and-downs.

“No,” she agreed, “probably not.  Forget I brought it up.”

That one almost sparked his temper.  She knew how to touch a nerve.

Did girls just sense it, he wondered?  Did they just instinctively know how to twist that knife in just the appropriate way to really dig?

Jonah almost said it to her – see, there were guys who would nail your wife, and those who wouldn't.  And just because you weren't a rat-bastard, didn't make you a fuckin' beta-male.

He wasn't that type of guy because he HATED that guy.

His marriage had ended over THAT guy.

A wife of ten years – who he had married young, and expected to be with for the rest of his life.

He remembered very clearly the moment that he knew.

He also remembered thinking some very dark thoughts about THAT guy – and he understood very clearly crimes of passion.

'Anger' was not even the word – it was more primal than that – it just sort of melted over him, like lava meeting ice – the ugly, black, choking anger of a cuckold – pretty much the same instinctive/chemical response you got all down the animal phylums – it didn't matter whether you were a man or a wolf – if you mess with thy neighbor's wife, you better expect some teeth in your ass.

They had been living in Portland then, and Jonah remembered loading up his rifle and climbing calmly into his Bronco – and he had found himself wondering how many men had felt just like this throughout human history – all the way back to the caveman marching purposely out of his cave, armed with a wooden club.  He seemed to be moving on autopilot – acting out an almost involuntary, socio-evolutionary response – cause and effect.

He had driven to the end of his street... and then, instead of driving into town, he had turned south, gotten on the highway, and come out to this very cabin.

And he had never really come back.

When he got there, he had sent that one text he had ever sent in his life.

“I want a divorce.”

Poking out one painstaking button at a time – it took him another two minutes to figure out how to send it.

He never saw her again – he never spoke her name – the proceedings all got handled through the lawyers.  No contest with any of the property.  Her new guy had money.

She had eventually called him – after she and new-guy had split.

Jonah hadn't answered.

That had been ten years ago.

Naomi's from-the-hip judgment lanced a lot of old wounds.

“You don't have to worry about me,” Jonah told her.  “Once bitten, twice shy.”

The subtly of their dynamic was not improved by the fact of the man she did have – not just a 'man', but a MAN.  It wasn't overt – or even intentional, Jonah believed – but she could not help but look at Jonah, himself, with a touch of contempt for what he wasn't.

And Jonah, for his part, couldn't help but acknowledge the comparison.  He'd met a few fighter pilots during the course of getting his own license, and they were all ripped arms and cage-fighter tattoos – cut with military discipline.

From her point of view, he could understand her lack of enthusiasm at being stuck with him.

He was embarrassed