Inital Public Offerings Ch. 01

At this point, I had seen enough and I waked in a daze toward my car. I don't remember the drive home.

***

The next morning, Swati came in and looked at the empty bottle of scotch lying on the kitchen table. She'd already passed my car parked catty corner in the drive, so her look was pensive as she saw me in my bathrobe and boxers eating a reheated plate of pork lo mein for breakfast at 10 a.m.

"How are you Mr. REEnalds?" she asked in her sing song voice.

"Hi Swati." I said glumly.

"Are you seek, Mr. REEnalds?" she asked, her eyes darting around the house. Normally, I was out and I saw her at the end of the day, not the beginning unless I was working at home. She was a fifty or so illegal Hindu woman whom we hired for cleaning. I know. In California, we were supposed to hire Mexicans. Allie considered it avante gard.

"No. I'm not sick."

"Ah." She set her bag and her tiffin lunch box down and walked through the kitchen into the living room. There, she no doubt saw the message light on the phone blinking with dozens of messages and the pile of pictures of Allie stacked in the corner, facing the wall. "Meesuss REEnalds is away?" she asked innocently.

"Yes." I said sadly. For some reason I added "Permanently."

She considered this for a while. "Good." she finally said, bobbling her head back and forth sideways in that curious way she had. And that pretty much told me everything I needed to know about my marriage.