Katherine's Kingdom Ch. 03

Mike looked down at a crack in the cement. "You could've told me the truth way earlier than this. I would've understood," he said, lowly. "Now it's too late."

Laura pushed the panic button good and hard. She blocked her husband's path as he turned to knife back into the house. "Too late...what does that mean?" she asked, terror etched into her china doll complexion.

"It means I'm leaving town. I don't want to be within one-thousand miles of you!" Mike began prying people apart. He just wanted out of this nightmare as quickly as possible.

Angelo Villapiano tried blocking his way. It was a bold move, considering that he was outweighed by thirty or forty pounds. "Sorry, son, I can't let you do that. Whether she's with child or not, you have a responsibility to take care of your wife."

"I apologize, sir, but if she lacks the moral scruples in big things like this, how could I ever trust Laura again with the small stuff? No, it's got to be this way. You can take care of her if you feel the moral obligation." Mike lowered his shoulder like he was attacking a tackle dummy in football practice and finally widened a gap.

Maria, as it turned out, was only too glad to be free of him. "Fine, leave, and take Jessica with you! Take her and your worldly ways completely out of Wisconsin! Good riddance to bad rubbish!" he heard her say to his back as he made a beeline for the stairwell.

Mike, at that split second, was sick of Winterset, sick of Wisconsin, sick of everything that even remotely reminded him of the past seven weeks. He wanted to get as far away as possible, and nothing or nobody was going to stand in his way.

He bounded up the stairs two at a time, hearing Laura's wails and Angelo's shouts in the distance. It didn't make a lick of difference anymore. Mike marched straight to his bedroom, grabbed a few possessions he'd accrued since traveling back in time, and hurriedly jammed them into a canvas knapsack Mr. Villapiano had given him. Then, without another word or fond gaze farewell, lugged it downstairs, heaved the load onto one shoulder, and exited 905 Elmwood.

"Oh God, Michael, where are you going?" Laura's drawl was calling out to him from the side yard.

He didn't even turn to acknowledge her presence. "I'm going somewhere where nobody knows my name," Mike said, without breaking stride.

A gut-wrenching sob storm ever so briefly gave him pause to turn around and reconcile with his wife. However, the thought left as quickly as it arrived. He was done listening to what she had to say. Why bother, when all her words were probably lies anyway? Every time Laura said she loved him, every time the woman held his hand, looked at him with a certain, all-knowing smile, or even how she kissed him...it was all one big fat lie.

With his head of steam, it didn't take Mike long to find himself strolling west along State Road 64 past Winterset's town limits sign. He deigned to glance back over his knapsack at it. POPULATION 246, it read in the early morning twilight. What a shitty little podunk town and a shitty marriage...who needs it? Defiantly, he turned and continued his march west.

Gravel crunched under his sneakers. A crescent moon hung low ahead on the horizon. Stars frosted the sky with spectacular visage. Right now, other than the crickets and occasional distant howl of a coyote, Mike was alone in the universe. He felt an enormous sense of relief, like a million pound millstone had slid from his back. There was currently no plan or purpose anymore. He could come and go from wherever he wanted now. Mike would live every day like it was his greatest adventure.

The roar and rattle of a vehicle behind him caused Mike to sidestep down closer to the ditch. Soon, the pale glow of headlights stretched his shadow obscenely across the blacktop. Mike continued paying no heed until it slowed to a crawl at his left hand.

"Do you need a lift?" a familiar female voice asked.

"Jessica, what on earth are you doing out here? Why don't you go on back to the Villapianos and leave me be?"

"Aren't you forgetting? They kicked me out, too. I have no place to go, the same as you." Her red head leaned on the passenger doorjam.

"Why would you want to go anywhere with me? I screwed you over, big time."

"I've forgiven and forgotten. Besides, you and I arrived here together. Don't you think it's appropriate that we leave together?"

He nodded. That logic kind of made sense. "Well, if you're willing to let bygones be bygones," Mike said, shrugging his shoulders before throwing his knapsack in back and hopping into the cab of the rattletrap Dodge truck.

"Where to, gumshoe?" Jessica asked, working the gearshift from neutral into drive.

"Are you ready for some fun, sun, sand, and surf?" he asked after a moment's thought.

Jessica looked at him, then twice. Slowly, she grinned. "Are you kidding? I was born ready!"

"Fine, California it is, then. Westward ho!" Mike said, loud and clear.