Alone in the travel trailer, summer crickets chirping through the screened, louvered windows and little skylight hatches.
But this time, the fear is on a backburner, simmering gently. It used to boil quickly, bubble over and sizzle – and I’d always get burned.
This time, I was safe, but years of conditioning kept that back burner softly lit.
Shara would never find me here in this out-of-the-way camp spot down by McKee Bridge on the Applegate River out past Ruch. We’d shared this trailer as our home for the last few weeks of those seven awful years, and the thick green curtains, creaking floor, and the knife-hole in the brown pseudo-wood cupboard made me think of the times she’d terrorized me in her drunken rages.
But now I was alone. Me, the crickets, and a 1979 Fleetwood Prowler – twenty years old, but in pristine condition.
Time and Again: A Collection of Crazy Chronology Page 18