General Thomas J. Ellis glanced at his watch for the hundredth time. It was coming up on the hour mark, thank God.
He had set up a surveillance spot down the way, inside a phone booth. He waited for Hendricks to finish his assigned task.
This was the last place he had spoken to Grace. It felt nice to be this close to her again in some capacity. Hendricks had tracked it down after that horrific night when the bitch left Ellis' ass high and dry.
The General knew it was stupid, but the feelings were there inside him. For the first time since she left, he was semi-happy. He even imagined he could smell her perfume even though it had been a couple days now since her unscheduled departure from his life.
God, how he loved her scent. He would awaken at night to the smell of her, his senses alive with need, only to realize, she was not there in reality.
Some guy had stood outside for a spell, wanting to use the phone but Ellis didn’t want to give up the only relatively warm spot around, so he opened the door with a brusque rejoinder.
“Military business! Find another booth.”
The guy had offered no trouble, moving on down the street. Ellis could be intimidating when he wished.
Maybe Grace waited for him just like she promised, all fresh and scented from a long shower. In some hotel somewhere. Just like before. Maybe she had changed her mind. Maybe she was missing him as much as he was missing her...the bitch.
The man didn't really think of Grace as...that. Not really. Calling her a few well-chosen names helped him get through the moments.
The General hadn’t gone home...not once. He hadn’t spoken to his wife. His schedule was hectic, which helped fill his days but the nights? Was something out of a horror movie of late. He tossed and turned, if he slept at all.
His thoughts turned to Grace and the time he had held her in his arms, slowly dancing to the music on that damned radio.
It had felt like Heaven.
Just to be near the woman. To touch her hair, to kiss her mouth whenever he felt like it.
Ellis noted the people passing the booth, talking, smiling, laughing, oblivious to his presence. Hurrying home to loved ones, after a long bus trip, maybe. Who the fuck cared.
The holidays meant little to him any longer. He went through the motions, for his kids. He had shown up for a few hours on Christmas day to bring by his presents.
He chose a time when he knew his wife would not be in-house. The kids had questions, but he managed to by-step them.
This year, he had been rather excited to share a portion of the Christmas days with Grace. As much as they would be allowed.
She had mentioned wishing to decorate a damned tree. The thought made him smile. He hadn’t done that since he was a kid. Decorate a fucking tree of all things.
He had watched his own kids when they were little, of course, in the early years.
He should never have left Grace that day. He should have stayed. He could have managed the crisis with his dear wife. The bitch! And that descriptive little phrase, he meant with every fiber of his being.
He had not been able to forgive Grace Ellis.
The anger was too intense...the cut too deep. Even though he knew, logically, it was his own actions which caused his wife to act as she had. He simply had no desire to interface with the woman again. Not at this time.
The man thought seriously about contacting his attorney to file divorce proceedings. Major Hendricks, of all people, advised Ellis to wait until the emotional shit passed before making any permanent decisions.
Ellis knew the advice was sound. He would have given the same advice to anyone else who was going through a difficult period of emotional upheaval.
Standing here, in this fucking booth like the fucking moron he was, it had come to him.
Ellis didn’t care where Grace Morgan was. He didn’t care if she walked out on his ass... He would accept her back any damned way he could get her.
A sad statement of fact but that’s how fucking hard he had fallen.
The little shit was in his blood, and he knew, ten minutes after he had left her, he wanted to return to the room. To be with her. He should have followed those instincts, clearly.
Fucking hindsight.
His damned principles melted like snowflakes on the sidewalk even though he had managed to stay pissed at her for an entire day after her little dramatic exit.
His anger could easily be soothed with an hour in her arms...in her favor. The General knew that as well.
Thomas J. Ellis had never been in love. He thought he had, once, a very long time ago but...it hadn’t felt anything like this.
He wanted nothing more in life than to be in Grace’s presence. To tell her how stupid he had been. He never apologized but he needed to straighten out this shit between them, if only for his own sanity.
Simply to sit across from her, to watch her expressions, to see the pretty face in soft light, that glorious hair all wild and free about her shoulders, gently laying on her breasts.
To hear her voice even made him content.
The damned stupid outlook she had on life amused him, but it also gave him some kind of perverted hope.
If there were fresh-faced optimists out there still, like Grace, who believed in a better way, a brighter future, that there still was a chance for their Species? Maybe he could learn to temper his world-weary outlook.
Maybe she could alter his jaded weariness with time. Ellis could not recall ever being anything but what he had become. But of late, he was not especially proud of it.
Grace made him take a hard look at himself, at his world. To examine his motives, question his way of seeing things, his life...his very beliefs.
Ellis didn’t know why he felt differently about things when around the woman, he only had to admit, finally...that he did.
He resented the hell out of the fact at first, but not so much any longer.
He slept better, when he could find the time to sleep, of course. He had taken on a shit load of new responsibilities since Grace’s departure, simply so he didn’t have to dwell on her absence.
Which was another thing. He had never minded the restrictions, the intrusions on his time...his life, before.
They irritated the shit out of him when he was with the woman. To the point he had actually cancelled appointments to make the time to be with Grace.
He hadn’t regretted those decisions...not once.
It was an unheard-of thing. The General cancelling a meeting.Ellis smiled sardonically, remembering Hendricks face when first the large man had done so.
The young man had stood, slack-jawed, unable to process the order at first.
Ellis had lifted a brow and the guy snapped into action but, yeah...the kid had been thrown. Not much rattled Major William Hendricks. It amused the General to have produced such a response.
What the hell!
Ellis was entitled to a little down time. He had earned it. He had so much ‘comp’ time accumulated, he could retire now, if he so desired.
Ellis had learned the definition of the word: delegate, from Grace Morgan.
It was a wonderful word, which freed up some of his life. Too bad he hadn’t learned it earlier for his wife and kids.
Such a sobering thought brought back the reality of the situation he now faced.
The right thing to do would be, leave this fucking booth...go home to his family but even as the thought came, the depression descended.
The General didn’t want to go home. He was not happy at home. He went through the motions...at home. He lived a fucking lie...at home.
Maybe he should just stop it all. Just walk away from both worlds. Just like Grace had done. The lies would stop and eventually, the pain he caused would subside and his mind would be free and uncluttered.
God, he hated ‘clutter’.
The General truly believed, his conscience, such as it was, would not allow him to continue with one woman having caused another grief. It wasn’t how it worked. Now that his colossal deception had come to light.
There were no grey areas in this dilemma...not for him.
He didn’t like to believe it, but at this stage, he just wasn’t strong enough to give up Grace Morgan.
If push came to shove, he knew who he would choose.
Not a pretty thought but an accurate one. One that turned his stomach. What kind of man had he become? He despised men without the balls to face a hard decision. To make the right choice then move forward.
He wasn’t revising his belief, just having to accept that he had joined their ranks.
It humbled the man...the realization.
Ellis lifted his eyes, having stepped from his place of relative quiet. The sky above was blue, not one cloud could be seen. It was a clear, cloudless day. He wondered what Grace was doing at this exact moment.
The air was crisp and cold, infiltrating his heavy overcoat.
He leveled his gaze, making for the terminal entrance just across the wide avenue. Traffic was moving slowly, the congestion of the drivers slowing everything to a crawl.
Several of the cars stopped as he wove his way through the maze of steel carriages.
Not one person honked ...or gestured, for such a trespass.
Maybe they were giving a break because of his chosen profession...maybe they just didn’t want an interface with such a large bear of a man.
He didn’t give it much thought.
Ellis was accustomed to people giving way to him in life. He never questioned the ‘why’ of it all.
He nodded to the man who held the door open for his entrance, then made his way past, into the lobby, then crossed to the elevator.
Once inside, he waited patiently, just one of several passengers. The ticket desk was on the second floor; the Major had informed his Superior Officer.
Ellis briefly wondered about the lives of the other passengers. What event brought each to this exact moment in time.
Were any of these people going to meet their fates, as he, himself?
Did their existence hinge on the reality of someone supplying the answer to a much-anticipated question?
Would the next few moments define the rest of their entire lives?
Deep philosophical shit for someone as shallow as he, the General mused.
The lift doors opened, and he squared his broad shoulders, exiting, going to meet his fate.
Grace wiped her brow, pushing the long red curls from her face yet again. The hair net she wore did little to hold the weight of the mass of hair she possessed.
It was the middle of winter, and she was sweating like it was late August in the Mid-West.
She glanced about, disturbed greatly by the continual hacking coughs of her contemporaries seated around her.
For the hundredth time, she cast a troubled eye to Maria Calatoni. Her co-worker’s complexion was sallow, a sick shade of grey but the dull red spots highlighting Maria’s classic cheek bones bespoke of a high fever.
Grace understood the necessity of work...of showing up. Of not daring to miss a payday, for fear of dismissal, certainly but more so, of not having enough money to survive from one paycheck to another.
She was one of the fortunate ones. She had money, not a lot but enough. She had not confided the fact to a living soul, of course. These women, for the most part, were immigrants, refugees from Europe.
They had no fail-safe like Grace.
Most had lost their husbands in the War. The oppression and desperation of this place frightened Grace. It brought back so many painful memories.
Grace felt lousy physically as well. Just like anyone who worked in this horrible place. Her throat hurt and she had thrown up this morning. She hadn’t eaten for fear of a recurrence.
Her skin was hot but nowhere near as burning as Maria’s.
Grace had placed her own sweater around the woman’s slender shoulders half an hour back because the little Italian was shivering uncontrollably, Maria's own thin pullover not sufficient enough to ward off the freezing atmosphere of the mammoth warehouse in which they worked.
The factory was heated by a central coal furnace that was not half large enough to supply heat to the entire building.
Grace had found this position quickly. Jobs like these were not hard to come by. No one sane wanted to apply. To work under such shitty conditions for so little pay.
The great influx of people from the War-torn countries filled the district with despairing people. Unscrupulous bastards were out there, always...willing and able to take advantage of the less fortunate.
Grace had to work. She had learned early on; work equals a paycheck. A paycheck lifted her up out of the uncertainty of her former life. A paycheck meant security and even though she had savings set aside for just such an emergency, she never truly felt ‘secure’.
The night she had left Washington D.C. seemed a very long time ago.
There were no flights out because of the snowstorm. She had taken a Greyhound to Chester, Pennsylvania, staying the rest of the night in some ratty hotel room in a rundown section of town near the Delaware River district.
She had registered under Anna Bickerstaff.
The next morning, she was back on the bus headed for Philadelphia Municipal Airport from which she caught a flight to New York City.
Seeking a position in her former vocation might lead to those seeking her actually finding her present location so Grace sought employment in other fields.
She found this job, an assembly line position in a plant manufacturing nuts and bolts used in various products, such as furniture, machinery, and the automotive industry.
She felt secure enough in this non-descript place, just one of a million faceless workers. She had found a momentary place of rest.
The second week here, she noticed the problem but by then it was too late to correct it.
The immigrants had brought little from their former lands but the one thing that had accompanied them was a terrible strain of influenza.
Half the factory was out with it, and the other half was either in the early stages of development or waiting around to contract the virus.
Grace knew exposure meant certain contagion.
She could not, in all good conscience, willfully up and leave, carrying the horrible infection to another section of the country.
There was an epidemic in progress.
Many feared allowing returning soldiers into their homes, believing they too, carried the dreaded contamination.
It seemed a piss poor ‘welcome back’ to Grace. These men had risked their life and limbs only to be greeted by fear and rejection by the very Nation they had protected...sacrificed so very much for!
It was not fair; it was not decent, but people were terrified. Children especially, seemed susceptible to the disease.
People had good cause to fear, granted, but Grace imagined the soldiers had been afraid to go to War. Still, they had gone.
They had faced their fears and conquered them.
The papers were reporting the deaths on a daily basis. Most likened the epidemic to that of the 1918 Spanish Flu, which killed three to five percent of the world’s population.
There was nothing much to be done. Hospitals had broadcast what to do in case symptoms appeared. Pamphlets were passed out in droves and Grace had stocked up on everything the doctors were advising.
It was about all one could do.
She had also brought Maria’s family the same provisions. For all the good it had done.
She glanced to her co-worker once again. She sighed, leaning close that others would not be privy to the ensuing conversation.