Author's Note
We get to go back to the present in the next chapter, which will be a nice break before the other half of the flashbacks start. ;)
I also deliberated about doing without this chapter entirely, but I thought that giving some closure on "Parting of Ways" was important. This might, actually, prove to be more depressing than its predecessor. Wow. I think I'll go write the reunion scene for a nice change of pace.
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Chapter Five– "Broken Lines"
At the time, Sharona had been rather impressed by how well her callous front had held while she'd watched Adrian Monk slink out of her life. She'd thought that the eyes would turn her, flood her with a feeling of guilt beyond description. But he'd never shown them to her again in the wake of her rough outburst. She'd never know.
He'd left. She'd accepted her decision. Benjy . . . He'd accepted it with good grace. He did not, however, understand it. Sharona knew that a reason to justify her quitting that Benjy would appreciate was crashing about her skull; the trick would be to catch it amidst the mental tangle that had sprouted in the last few days.
Sharona's new life, up to this point, had consisted of drawing up a plan to move. A new home would help to set their lives back on track, and the most likely candidate seemed to be Jersey; or New York, maybe.
It wasn't long before she located a job in Manhattan. The conditions were good, and the salary was decent . . . Not as decent, say, as Monk's, but at least she'd be able to count on a regular paycheck and not have to worry about pestering her boss in order to keep herself and her kid from starving. Benjy seemed neutral to the idea; he went about packing without complaint, but his outlook was considerably lacking in its usual energy.
In the months that followed, the pair of mother and son managed. Second thoughts, as it turned out, were in need of some prompting.
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Real hell was nothing but a circle. This had been the first thought to pierce Monk's numbed mind as he'd dashed across the street (flinging nervous glances at the idling traffic to his right and careful to trod every rung of the crosswalk despite his haste), and come toe-to-toe with a perfect, off-white ring rendered in chalk against the sloped edge of the sidewalk on the opposite side. He wasn't sure how long he had stopped there. He would swear that he only navigated its circumference for a moment, one foot in front of the other, ignoring the clutter of script (some sort of advertisement) scrawled in the center.
Hell. Circle. Just then, with Sharona's final farewell resounding off every crannied surface of his brain, he would not have been able to express the connection in mere words.
Monk had believed that in running from Sharona, slipping out the door with nary a word, a safe distance might be kept; everything might come back together in the morning. It was the last thought with a semblance of rationality he could form that night. So, naturally, the realization was a bit delayed.
She's not coming back.
He stood in the center of his bedroom hours later, light of an indeterminable time of day filtering through the blinds and onto the sheets, and a clean black nightshirt hanging from his fingertips. If this understanding had surprised Monk, the word that followed, biting on its heels shocked him: Coward.
He stood on a circle of Cowardice. Regardless of how far the afflicted creature walked the path, he would never look up to discover that its name had changed.
Monk shivered, his bare shoulders suddenly chilled. Rolling his dark eyes to the ceiling, he thought, Who knew hell would be so cold?