Cumulus by Eliot Peper Read Free Book Online Page B

coffee would put to rest. Her wife had left her. The worst part was that she couldn’t fault Vera’s thinking. Her arguments left no room for reasonable rebuttal. They had been going to counseling for years now. Quarrels often ended in resentment instead of resolution. Every moment of joy seemed to demand a sacrifice in pain. It was like Newton’s third law applied to relationships. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. But wasn’t that what every couple had to deal with? Nobody had promised that marriage would be easy. To Huian, the lows had seemed a price worth paying for the highs. The moments of frustration were intense but fleeting. In the bigger picture, they were in love with each other. But that very perspective was also a source of pain to Vera because it trivialized the things she saw as most important.
    A bee buzzed by her ear and Huian waved it away. She had taken Vera for granted. That much was clear. Even worse, she had thought that taking her for granted was a good thing. Vera was her rock, a solid anchor amid the turmoil of her professional life. The one person she could trust implicitly. Not just her wife—her confidante.
    Were they simply incompatible, as Vera had said? Was she, Huian, simply an impossible spouse? Was she doomed to a life alone, bringing pain to those around her through sheer force of personality? Richard would surely attest to that. She had burned many bridges to get where she was today. But sometimes scorched earth was the only way forward. Huian knew she had a propensity for getting so absorbed in her own head that the outside world seemed to fade. But great work required great dedication.
    Cumulus. Her great work. The company that she had built from the ground up. The company that came more and more under threat every day. The company that was now veering wildly out of control. Richard’s mishandling of Tectonix, and his subsequent dismissal. The antitrust suit trying to dismantle her life’s work piece by piece. The new set of European regulations that made half of their products immediately subject to expensive regulatory constraints. The board’s constant questions and mindless pressure to prioritize quarterly profits at the expense of long-term growth.
    Action. That was the only way out of a halting problem. The only way to short-circuit complexity. If you were tossed under a wave, you might not know which way was up but you had to start swimming anyway.
    She swallowed, trying to get rid of the taste of bile. Slowly, so as not to upset her equilibrium any further, she stood up. The world swam around her. She took a few short breaths. Eventually, the garden came back into focus. The lush serenity sparked a flare of rage at the injustice of it all.
    Tearing her eyes away from the newly vacated front yard, Huian turned and made her way back into the kitchen, gripping the counter for support.
    “Silence.”
    The jazzy scales died, leaving a hollow stillness in their wake. The loudest sound was Huian’s own breathing. The granite was cold and solid under her hands. She and Vera had chosen the granite together. They had toured warehouses full of massive slabs to find the piece with the perfect color and texture pattern. Warehouse workers had bantered with each other in harsh Cantonese. Working with the architect and general contractor had been an exercise of joint patience. They had to balance each other’s goals and whims with the reality of design and construction over the course of many months. In the end, it had transformed the house into their home.
    And now, that home was broken. Desperation welled inside Huian again, drowning out her rational mind. Vera was gone. It wasn’t like their other fights. Vera had never left, never even threatened to leave before. This was for real. Huian was alone. Alone in a treacherous world. Holding the tiller of a sinking ship.
    The lump in her throat ripened into a sob that she fought to contain. How many times had she