Free The Terror of Living by Urban Waite

angry."
        Hunt covered her hand with his. "I know," he said, "but it's part of it. It just means we care enough that it gets under the skin from time to time."
        "We don't have to do this, you know."
        "Yes, we do."
        "No, I mean this. These horses. We don't have to have this business. We don't have to do this." She looked again toward the horses and then she drifted off for a while, just looking at the end of their property, at something Hunt couldn't see. "We can find something more suited to us."
        "This is it," he said. "I don't know anything else. There is nothing else for me."
        Nora made a face, and he heard her sigh. "Why don't we just go away?" she said.
        It was his turn to sigh. He looked at her, then looked away at the truck waiting for him across the lawn. He would humor her. "Where do you want to go?"
        "Can't we take a trip up to the San Juans? To that resort we stayed at on Orcas. Wouldn't you like that?"
        When he turned back to look at her, he could see the intense look in her eye, like she thought they would actually do it, like he could get away, like it was as simple as just packing up a suitcase and running off to the islands. "You know we can't do that," he said.
        "Yes, we can," she said. "We can order room service, never leave the room, and lie in bed. It will be like when we were there before, spending money we don't have. But we'll be happy, won't we? Just you and I, and none of this trouble to bother us."
        "Stop it," he said, the anger sudden in his voice. He didn't know where it had come from, but it was there and he could feel it trembling in his vocal cords. He could see he had scared her, too. He was losing it a little. "I'm sorry," he said. "We just can't."
        He watched her, and he knew she understood. He could see she was waiting for someone to carry her away, to make it all better so they could go on with their life, but he didn't know if that person was going to be him. He just didn't know.
        "I hate this," she said with some finality. "I just want to know we're going to come out of this. I just want to know that."
        "I'm not going to tell you it's all going to be fine," Hunt said. "It won't. This is what we're good at, this house, this pasture, these horses. I can't just run away. We can't. But I'll tell you I'd rather be broke and doing something I love than working some minimum-wage job and hating every moment of it. That's no way to live and you know it."
        "No," she said.
        He could sense she wanted to say more, and he waited for it to come, but it didn't. He'd always felt that she had saved him from something. Perhaps she'd saved him from himself in the long-ago time when they'd first met, when they'd begun to know each other. Who knew? He certainly couldn't say. He just hoped that, as it had in the past, everything would turn out for the better. That they could just keep on going. He loved her, he knew this, he loved the horses, and all he could hope for was that he would make it back here, to his house, to his wife, and to his horses.
        They watched the pasture for a while. Steam escaped from the horses' lungs and broke into the early morning field and commingled with the rising dew. He rattled the keys in his pocket and pulled his hand away.
        She kissed him and watched him walk over to the truck. When he pulled out onto the drive, he could see Nora out there in the field again, feeding the horses, the field rising golden with the sun and the horses all around enjoying it.
     
           
        GRADY HAD BEEN TOLD WHERE TO FIND THE GIRL, and when he pulled up he could see her waiting there with her suitcase. He honked the horn and watched her turn to look in his direction. She seemed cautious, the morning sun bright on her face, unsure of what he was offering. A Vietnamese girl. When he stepped from the car to take her suitcase, she came nearly to his