Michael Malone - Weebly

husband had chosen and paid for them. She was aware
that Walter's stepfather had once given him a generous
subsidy to his salary, but she thought this gift was
merely natural. She, after all, would have given her son
the moon, and in fact used to pretend when he was a
toddler to take it down out of the sky and place it in his
hands. But she was not a party to the gentlemen's
agreement in which Walter, prior to his majority, agreed
to be a circumspect and infrequent visitor to Concord,
to try to overcome his "disease," and to accept this
disability pay as a spur to recovery.
Teeth bared, Walter Saar grimaced his Mr. Hyde's
face into the mirror above the train's grimy sink. There
had been a time when his power to create such ugly
intensity had frightened him. Now the mugging was just
a habit. He didn't even much hate his stepfather
anymore, or hate himself for having once accepted
money to try to "cure" himself, or seriously worry that
he might lose control at a Concord Christmas party and
kiss full on the month one of his stepfather's business
associates. He did feel he had no right to go out of
control in Manhattan. Unlike Oglethorpe's irresistible