Preface:
This is the tale of Theresa 'Terri' Murphy, a young married woman from New Jersey who finds that her need to assuage her loneliness will in turn lead her to discover a new, consuming need in her life, one she never imagined before. Any tale needs a beginning and Terri's began 23 years ago when she was born to Alice and John Kirkpatrick in Medford NJ, a small township just 20 miles from Philadelphia. Her grandparents on both sides of her family had emigrated from Ireland in the 1960's and her childhood was happy and atypical until she was 14 years old.
That year both her parents died in a car accident and Terri was raised from then on by her maternal grandparents who also lived in Medford. The death of both her parents had a detrimental effect on Terri, she socialised less, friends trying to engage her but giving up over time. Her grades in school suffered despite her being an avid reader and by the time she finished high school Terri was a loner, pretty by any standard with the kind of face people attributed to 'the girl next door' type, but a young woman with few friends and less prospects in life.
Her family had a history in construction and her grandfather hoped to get her some work as an office assistant with one of the construction companies he still had ties to. It was there, 3 years later, that Terri met Dean Murphy. Dean was 8 years her senior, a college business graduate who worked as an efficiency trouble shooter, going to struggling companies and helping them rectify their systems and strategies. Dean was instantly attracted to the quiet girl who ate alone each day.
Terri stood just 5'0 tall, a slim athletic build that she maintained by long hours jogging each week. Her hair was blonde, styled in a pixie cut, the front hanging long over her bright green eyes. Her Irish heritage had blessed her with pale skin which proved resistant to the suns efforts to tan it, a small smattering of freckles appearing on her shoulders and nose during the summer months it's only response. Through his easy charm and no end of persistence Dean managed to get a date with Terri a week after seeing her, he met her grandparents within a month. By the time he was moving on from his assignment in Philadelphia 6 months later he had proposed, Terri had accepted nervously.
Two years on and Dean and Terri were now in Savannah Georgia, this was the 4
th
city they have lived in since getting married. Deans job paid well and at first the continually changing landscape to her life had excited Terri but the moves, her separation from her Grandparents and Deans workaholic attitude had only deepened Terri's loneliness and bone deep insecurity. With her lack of qualifications and her constant moving from city to city, Terri found herself escaping into literature at all times of the day, her friends were her books, her choice of material depending on her moods. All she needed to escape was a book, some quiet and a comfortable place to be. Not that she always could get that...
Chapter 1:
Holding her hand in front of the A/C unit Terri could just sense an asthmatic wheeze of air brush against her damp skin. It was July in Georgia and today the temperature as hitting 95 outside and it felt 2 or 3 degrees higher in the one bed apartment her husband and she were renting in the center of Savannah. Futilely, she smacked her palm hard against the side of the unit, the only reward an almost imperceptible lessening in the air flow. Utterly frustrated Terri walked into the kitchen area, yanking open a couple of drawers as she searched for the contact information and FAQ guide the realtor had provided them with when they had moved in 3 weeks before. As she rummaged through paperwork she briefly considered calling Dean to see what advice he might have but she quickly reasoned this would be a waste of time. Dean was a great organizer in the workplace but couldn't find his pants at home without her help, so it was unlikely he would know what to do.
Pulling open a third drawer she spotted the pink A4 sheet with the Realtor logo on the top, lines of 'what to do in the case of...' filling the front and back of the sheet. She quickly scanned down the page finally spotting the section dealing with faults in the apartment.
"The apartments in the building are maintained by an in-house Super who can be located next door to the laundry room in the building basement."
Terri remembered a door to the left of the laundry room from her last visit earlier in the week so, quickly scooping up her keys, she headed out and down the 6 flights of stairs that led to the basement.
In the 3 weeks she had spent in the building, Terri had had next to zero interaction with her neighbours aside from an occasional friendly smile or nod in greeting as they passed by on the stairs. With the Super however she had absolutely zero idea who he was or what he looked like. Maybe she had already met him, seen him in the lobby or coming out of another apartment, but if she had then he hadn't taken the opportunity to introduce himself. Outside the Supers door she quickly ran a hand over her hair feeling it plastered damply to her skull. She wished she had taken a moment to run a cold towel over her perspiring face before leaving the apartment, but it was too late for that now.
