When We Were Married Ch. 03A

She walked by Bill Jr.'s room and saw him inside on his computer, naturally. She just glanced at him and he got the message. By 11 p.m. he had to be in bed. Kelly's bedroom was the furthest away. Unexpectedly, she was an outline under the bedspread.

"Kelly. You awake."

"Um. Yeah. Just barely."''

"Why so early in bed?"

"I've been staying up till 2 or 3 a.m. the last few nights. Emailing and texting. I'm bushed."

Debbie approached the bed. With the lights off, her daughter's face was a black outline.

"You mind if I curl up here, baby?"

"uh – no. What-?"

"I just had a bad dream and I don't want to be –"

"It's lonely in there without dad, isn't it? Where's Doug?"

"In his own bed."

"You ever think-?"

"No. Sometimes things happen, or you do things, and there's no way back."

She slid into bed and her daughter spooned with her, the way they hadn't since she was a pre-teen.

She sniffed her daughter's hair and put her arms around her and hugged her tightly.

"You know I love you and your brother more than anything else on earth, don't you?"

Kelly didn't answer and it felt like she was drifting off again.

Debbie lay there and thought about the woman in the grave nearby. Why didn't anyone ever get to live happily ever after?

################################

Monday - July 11, 2005 – 11:30 p.m.

It had been awhile since I'd been to the "The Last Call" bar on State Road 13 in Mandarin. I could have gone to O'Brien's, but I didn't really want to be around anyone I knew too well tonight.

It was still all dark wood and mirrors, chairs set at small tables, a long bar, greenery in the corner. Nobody was at the slightly raised piano bar so the music was canned. I felt like sitting at the long bar and pulled up a stool.

The Latin-looking guy with the big head of jet black hair I'd met before introduced himself as the owner, Armando Guzman, and asked me what I was drinking. I told him to hit me with double Bloody Mary's, heavy on the tabasco, pepper and vodka, along with about three fat green olives and a couple of limes.

I'd already put in two hours sweating at Hurly's and I had a hard time raising my arms high enough to lift the drinks to my lips, but I'd manage somehow.

He brought them to me and said, "You going to need a police escort tonight, Mr. Maitland?"

"No. I'm going to sip these and then drive very carefully home. I'm not really interested in drinking myself into oblivion tonight. Got some things to think about."

"Heavy? It's quiet and I'm a good listener, if you're in the mood to talk."

"You ever kill a man, Armando?"

He looked at me funny and said, "Even if I had and wanted to talk about it, I think you're the wrong man to discuss it with."

I sipped the red concoction that according to the song takes away our cares and swallowed an olive, saying, "That's a very politic answer. You're not interested in a political career, are you? Anyway, I did it today. Not the first time. Either. A friend asked me how I could sleep tonight. Maybe I can sleep too easily after destroying people. Maybe I've been doing it too long. It should hurt more than it does."

"Did he deserve it?"

"A good question. That's the rub. I think so, but I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. The trouble is, if I don't decide, who does? The buck stops with me."

"I don't think I'd like your job."

"Not many people would. And anybody that would actually want the job, I don't think I'd like them having it."

"In that case, Mr. Maitland, why did you take it? You like playing God?"

"No, although some people have said that. Actually, I took it for my father. So he'd be proud of me, I guess. Long story."

A customer came up to the other end of the bar and he went to wait on them. While he did I pondered the question of why the Bingham case had hit me as hard as it had. What was different about this one?

He wandered back to my stool.

"Figure anything out?"

"Only that 'In Vino Veritas' is a crock. Actually, I'm just a little confused tonight. Too many things running through my head."

"Like?"

"You ever been with a woman who was too good for you?"

He laughed.

"They all thought so."

"No, I mean a woman who was just – out of your league. Out of your class. Who had no reason to be with you."

A glint of something I could almost read shone in his eyes.

"Yeah, Mr. Maitland. I was with a woman like that once."

"Still with you?"

He shook his head and busied himself polishing and cleaning a shot glass that was already gleaming.

"Women like that never stay with you. I think she's married to some...industrialist or techie owns his own company in Mexico City. Has two kids now."

"You ever think about her anymore?"

"Only every day."

"It could be worse."

"How?"

"You could have won her. Married her. Lived with her for 18 years and every day know that you'd never be able to hold onto her. The day would come when she'd walk. And that day would finally come. Because you weren't meant to be together. Because you'd only won her through a fluke, an accident."

"You're being hard on yourself. You're a powerful man, an influential man."

"Women don't marry positions or power. They marry flesh and blood men. Beautiful women don't marry plain men and stay with them. First rule of nature. They may use unattractive men for financial security or as stepping stones, but they don't marry them because they love them. You don't see mules yoked with thoroughbreds. Like mates with like."

##########

I made it home with no trouble, even though I don't remember much about the trip. But I finally figured out why the Bingham case bothered me so much. We had both been set up by God, a prick of the first order. We'd both been foolish enough to believe there could be happy endings in this life.

Bingham had found a beautiful woman, had a great sex life, had two kids he doted on, and was foolish enough to believe in that "happily ever after crap." He had done everything right, and then God had tortured and tortured him until he broke, and he lost everything.

I had met the most beautiful woman I'd ever known in this life in a way that should never have happened. We had never moved in the same orbits, knew the same people, lived the same life. We were complete strangers who were thrown together by one incident.

I knew I wasn't the kind of man she had been with, the kind of man she had obviously wanted. I was the frog to her princess, and I had been fool enough to believe that a kiss from the princess would transform me. But that only works in children's fairy tales.

I was happy. But why not? Except that I realized now that I had spent my life waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to wake up from the spell that had snared her and realize that she didn't love me and never really had. It was just gratitude and hero worship and affection.

Which was why, I guess, months after the shock of the breakup, I had realized a sort of relief. It was like going to the dentist, having a tooth extracted with great pain and suffering, and realizing only later that the dull throbbing pain you'd lived with was gone. I wasn't happy, but the suspense was over.

The cynics are right. There are no happy endings and the unhappiest of all is when you truly love another.

##################

Tuesday - July 12, 2005 – 9:30 a.m.

I walked out of the elevator on the fifth floor dressed all in black. I'd mixed and matched to come under with an outfit similar to the one I'd worn Monday. I kind of liked the look now. I was getting some strange looks, but I was expecting them.

I passed by Cheryl's desk on my way to my office and she motioned to me. I was turning to see what was going on when someone slapped me in the face. It didn't lay me out like it might have before Carlos, but it grabbed my attention. I caught the next one in mid-air with newly improved reflexes and pulled the woman behind the slap toward me.

"Whoa."

She swung at me with her other fist. I deflected the slap. Now I could see her. It was Bingham's older daughter. She was taller, but I was stronger and she couldn't break my grip or get at me with her hands or fingernails. So naturally she spit in my face.

It was only spit and let the spittle drip down the side of my cheek, but I kept my hold on her. She jerked and then she tried for my balls with her foot, but I was expecting that and I blocked her with a knee.

"Ms. – whatever your name is – I don't want to have you arrested and dragged out of here. Please stop. It won't do your father any good to know that his daughter –"

"My father is dead, you bastard."

I looked over at Cheryl. She glanced downward as she said, "I'm sorry, Bill. I just found out. I was going to tell you but she got to you first."

"Dead?"

"I found him in bed this morning when I woke up. I couldn't wake him. And then I found the empty bottle of his pain pills on his bed. He was already cold."

I just stared at her. I couldn't tell you what I was thinking.

She blinked away tears and I saw that the hard exterior was getting ready to crack.

"I don't even know why I was surprised. He had mom and my sister and me. And he lost mom, and you drove my sister away, and you were going to put him in prison so he'd lose me. He didn't have anything left to lose."

She was still fighting the tears, but she looked at me with what seemed like real curiosity.

"Who appointed you the Angel of Death, Mr. Maitland? When did God come down and tap you on the shoulder and tell you that you got to decide who lives and who dies, who is worthy of life or deserves death?"

She took a deep breath and relaxed.

"You can let me go now. I won't do anything."

I let her go and she started to walk by security. Then she stopped.

"I know I told you I hoped you got cancer like my mother and died. But I've changed my mind. I hope you live a long, long time, Mr. Maitland. And I hope my father haunts your dreams every night for the rest of your life. If you have a heart, which I doubt, I hope someone breaks it just like you broke my father's. And mine."

I ignored the stares of everyone in the office. I told Cheryl, "I'll be in my office for the rest of the day. But no one comes in. No calls go through. That includes the Big Man. Understand."

She nodded, then asked, 'But what about –"

"There are two other top assistants in this office, and dozens of attorneys. Let someone else trying running this place for a day."

I locked the door behind me. And tried my level best to forget there was a world out there.

No happy endings.

#

Author's note: I made a vow to try to stay out of this story with author's asides, because as HDK informed me, stories are for readers to have fun picking over. The more I explain, the more I take away from the people reading it. And I think a lot of people have been having fun with this, judging from the comments. So, for the most part, I'm going to keep my nose out of it. I apologize to the readers who have sent me serious questions from their viewpoint. I'm going to let you have the fun of deciding what everything means and what the mysteries and future developments are going to be. I will try to do a better job of responding to emails. I have been piss poor about it so far, and I do feel bad about that. I'll try to do a better job, but I have a humongous backload. That said, I did want to make two comments. Several readers have asked about the connections between this story and "Moment of Clarity" and "the last goodbye." It should be no big secret to anybody who's read these stories or my comments about them, that all my stories pretty much take place in the same universe. It's Northeast Florida, near past. I've always enjoyed anthologies and series that have characters popping in and out of stories. In my mind it makes the stories and characters more real in my mind. And because "Clarity" was the first story published, it is sort of the template. If you read that story, you'll see the action takes place in late 2009. Lew's plane crash in "The Last Goodbye" takes place in late 2009. "Married" takes place or starts in 2005 and will go forward from there. I did not think to place a time guide in "Dream Wife," but a future story will reveal that the action in that story takes place sometime in 2007. More than that I'm not going to give away. I think you'll see more revealed as new stories appear. If you're the kind of person that likes to put these kind of puzzles together and connect things, have fun. If you're not, ignore all these clues and (I hope) just enjoy the stories. And last, but not least. To the young lady who informed me that my stories were 'not all that' and used that great zinger that laid Dan Quayle low – i.e. – "you're no (John Kennedy) GaryAPB." I have to admit, that hurt!