Taking the Wrong Fork in the Road

"She, I assume, didn't take that news well."

"No. We had broken up after i found out about the affair, she told me about it and that's when i found out that I wasn't the father of the child that she was carrying. That was before she found out that he wasn't about to leave his wife for her. She tried to convince me that she would change her ways and that the plans that we had been working on before it all went pear-shaped were still a possibility. I told her that I needed time to think about that, and that was pretty much where we left it."

"It would only be a formality, but could you come to the station tomorrow and make a statement for the benefit of the Coroner."

"Sure, that's not a problem, I'll just have to call work and let them know that I might be late."

The news on TV was full of what had happened. She had driven off a cliff and her car had landed on a rock shelf at the base of the cliff and tipped onto its roof. A large wave broke over the shelf and pushed the car further up the shelf and a couple of rock fishermen who witnessed it said that when the wave receded it carried he body with it into the sea. She couldn't have been wearing her seat belt and, because the windscreen had popped out, the force of the receding wave was strong enough to carry her out of the wreck. They looked for it but couldn't see it for the white water. Police divers searched until the light had gone. The search will continue in the morning but police hold no hope for her survival. The broadcast came with the usual message asking people who were experiencing problems to contact either Lifeline or Beyond Blue signifying that suicide was a distinct possibility.

The phone rang and I was half expecting that the media had got wind of my connection with this and was going to let the answering machine screen the call. I'm glad that I didn't, it was Mum. "Simon, we've just heard the news. We are sorry to hear about Sylvie and worried that you might need our support. I think that it will be better if you come to us, it's only a matter of time before the media gets hold of your whereabouts."

"I'll be right over". As I turned out of my street, an avalanche of media branded vehicles shot past.

Mum answered the door and as I walked down the hallway I could hear Dad talking to someone. It was Wendy. She stood and walked to me and, putting her arms around me she hugged me to her. "Simon, I'm so sorry to hear what has happened to Sylvie. Mate, if you need a shoulder to cry on, I'm offering mine, free of charge, no conditions." She kissed me, it was meant for my cheek but I had turned my head to look at her. "Sorry, I didn't mean that." She whispered.

"Don't worry about it, if the truth be known I needed it."

It took them a while but the media began to arrive en masse out front. "Quick, make yourself scarce, slip through the hole in the fence that you used to use when you were sneaking over to see Wendy. This way we can tell the vultures that you are not here, and invite them to search the place if they don't believe us."

Slipping through the hole in the fence brought back memories of a much simpler time not that many years ago.

Wendy made us coffee and found some biscuits in a tin for us to munch on, or dunk.

"How long have you known Sylvie?" She asked.

I was surprised that she even knew about Sylvie. "Not all that long in the overall scheme of things. She worked in another office on the same floor as my office. We met downstairs when we were both getting lunch. She threw herself at me and completely swept me off my feet. I have been giving a great deal of thought about our relationship of late, given the events of the past few months. She told me a few months ago that she was pregnant and we were making plans for the future, something that was quite foreign to her, making plans that is. Then I found out that she was having an affair with her boss and that he was the father of the child. Things went from bad to worse, she found out that he had no intention of divorcing his wife and marrying her, as he had promised. She tried to rekindle our relationship, but I was having second thoughts. I feel that my not wanting her back was the straw that broke the camel's back. She was always an impulsive person, always acting before thinking. She didn't stop to think things through before acting on the impulse."

"You mustn't blame yourself."

"But I do. In one of my more rational moments I realised that I had allowed myself to be dragged into her world when the world that I had planned didn't involve her, it involved someone else." Wendy had a quizzical look, I knew that she was dying to ask if she was the other person in my life, but was afraid that I'd say 'no'. "Do you realise how close I had come to asking you to marry me?"

"Well I was hoping that you'd get around to it sooner or later."

"I don't want to sound as desperate as I feel about now, I need some normalcy in my life, I've had enough of impulsive, and I don't want this to sound like a rebound decision, but, and there's no rush for an answer here, Wendy, will you marry me?"

"If that was no rush I'd hate to see you in a hurry. If you had asked me that twelve months ago I would have thrown myself at you and told you 'YES!' But now, I need some time to think." She usedn her fingers to count to en. "Time's up!" She threw herself on me and shouted 'YES!' Before kissing me with an unexpected passion.

Some time later, as I stoked the half of her face that wasn't resting on my shoulder, I said to her; "Have you ever driven down a road that you didn't know and come to an un-signposted fork in that road, made a snap decision and realised some distance down e track that you had made the wrong decision? "

"Where's this going?"

"Life is sometimes like that, you are forced by circumstances to make an instant decision and realise, down the track, that decision was wrong. This is exactly how I feel right about now. I looked at the way ahead and knew instinctively that I was on the wrong road. I had a choice between two women and I now regret the choice that I made.

On the one hand, there was you. I had sort of grown up with you, we lived next door and in hindsight that was the reason that I did not choose you. You are reliable and because we knew each other so well, a life with you would have had no surprises."

"Then there was Sylvie, she was 'new' in every way. She was exciting to be with, tending to the spontaneous and compulsive, and not to mention gorgeous.""And you're saying that I'm not?"

"Not at all. The difference between the two of you, and I realise that now, is that she was beautiful in a superficial way, While you, your beauty goes much deeper than that."

"Well saved. Go on, what were you saying?"

"She took to me with her usual lack of preparedness, of sudden changes in direction and me not expecting to know which way to jump next. The decision that I was about to make was, do make a 'U' turn and retrace my path back to that fork in the road?"

"And the answer is, drum roll please."

"I am now ready to choose the other road, I am ready for no surprises."

While we were comfortable together, Wendy and I did not make love that night, we were too busy catching up with our lives, her life that I missed during my distracted time, like that she had inherited her parents' house when they downsized to a retirement village, and how she could not come to terms with rattling around in her empty house and spent much of her time slipping through the hole in the fence to visit my parents.

That was how she managed to keep up with the disaster that was my life with Sylvie.

I made my statement to the police and was told that the evidence or lack of any evidence that she tried to avoid going over the cliff, led them to conclude that she had committed suicide. Her body had been recovered at first light a couple of hundred metres away, washed up on the nearby beach. From the extent of her injuries the Medical Examiner concluded that she would have died on impact.

"We haven't decided yet if we should chuck some shit in the general direction of the fan that's her boss. There has already been an approach by his wife's family to suppress his involvement. I tell you this, I would not want to be in his shoes right now, she is going to make him suffer big time."

If you think that I'm rushing things, take a look back, less than a year ago I was about to choose a life with Wendy, the right fork in the road. Then I was distracted, led along the wrong path, by the glamour of a life with Sylvie. Before that life had ended, I was already regretting that decision and thinking of turning back. I am now back at that point where I was before all of this happened. I am merely attempting to erase that time in my life that was Sylvie.

With Wendy's help I know that I will succeed.