The Bridge

When I got the kids home and settled in, I went to what had been our bedroom and placed a call to Felix Rodriguez.

"Hey, Lyle how are you," he said answering.

"Not so good Felix, I need your services," I said.

Felix was the best family lawyer I knew. He was good both as a lawyer and a man.

"Oh, what's the problem?" he said,

"I need to file for divorce."

"No way, it's not good to kid about things like that."

"Way, Gloria had a fling with Gabriel Zilo. You know, my boss."

"Shit. I am truly sorry. What do you need me to do?"

Felix and I discussed it for about an hour on the phone. I made an appointment for late Tuesday afternoon to get the ball rolling.

The phone calls kept coming from the mountain. Apparently her parents had called. The messages were conciliatory. Gloria's alternated with Gabe's. No threats now.

"Hey, man if I've made a mistake here I apologize. I don't want anything that happened this weekend to affect our working relationship. That would be bad all round, if you understand where I'm going," he said.

Then about five in the afternoon.

"Lyle, Lyle please call. Something has happened here. The bridge is out. We are all trapped. Call. I need to hear from you." My wife said.

Tuesday morning first thing, I called Steven Pender my old associate. We agree to meet for lunch at a modest sandwich place in one of the malls.

"You sure about this?" Steven asked between bites at a pepper jack tuna sandwich.

"Already done. I have officially resigned," I said.

As if to emphasize the fact, I received a call from Donna, my secretary at Countryman.

"Lyle, they're saying you resigned, but you need to come in. All hell is breaking lose here. Something is very wrong," Donna said.

"Sorry, no can do. I don't work there anymore. I suggest you call Gabe."

"They say he is trapped in the mountains. Something about a bridge."

"Gee sorry to hear that. Well, don't worry. I'm sure it will all straighten out in the end."

"Something I should know about?" Steve asked.

"No, nothing that concerns me any longer," I said.

"Well, if you're sure I think I can improve my last offer by 10k per annum. If you can start right away."

"Is tomorrow too soon?"

"No, that would be great," Steve said.

I started at Pender and Associates Wednesday morning. I was just getting settled in Wednesday afternoon when I had a visitor.

"Where is my money? You prick," Gabe Zilo said.

"What money are you talking about?"

"You know, the operating funds."

"Sorry, perhaps you should talk to the company accountants."

"If I do, I will have you prosecuted for embezzlement," he said.

I only smiled at him. He had found a way off that mountain, but where were the operating funds?

"You think you're some wise ass lawyer, but you're just an asshole who can't satisfy his wife. She had a real good time with me, and I'll be tapping her pussy whenever the mood strikes me," he said then stormed out.

The following day I heard from the police. They called and asked me to come to the station to answer some questions.

"Sorry, I just started a new job. My time is very limited but feels free to put your questions in writing, and I will get back to you."

The officer who was calling tried to explain that that was not how they did things, but I explained right back that I was a lawyer, and I did things in writing or not at all. We went around for a few minutes and then he hung up.

I knew the police would have to verify a charge of embezzlement before they could act. That would mean tracing the money. I expected they would find it in the company account where I placed it within a few days. That should end the matter. It would simply be a civil case after that, and a poor one at best.

I was wrong it took them two weeks to find the missing funds. By then Countryman was in very serious trouble. Its credit had been entirely shut down by the banks, and it would need an infusion of new capital to get restarted.

Gloria showed up late Friday night with both our luggage from the trip. Her key didn't work because I had changed the locks. I met her at the door. She did not look so well.

"Please, Lyle let me in. If not for my sake, then think of the kids," she said.

"No, I won't because you don't live here anymore. I parked your car on the street. I assume you still have the car keys," I said.

"Do you hate me that much?"

"YES!" I said and closed the door.

I figured she would go to her parents. I had Felix serve her the restraining order and petition for divorce there. Those few days of grace the bridge had given me had paid great dividends. Felix got her restrained from accosting me and I received temporary custody of the kids. It took her two months and probably every dime she could scrape up to recover the momentum. By then the divorce was well advanced and all we had to do is work out the details.

Gabe Zilo was not so lucky. Countryman Real Estate had to shut its doors. It stopped doing business just after Labor day. The following week, I had a visitor.

He was sitting in my visitor's chair as I returned from my third closing of the day. He was deeply tanned and looked to be in good health. He was a bit underdressed for the early northern fall that had set in.

"Bernie, how are you?" I said.

"I'm good," he said craning his neck to scan my meager office.

"What brings you to the cold north?" I asked sensing this was no casual visit.

"Well, It's like this—Ah—well. Florida is teaming with sharks, and very few of them are in the water. Thought it best to return to what I know," he said.

"Oh. I guess, it's good to have you back," I said not sure what else to say to his admission or what he wanted from me.

Bernie could read the question in my eyes.

"I dropped a good size chunk of change down there. I'm going to have to start over and start small, but it seems I'm in luck. This company I use to own seems to be available," he said as a smile cracked his face.

I looked at him and smiled right back, "Yea, it is isn't it."

We both broke our laughing.

"So what do you want from me, you old pirate," I said.

"Well, it's like this. I need a partner. At my age, the bankers figure that any business I start will not have any continuity. And, well, you and I made a good team. So what do you say."

"I have very little money. I'm going through a divorce you may have heard," I said.

"Yes, I heard that," he said.

I wondered how much he had heard. The story got around.

"Look why not let me cut you in for 10%," he said.

"Fifty"

"Be reasonable you just said you have no money to put in."

"I'm betting neither do you. But I'll settle for 45%," I said.

"Look 25% that's fair."

"But not enough. 40% and the option to buy another 10% in ten years."

"Ok, I just hope I live that long," said the man I knew intended to attend my funeral.

Bernie and I went back into business. We bought every lot that Countryman had owned at a discount from the banks that now held them, using the same bank's money. I thought we would struggle but we were soon doing a very steady business, building and selling houses. Life moved on and so did my divorce. It was mostly a fight over custody and visitation.

In the end, we worked out a complicated joint custody and visitation arrangement. That is why on Christmas Eve I was returning home to a dark and empty house. Gloria had the kids for Christmas Eve. I was to have them Christmas Day. Because Christmas was on a Sunday, they were to go back to her on the Monday, which she had off. The kids hated these arrangements.

As I approached the house, I saw a figure sitting on the steps. They were shrouded against the cold and the light snow that was falling. I was on top of her before I recognized my former wife.

"Gloria, what are you doing here?" I said.

She did not look all that well. She was even thinner than the last time I saw her and her eyes looked hollow and vacant. She had clearly been crying at some point in the recent past.

"I want to come home," she wailed.

"Where are the children?" I demanded ignoring her plea.

"With my folks. They want to come home too. We want to be a family again in our little house. What you've done to us is not fair."

"I didn't do anything."

"Oh yes, you did. I made a mistake. Ok, it was a bad and hurtful mistake, but it was just one mistake. You're the one who destroyed our family," she accused, with anger creeping into her voice.

She made a conscious effort to calm herself. "I told myself I would not lose my temper but please understand, I have anger issues over this," she said.

"You have anger issues!" I was astonished.

"Don't act the innocent. You are anything but. You just happen to come out way ahead of anyone else? I'm no fool, Lyle. You were never a saint. I know I hurt you, but that was never my intention."

"Really, you expect me to believe that you thought having sex with another man right in front of me wasn't going to cause me pain?" I said.

She turned away. My words had apparently cut deep. I could see her wipe her hands across her eyes although she now had her back to me. It was apparent she was crying.

Her voice was low and filled with pain but steady, "I was always the fat girl, the last one asked to the dance; I had to accept whoever asked. I was a good girl, so I spent a lot of my time fending off crude assaults. I was waiting for the right man all through high school and most of college.

"When I met you, I knew I had found the right man. I was a virgin when we married. I didn't make a big fuss about it but I thought you knew. You are no prince now and you certainly weren't then. You were just an ordinary guy, but I loved you with all my heart. Yes. You were a bit smarter than most, and more ambitious, but we were always broke.

"I learned to live with lower expectations because I loved you. It hurt me to see you struggle so hard. Then Gabriel came along and things seemed to get better. He was everything a woman wants in a man. For once the prince wanted me. It was flattering. After the Christmas party, he kept calling me. It wasn't serious, just flirting.

"You know, the kind of things that beautiful women get all the time. It was not like I don't get hit on, but not by the handsome, powerful elites. He said nice things about you and how lucky I was to have a great guy like you."

"I'll bet he just fucking loved me," I said.

"He did. He said how hard you worked and how he wanted to reward you. I knew what he was saying, that if I was nice to him, he would take care of you. I guess I let him convince me that you would benefit if I gave in to him. That's true but so is the fact that I wanted him. It was like I had this crazy buzz in my head that was driving me toward him.

"I was caught between hoping that something would happen on that weekend and fearing that it would. Once we got there, all my resistance began to fade. I turned to you. I did. I asked you—"

"What! Are you kidding? You told me you were going to bed with him."

OK, OK. I didn't come out with it directly, but you knew what was happening, and you didn't say no," she said turning to me. The tears ran down her cheeks to drip from her chin. Her nose was running.

"I believed in you. As I said, that night, we had sixteen years together. How could you do that to me," I said.

"But that's exactly the point. We loved each other. It was only a fling. Nothing in comparison to what we had before and would have after."

"Are you so crazy that you believe that after hearing you scream in pleasure for him we could have anything together?"

"OH SHIT, you can't be that stupid. That was all an act. I wanted to be good for him. I put on a show. Men like that, need and expect it. I never behave that way in bed, and you must know that after sixteen years of making love to me."

"What I know is what you did. How you humiliated me. You took the golden boy over me. The assholes who contribute nothing and take everything. Powerful, is he? Well, where is he now? What happened when the crisis came? I'll tell you. He folded. We live in a society that supports the few over the many on the myth of some secret genius that they possess. Tell me how did the genius get off that mountain so fast?"

"He called for a helicopter. By then he knew you had done something to the business. It was pretty obvious you burned the bridge. He though you stole his money. The others began to panic. Paula kept saying this could not be happening. That it was not the way things worked.

"When the helicopter came there was only room for Gabe. The rest of us were abandoned. I guess the National Guard eventually installed a temporary bridge to rescue us. Sharon and I rode back together. By then her husband knew the true story. She was in trouble like I was. Poor Robin's fiancé broke off their engagement.

"Glen and Ken were both in trouble, but I guess they got out of it with Paula's help. I guess only Gabe and us ordinary people truly bore the brunt. But hasn't there been enough pain?" she asked, looking at me hopefully.

There was a lot of truth in what Gloria had said. I was not entirely innocent. I had worked for Gabe but, unlike the rest of the world, I was never taken in. I knew the truth but refused to admit it to myself.

"I can't get past the way it went down. They have nothing but false promises. If you look hard, you see the trap. Yet, no one looked. The illusion is so much better than reality. We battled through hard times but they were getting better. What you and Gabe took from me was the security of my home. I can never recover that because those bastards proved that what I had believed in was an illusion. You and I were an illusion," As I said this I stood up moving towards the door of the dark and barren house.

She refused to give up.

"Answer me this," she said, "Are you better off alone without me or would it be better with me and our kids around the Christmas tree tonight?"

I looked at her. It would be so easy to take her into my arms, to love her, to bring the kids home to sleep in their own house Christmas Eve, and to pretend what had happened never happened. But all I could say was, "I don't know. That's a good question but I have no answer to it."

With that, we turned away from each other. What's in our past can't be changed. We must live for our future.