Why? The Reason

Why? The Reason

I was asked to write an ending to a story entitled Why? Ch. 1 By JLRemora. I read the original story and agreed that it needed to be finished. However, I did write this story and edit it in five hours, so forgive me if it's a bit rough. I try my best.

I've tried to fill in most of the pertinent details from the story by JLRemora, but you may still want to read that story first. The first story has several more insights than what I've provided, and for that reason, you may want the full flavor of the story. If you do read the first story, I believe you'll understand why I felt it necessary to write a conclusion.

However, rest assured that If you don't want to read the first chapter, you will still be able to follow the story without any problems.

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It had been six months since my wife of twenty-two years, Melissa Layton, told me that she had fallen in love with someone else and wanted a divorce. The announcement came completely out of left field, and I was so shocked that I didn't know what to say or do. After I gathered myself, I searched the house for my wife and discovered she was nowhere to be found. Why would she do this? We had two kids together, and as far as I knew, a happy marriage. I had been totally blindsided.

I thought that maybe Melissa had gone for a walk to clear her head, and we'd be able to talk when she came back. However, she never came back. Melissa had not only left me, but she hadn't taken anything with her. In fact, Melissa had left her wedding ring, her credit cards, cash, insurance cards, and her driver's license. They were all neatly placed on top of her dresser with an envelope. She even left her car behind.

I was too scared to look in the envelope. In fact, I left it in the master bedroom and moved into the guest room. It wasn't until about a week later that I examined the contents of that envelope. I was terrified to look inside it. And when I finally did, it was as bad as I feared. I found personal documents for the kids and me, plus the dissolution of marriage papers and a business card for the attorney, who would be handling Melissa's divorce.

The thing I dreaded most was the smaller envelope enclosed that had my name, Mark, written on the outside in Melissa's handwriting. In her note, Melissa told me that she had met someone else and had fallen in love. Melissa said that she still loved our girls and me but loved this new man more. Melissa strongly urged me to sign the divorce papers and not fight it. She claimed that I didn't know her lover, but it would cause additional grief for our children and me if I fought the divorce.

Melissa also claimed that they had not had sex and wouldn't until after the divorce. That didn't make any sense at all. If she was in love with this other guy, I would have expected them to already have done it. Maybe she was lying to protect my feelings. But I knew my wife, and she wasn't a liar. If she didn't want to tell you something, she just wouldn't say anything rather than lie.

My wife claimed that I didn't know the guy and inferred that I shouldn't try to find out to seek revenge. She mentioned that this guy was leaving a wife and two children as well. Melissa said that she and her lover were going overseas until the divorce was final. The note strongly urged me to sign the divorce papers as soon as possible. Melissa made no claims on anything we'd accumulated during our marriage because she didn't want to hurt me more than she already had. When they finally returned to the United States, Melissa was blunt about the fact that she wouldn't ever see me again. However, if our kids wanted to talk to her, she would be open to that.

Melissa also pointed out that she was starting a new life, which was another reason she wasn't taking anything from her old one. She wanted nothing from our marriage. I think that statement cut as hard as learning that Melissa wanted to divorce me. And I confirmed what she said was true when I checked the bank balances and found her car still in the garage. She had left everything behind, even her clothes.

I read the letter over and over, trying to ferret out anything that would give me a clue as to why Melissa would do this after twenty-two years of a happy marriage. I was forty-six years old and in reasonably good shape for my age. I was perhaps ten pounds overweight. Melissa was two years older than me, and while an attractive woman, she was no stunner. She was also slightly overweight. Still, none of this made any sense. Why would my wife, who I thought loved me, so utterly and thoroughly destroy me?

I'm a salesman by profession, and to be successful, you have to have a gift of gab plus the ability to read people. Not only did you have to be able to read people in person, but you had to be able to size them up from their correspondence. You had to be able to read between the lines. Even though I had failed miserably in reading Melissa, I was still very good at my job.

Now I would try and use some of my skills to dig deeper into why my wife had up and abandoned her family. I desperately wanted to have a face to face with her to have some closure on our marriage. For Christ's sake, we had two kids together.

Once I could put the tears behind me, I sat down and wrote out a list of things I discerned from the note. First, Melissa's lover was a man. She said so in the note, but I knew this for sure from twenty-two years of sleeping with the woman and seeing how she interacted with other women. Melissa was not a lesbian. I also believed that Melissa's lover was very wealthy if he could afford to let her leave all her possessions behind. That meant that he would have to buy her a whole new wardrobe, provide new identification, pay for her attorney, and pay for them to go overseas. This guy was also providing Melissa the necessary wherewithal to cover her tracks. There was no doubt that her lover had to have a great deal of money.

It wasn't a lot to go on, but I was determined to dig until there was no more ground to shovel. I started by making a list of all the richest people in our state. I limited it to the state since Melissa had stated that their relationship had been going on for several months. Her note indicated that they had been meeting regularly over this time frame. I couldn't imagine any rich businessman flying in all the time to be with Melissa. They'd be far too busy for that. And I knew my wife had not taken any trips in the last six months. I realized that this was thin reasoning, but it was all I had.

After reviewing over a hundred of the state's wealthiest men, I narrowed it down to a handful. However, I still couldn't say with any certainty, which if any, on my shortlist were Melissa's lover. So, I switched tactics. I reasoned that they had to meet somewhere not too far from our residence. Melissa was always at home when I returned from work, so she couldn't go too far. After visiting scores of eating establishments, I discovered a café where Melissa and her lover had met several times. Two girls I talked to recognized a photo of my wife. And they provided a description of the man from which, I had an artist rendering made. And by a stroke of luck, one of my co-workers recognized the man from the flyer I had made up. I think I would have ultimately discovered his identity because he was fairly prominent in our area. Anyway, his name was Conrad Miller, a wealthy philanthropist married to Diane Lingrend. Conrad was one of the men on my shortlist. The main office for his businesses was in Nashville, and we lived in a suburb outside the city. That, at least, all made some sense.

Goggle may be filled with lies, but it is damn handy when you're looking up people. I quickly pulled up the web pages on Conrad and Diane. I have to say that I was mystified by what I found. Conrad was, indeed, very wealthy, but he was no hunk. He looked more like a bookworm college professor.

On the other hand, Diane was a beauty. On looks alone, even though Melissa was attractive and beautiful to me, she wasn't in the same class. Still, Diane might have been a raging bitch, who drove Conrad into my wife's arms. Still, I was not closer to knowing why.

I spent weeks investigating Conrad Miller's business interests. I'm not a financial analyst, but Conrad's businesses were certainly diversified. About a third of his businesses were publicly traded, so it was easy to get information on them. However, two-thirds of his business interests were privately held, making it very difficult to get any helpful information.

In the months I had been trying to narrow my search of the state's richest men, a popup ad caught my attention. It was a game that let you pretend you were a day trader. On a whim, I decided to buy it because I thought it might help me narrow my list, and when I found the man who had stolen my wife, it might give me some insight into his character. The game did nothing to help me in my search, but it was fun to play and proved an excellent distraction to my troubled mind. I learned that to be a successful day trader, you had to do a lot of research before you invested. Anyway, I got hooked on the game.

It had taken me six months to get to the point where I was pretty sure I had discovered who my wife had run away with. However, I still had no idea why Melissa had fallen in love with this guy.

It had been a very lonely six months. Living in the home, I had shared with Melissa was, at times, painful and depressing. So, I found ways to stay out of the house as much as possible. I also tried to stay busy when I was at home.

I had started exercising on my own but then joined a gym. I would work myself to exhaustion just so I could sleep at night. I learned to cook and do odd repairs around the house. I completely redid the master bedroom. I made it over into my bedroom. Then I signed up for a Tai Kwan Do course. A friend had suggested it when he learned that my wife had deserted the kids and me. And he was right; the martial arts training gave me physical and mental balance in my life. It helped me so much that I started going six days a week. I wasn't interested in becoming a black belt. I just liked the discipline and found the self-defense aspects satisfying. I altered my schedule and went to the gym in the morning and the Tai Kwan Do class at night. I got in the best shape of my life. And if I couldn't sleep, I'd get out of bed and practice my self-defense moves for fifteen or twenty minutes. That always calmed me down.

One other thing I did was renew my interest in guns. I had been a paratrooper in the army for four years. I learned how to shoot and always enjoyed it. Once I married Melissa, I got rid of my guns after the girls were born. Still, I enjoyed target shooting, and I would go occasionally. When I did, I would rent a gun for the day. Now, if I wanted a gun of my own, there was no one to object. But this wasn't the real reason I purchased a firearm and got a concealed weapons permit. The reason came about two weeks after Melissa left. I came home from work one evening and started noticing little things out of place.

Since Melissa's disappearing act, I had been running the house strictly for myself. Since I didn't have or want to spend a lot of time cleaning, I adopted the attitude of a place for everything and everything in its place. The first thing I noticed was the key rack in the kitchen. It was simply a board with hooks where I hung the keys. I always kept them in a certain order. I noticed that my spare car key and the one for the front door were reversed. At first, I didn't think anything of it. I could have messed up putting the keys back. However, then I noticed the liquor cabinet and the silverware drawer keys were also reversed. I hadn't used either of those keys since before Melissa left.

But it wasn't just the keys that set the hair on the back of my head standing up. I found a book on the nightstand that I had been reading had been moved. Not only that, but the bookmarker wasn't sticking out as much as usual. That may sound strange to some, but my daughter Karla had made this bookmarker for me when she was in the third grade. On the top of the thin piece of colored cardboard, it said, "I love Daddy." I always made sure that part of the bookmark was sticking up, so I could see it. That day only half of my daughter's writing was visible.

The more I looked, the more I found little things out of place. I couldn't help but feel that someone had searched my house and tried to hide the fact. Okay, I have to admit that I wasn't entirely sure the house had been searched. But it unnerved me enough to get the locks changed and have an alarm system and cameras installed. I bought the top of the line for everything. The company I used assured me that even government spooks couldn't breach my system.

It was then that I started going to a shooting range again. I also took some NRA home protection courses. Yeah, I was getting a little paranoid. But after living with Melissa all those years, it was so strange being by myself. My mind was a mess anyway, and nothing made sense to me. Things just didn't add up, and I somehow felt that I was missing the big picture. Or, perhaps, I was just deluding myself because of my love for my wife. Then it hit me that I didn't even know whether I still loved my wife or not anymore. Love is a funny thing; if it isn't nurtured, it dies. Well, that was a subject for whenever I came face to face with Melissa. And then I asked myself why I didn't just accept the divorce and move on. The terms of the divorce were certainly one-sided in my favor. Perhaps it was just my male ego, wanting the last word. I pushed all those thoughts away as they did nothing to comfort me.

I suppose I should admit that I wasn't always by myself. Once the word circulated in the office that I had separated from my wife, I became a person of interest to several of my female co-workers. And after I began my regiment at the gym and Tai Kwan Do, that interest really took off. I was getting hit on by women from virtually every department in our company. And I did go out on multiple dates, but nothing clicked. I was still too messed up and consumed by finding Melissa. Usually, after one date with me, the women knew I wasn't ready to get into a serious relationship. I had to have that closure before I could move on and hopefully find someone else.

All the time, I struggled with my wife's betrayal; I had been very focused at work. It helped to take my mind off my troubles. My commissions were the highest I had ever made. I had been promoted and was being groomed for an executive position. There was only one problem with my work success. I had come to the realization that I hated my job.

I toyed with the idea of just quitting. I had enough in savings that I could live comfortably for many years. Instead, I decided to dabble in day trading. As I mentioned, I found a game that allowed you to pretend that you were a day trader. I played that for weeks on end and did pretty well. So, I decided to give it a try for real. At first, I set aside ten thousand dollars to invest. After weeks of making a few dollars but losing more, I finally ran through the whole ten thousand. Then I plowed another twenty thousand in before I started to figure it out. It took a lot of research, but after blowing almost forty thousand dollars, I started to make some small profits. I kept at it, and suddenly, I was clearing five or ten thousand dollars on a single trade.

By the sixth month after my wife's abandonment, I decided to quit my job and concentrate on two things -- day trading and finding my cheating wife. My boss and others tried to change my mind, but I simply told them that I no longer desired to continue working now that Melissa was gone.

I had accumulated almost two million dollars in assets from various sources, with the day trading providing about forty percent of that amount. The rest was savings and the equity in the house, which had no mortgage. I also had another four hundred thousand dollars in a 401-K that I could tap if I needed. I'd have to pay penalties but so what.

After I learned who my wife's lover was, I realized that he wasn't a millionaire; he was, in fact, a billionaire. My chances of getting close to him were between slim and none. Also, he seemed to be constantly on the go. So, I decided to try to learn what I could about his wife, Diane. Once again, I turned to the internet. Unfortunately, there wasn't much as she lived a kind of reclusive life. There were rumors that they were estranged, which wasn't surprising. The few pictures couldn't hide her beauty but weren't really all that good. But one thing I did learn was that Conrad had a big estate in Tuxedo, New York. And apparently, that's where his wife and children lived. Apparently, he rarely spent any time there.

I learned all of this about the same time that I quit my job. Now nothing was tying me to one place. In fact, all I needed was my laptop, a few changes of clothes, and my new camera with several expensive lenses. With these things and a full tank of gas, I was free to roam. Of course, there were my daughters, Katie and Karla. But I didn't have to worry about them. Katie was married and living in another state. Karla was attending college out of state but had decided to finish up her degree this summer. She wanted to start on her Master's Degree in the fall. I still kept in constant contact with both, and my girls were pillars of strength for me. Sadly, they had taken their mother's abandonment hard. Karla was especially bitter as she had been very close to her mother.

At the beginning of this mess, Karla had basically inferred that her mom left because of something I had done. But after weeks of no contact from her mother, Karla's anger was redirected. And sadly, I didn't help the situation. When Karla would rant that her mother was dead to her, I didn't stop her. Somehow it made me feel good that Melissa had lost at least one of her daughters, if not both. Katie, after a couple of months, began her own rants about her mother. By then, I tried to put a stop to such talk, but I failed. Still, I understood; they felt as betrayed as I did.

At this point, I must apologize. I realize that this story is all over the place. But you have to understand that my thinking during this process was all over the place. Divorce is indeed much like experiencing a death in the family. And I was going through the five stages of grief. In the beginning, I had denied that Melissa was really gone. Then came the anger and bargaining. So many nights, I'd lay in bed praying to God that if he brought Melissa back to me, I'd go to church every Sunday after that. Of course, the depression set in by the third week, and I guess part of that was still with me. But I had yet to find acceptance of my situation. That, I figured, would only come with a face to face with Melissa.

At the beginning of the seventh month, several things happened that got my mind really back in the hunt. First of all, I got a call from my attorney asking what I wanted to do about the divorce. It had been months since I'd last heard from him, and I just thought the divorce had gone through. That's not really accurate. The truth was that I had completely put the divorce out of my mind. It wasn't something I had control over. I had assumed that since I refused to sign, they'd just push the divorce through themselves. So, I was shocked to find out that the divorce hadn't been finalized. That was really strange.

The following day, I got calls from Karla and Katie. They had both gotten a call from their mother. I spoke first to Karla, and she was a mess. It took a full ten minutes to calm her down enough to tell me what had been said. Apparently, as soon as Karla realized who it was, she unloaded on her mother. Karla told Melissa that she hoped fucking her new boyfriend was worth it because her mother was dead to her as far as she was concerned. Karla was really brutal, telling her mother that she didn't want her at her graduation or her wedding. Karla was now engaged. And the coup de grace was that if Karla had any children, Melissa would never get to see them. According to Karla, Melissa began to sob uncontrollably, and then the phone was disconnected.