Not Enough

Reflections: Not Enough

I pinched the bridge of my nose for probably the 50^th time in the past 36 hours. I didn't sleep well on airplanes. I never had. Not even when I hadn't slept in nearly 2 days.

Coming home was well worth it, though. As I smiled down at the plain gold band on my finger, I marveled at my perfect life. Not bad for an orphan.

My life hadn't always been perfect. My parents were killed in an automobile accident when I was 7; that's the absolute worst age to be orphaned. You're just past the age where anyone will adopt you but too young to know what's going on. All you really know is that all the people in your life that you love and care about, and that care about you, are gone.

I had no relatives. My grandparents on my mom's side were gone long before I was born. My dad's mom passed away just before my birth; he'd never known his father. Oh, I had an aunt somewhere – my mother's younger sister – but she'd left home at the age of 16 and just disappeared. No one knew where she was or what she was doing; no one could find her.

I spent my life in foster homes, group homes and halfway houses. Bet you didn't know that, did you? When you're older, after your foster parents stop caring for foster children and you're too old for group homes, they put you in halfway houses with kids who are mostly criminals. There's just no room for you anywhere else.

At first, I'd kept dreaming that my aunt – who I'd never seen and wouldn't know if I bumped into her on the street – was going to come and rescue me. Every woman I'd meet, every woman I'd see, I'd imagine was my aunt, coming for me. That lasted until just after I was 12 and was getting beaten up by a 16 year old in the group home. As I cried myself to sleep that night, I left that dream on the pillow with my tears.

I learned a few things in those places. I learned where to hit your opponent to cause the most pain and end a fight quickly. I learned how to read people, to get inside their heads and tell them what they wanted to hear. I figured out how to rely on myself. I learned that no one likes people who are smarter than they are – especially when you can prove it.

And I was smarter than most of them. Not about everything, of course, but about a lot of things. I'm not bragging; it's just a fact. See, I was a small, thin kid until my growth spurt just after my 15^th birthday. Then, I was a tall, accident-prone, thin kid who could barely walk without tripping over my suddenly huge feet. I could fight – you didn't grow up in the system without learning to fight – but it wasn't my chosen field. I much preferred to let trouble pass me by; if you fight in the system, you tended to get into tons of trouble. I didn't need trouble; I had enough of it already.

So, instead of fighting, I spent most of my time in the library or on the internet. I was learning; teaching myself about anything that interested me. I had a knack of remembering things; not everything, I don't have a photographic memory or anything (and, honestly, there's no such thing as a photographic memory – that's just a fiction you find in books, movies and television), I just had a very good memory. I was also really good at applying things I learned in one field to problems I discovered in another. Correlative analysis, I think I heard someone call it once. Whatever it was, I turned out to be really, really good at it.

I graduated high school at 17; a full year early. One nice thing about being in the system, it's easy to get money for college. I mean, you have no income so it's very easy to get money from grants, student loans and the like. Between that and the academic scholarships I received (I had a straight 5.0 average due to advanced placement classes in high school) and college was pretty much set for me.

I filed my first patent at 18, when I was a sophomore in college (thanks to the advanced placement classes in high school giving me college credit and my lack of home life meaning I was taking courses year round, I was ahead in college). Like all great ideas, mine really wasn't anything new. It was the combination of a bunch of other different metals, plastics and substances into a single alloy that turned out to be even slicker than Teflon, stronger than steel and able to withstand temperatures of nearly 5,000 degrees Celsius. Plus, it didn't transmit heat from out to in; it reflected it instead. This gives it a number of applications; as an outer coating on NASA's space shuttle replacement, for example. Or, since it's also several times stronger than steel, as the material to make tanks out of.

As a matter of fact, that's exactly what it's being used for and NASA and the Department of Defense are giving me a combined 4 million a year to use it ... and not sell it so someone else.

My second patent I filed just before my 19^th birthday. It was for an adhesive that bonded on the atomic level to just about anything and was so strong that, once bonded, the material would give out before the adhesive. Nasa's using it to apply Symtec to their rocket and it should be available commercially from Dupont by next year. If anything, the adhesive is making me over twice as much as Symtec and will likely make me even more.

I've got 5 others, too, that will likely be just as lucrative in a few years; a monofilament that's strong as steel and as flexible as fishing line, some software that will improve database performance by at least 12%, and so on. By the age of 22 I had a doctorate in Chemistry and Software Engineering, and Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and Physics. I'd used my first two patents to start my own consulting firm – the firm owned the patents so proceeds profited the firm – and was well on my way to becoming fabulously wealthy and successful.

I met Amber when I was 20 and wandering around a fraternity party. My roommate and best friend, Doug, was in the frat and had invited me; I enjoyed the parties and was friends with most of the brothers but I had never joined – I was just too busy. So there I was, nursing my beer (I never had more than two – I just didn't enjoy drinking) when this angel walked in the door. She had come to the party on the arm of this big man who looked like he played football – by himself ... and won ... and she proceeded to get completely bombed. The football-looking guy was having too good a time to help her home when she was on the verge of passing out – so I volunteered.

It isn't what you think. I got her in her dorm and helped her to the bathroom. I held her hair when she threw up – twice! – and helped her into bed, fully clothed except for her gym shoes, which I took off. I then grabbed one of her pillows and leaned into a corner. I woke up the second time she got up to vomit and helped her back into bed, still fully clothed. Along about 6am, when I was sure the worst was over, I left quietly, leaving her a note with my name and number in case she needed anything the next day.

I didn't hear from her for two weeks but then she called me up, out of the blue and thanked me for helping her that night. Evidently, she wasn't drunk enough to forget what I'd done and had been too embarrassed to confront me – but her conscience wouldn't let her go without thanking me. We met for coffee – all on the up and up – and over time, we became really good friends.

It wasn't until almost a year later, long after she'd gotten rid of the big guy who'd brought her to the party, that we began seeing each other in earnest. She was everything I could ever want in a woman; kind, considerate, funny, charming, witty and so beautiful she constantly took my breath away. Talking to her was like talking to no one I'd ever met before; she'd actually listen to me even when she had no idea what I was saying ... and she had a voice that made you hang on her every word when she spoke. I started missing her when she walked out of a room and my day was made whenever I saw her. I had fallen deeply in love.

Her family was so gracious and accepting; I felt included almost from the moment I met them. They had a way of fitting you in, laughing with you and making it seem as if you'd always been there. Her mother was stunning, it was definitely easy to see where she'd gotten her beauty, and her father was this large man who reminded you of a teddy bear – soft and familiar. She was extremely close to her brother, Dave – she went camping with him for two weeks every summer, a tradition that had started when he was 14 and she was 12, camping out in their back yard – and was constantly on the phone with him, seeing how his day was going, how his life was. She was very close to her younger sister Marcie, too ... they were just a really close, nuclear family.

We married when I was 22, newly graduated, and she was 20 and almost through her business degree. We had a baby boy a year and a half later, a few months after she graduated. By then my consulting firm was well on its way to being established as the goto firm if you had a project running off the rails and needed it reigned in. I concentrated in Chemistry and Software, and I had hired a very small staff directly out of college with degrees in engineering, accounting and business. I had also hired administrative assistants and we even had a small, two person research and development team.

Now, at 27, everything was perfect. The Dubai job I'd just finished was grossing us almost a quarter million and my next contract in two weeks was a 6 month chemistry gig for a perfume company that was likely to gross us another quarter million; maybe even a half million if I could get it done fast and have a few of the bonuses kick in. The rest of the consultants weren't doing quite as well but I was looking forward to the consulting side of the business bringing in more than 3 million this year ... an almost 20% increase from last year. That was on top of the money from the two patents I'd started the company with and the 4 others our research and development team had filed.

I reached into my laptop bag and dug out the small white box I'd brought as a surprise for Amber. Inside was a gold chain with a diamond pendant in the shape of a heart; set around the pendant were the birthstones for me and our son Mikey. Amber was born in April, so the diamond was her birthstone. I was born in September, so there was a smaller Sapphire and Peridot for Mikey's August birthday. I had spent close to $15,000 US on it but I would have spent 100 times that; although she never asked for anything or seemed to want anything, I always enjoyed buying things for her.

My return was likewise a surprise; it was Tuesday and I wasn't supposed to be home until Saturday. I had ensured that all of my contracts that required travel included a clause that said I was to be home for two days every weekend and at least 1 week of every month; I didn't think I could go any longer without seeing my wife and son. It was the one immutable rule I had made for myself and I'd never broken it until this past weekend, opting to finish my work on Saturday and Sunday so I could get an extra week with Amber and Mikey.

I pulled into the driveway in my 1998 Buick Skylark. I'd read once that when people who had nothing all their lives came into money, they tended to either spend it lavishly or hoard it religiously. I fell on the hoarding side, I'm sure, but I never saw the reason in buying anything flashy. I preferred simple, reliable things and my Skylark was old but reliable. It got me from point A to point B and that's all I needed. The company had a few cars on lease in case I needed to entertain potential clients but I almost hated to use them. A simple gold wedding band, a simple, reliable auto, usable clothing; I could shop at Brook's Brothers but why when I could get a good, tailored suit nearby for 1/10^th of the cost? These things were transient, disposable and not worth dropping large sums of cash into.

My home, on the other hand, was permanent so I'd spent money on it. I'd bought a large, 4,500 sq. foot house; 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths, a swimming pool, media room, 3 car garage on 5 acres. I'd splurged because this was my refuge; this was where my wife and I made our home. This was where I'd happily spend the rest of my life.

I didn't pull into the garage because I had plans to take the Skylark in for an oil change and general maintenance the next day; the change oil light had come on, and I wanted to take care of it – if you wanted dependable transportation, you had to put in the maintenance.

I didn't make a lot of noise coming in but it wasn't intentional. I guess I was just tired or drained from the long flight. For whatever reason, the door didn't make much noise opening or closing, my shoes didn't make much noise when I took them off my feet, and my bags didn't make a lot of noise when I put them down.

The house was quiet, but that was normal. Mikey would be in preschool and I'm sure Amber was out shopping or whatever. I was disappointed; I was hoping to surprise Amber and spend some time with her, but it could wait. I smiled as I looked at the box in my hand; seeing Amber later could be even better, actually. I'd just leave the box on the table with a note and catch a nap; that way when Amber got home I would be refreshed and we could spend time together, just the three of us ... just the two of us tonight.