Chapter 7: Sad Stories

I had thought it would be harder, seeing her in the flesh.

She'd been a memory for two years, and a painful memory at that, but somehow ... somehow, I felt better. I realized that hearing about her, imagining what she had become, visualizing what she looked like after two years, was not the same thing.

She could have been dead for the past two years and everyone could have been lying to protect my feelings. Crazy, I know, but things like that crept into my thoughts sometimes late at night. I could have used a private detective to get pictures of her, but I couldn't make myself. She had cut herself out of my life. It was stupid. I had forced myself back into her life for just a moment, only long enough to convince myself deep in the part that doesn't accept logic, that she was still alive.

Well, now I knew, and maybe I still loved her. Maybe I could never breathe the same air again but we were in the same world.

It was enough!

Life went on. It was August and, as usual, hotter and muggier than hell. Gail as was her habit invited some of the officials highest up the totem pole and closest to her on an all-expenses paid junket during the most miserable part of the month. In the past she and a couple of dozen staff and spouses including myself, and once upon a time Mary, had vacationed in the South of France, in Alaska, in Hawaii and on Bora Bora.

This year she'd booked rooms for her group on the Bonne Chance, a French-owned cruise ship that came through very rarely, the previous time being four years ago. Because she was a friend of the ship's owner, the Bonne Chance sailed on a special two-week tour of the Caribbean, instead of the regular week-long excursion.

She'd invited me, but for some reason I didn't feel like it. I went down to Saint Augustine, rented a condo on the beach and spent a week by myself. I didn't turn on the TV or read the paper. I walked the beach from early morning until late at night. I pondered deep thoughts and enjoyed the feel of beach sand between my toes.

At night I hit the bars at St. Augustine Beach and one night drank Brandy with a hooker named Renée and the DEA agent who'd left his wife and career to be with her, even though she was dying of AIDs.

One day I was out walking the beach and had made it about three miles from my condo. It was hot and I was sweaty and thirsty. I walked over to one of the carts they allow at access points and was about to pay $2 for a snow cone when I realized I'd left my wallet.

"Here, let me," said a young dark haired guy in shorts and some loud Hawaiian shirt. He passed the kid behind the cart two dollars.

"That's okay, my treat, don't sweat it."

"Thanks, walked out without my wallet. Are you here on vacation? Family here?"

He nodded.

"Nobody's out on a Thursday unless they're on vacation, right?"

"Not in the middle of the day. You're not a Yankee because you don't look like a lobster. From around here?"

"Jacksonville, Kevin - you?"

"Hugh Davidson. Same, small world. Wife and kids back in the condo?"

A funny look crossed his face, "No wife, one boy. He's not mine, but he is."

The kid, a smallish dark haired boy whom I thought actually looked like Kevin ran up and gave me a suspicious look, and stayed to the other side of Kevin.

"Can I get a cone, Kevin? I met this girl, Caroline, she's over there but she doesn't have any cash. Could you get her one too?"

He smiled at the boy.

"Just a snow cone, Rob? You're not going to ask me for cab fare to take her to the movies later, are you?"

"Kevin, get real. She's 14. She's not going to go out with a 13-year-old. Besides, she's got a boyfriend back in Charlotte."

I found myself saying, "It's been known to happen."

Rob gave me another quick look. I didn't need to be a mind reader to detect the almost flinch when I surprised him by speaking. Whoever he was, he'd had bad experiences with grown men.

"I wish, but..."

Kevin brought two snow cones and gave them to the boy.

"Have fun. Be back at our condo no later than 6 p.m. tonight and keep that phone where I can reach you at all times. Understand? About the girl ... she's cute but she's an older woman. So ... be careful."

The boy made a face and ran off with the cute, freckle-faced blonde who had altogether too many curves for a 14-year-old.

"Not yours? Seems pretty much father and son to me."

"The kid grows on you. He's not mine by blood, but ... I'm in the Guardian Ad Litem program and I got assigned him. I wound up getting him out of a pretty nasty situation with a stepfather and the court assigned me as his guardian. He's a good kid, although he's still got some problems."

"Seems like the kid lucked out."

"We both did. I was wandering ... down pretty far when I grabbed onto the Guardian Ad Litem deal. It probably saved my life."

We walked and talked for a half hour and before we split he said, "Rob's pretty good on his own. Meet me at Murph's, down near Crescent Beach, for a couple of beers tonight. Our condo is a block over. You free tonight or have a hot date?"

"Tons, but you can't do hot sex 24/7."

He just shook his head and said, "What world do you live in?" but smiled as he walked away.

We were on our third Icehouse drafts when he said, "Pardon me for being nosy, but I notice you're wearing a wedding ring and your wife is nowhere to be seen."

"No mystery. I'm divorced, two years ago now. I never got around to taking it off but don't plan on remarrying so it shouldn't be a problem."

"Can't get over her, can you?"

"Probably not but I'm still young. I might yet do it."

"If you figure it out, tell me how."

"Divorced?"

"Yeah, but she was dead first and then I had to divorce her."

"You know I have to know the story."

"Not much of a story. Just sad as hell."

"Come on."

"We got into a fight and she stormed out, vanished. No one had seen her, knew where she was or what had happened. I didn't see her for three years. When I did, she was a different woman. She'd ... lost her memory. Got into bad, bad trouble and some hero rescued her. Not me! Now she has a kid and a man she loves and wants to marry, and she doesn't even know who I am.

I looked at her when a cop brought her and her hero into my kitchen and asked me to sign papers to allow her to divorce me and marry her new man. I wanted to refuse and tell her new man to go to hell. She was my wife! However, the cop told me I'd be taking her away from the man who loved her and saved her life, and asking her to live with a stranger. What kind of love was that? You know, he was right, I'd lost her the moment she walked out the door. The fact that I loved her didn't change anything.

She – the woman I'd loved – was dead and gone."

He drained his beer.

"So I have my job and my Guardian Ad Litem duties and a 13-year-old teenager to try to keep in line. It's a fairly full life as long as I don't think of what I lost."