* * *
"Wow Madeline," he whispered aloud, to no one in particular. "You
really know how to make a grown man weep." As he lingered in his
parents' kitchen, he pored over every sentence, every sentiment
repeatedly, as if needing unequivocal reassurance this was indeed real and
not just some fabrication of a restless soul, longing for its twin flame.
He stared out the window as the fronds of a coconut palm gracefully
danced in the gentle breeze. He thought back to a day nearly fourteen
years earlier, when a young Madeline had walked into his real estate office,
impeccably dressed in a peach linen suit. She'd been fresh off a flight
from Atlantic City to Fort Lauderdale, to meet with a prospective
employer, in anticipation of her impending move to Pompano Beach a
few weeks later. Family friends who'd lived there had offered her
temporary shelter, until she'd gotten her bearings and found an apartment
in a safe area.
During the multitude of phone conversations that had preceded this
particular visit, Ken had struggled in vain to find the words to tell her he'd
been living with another woman-one whom he'd been excited to marry.
That is, until Madeline shocked the hell out of him. He never in a million
years expected such an abrupt turnaround; for more than twelve months,
she'd consistently rejected his pleas to join him in the Sunshine State.
Now, with one 180-degree turn, she'd rocked his entire world.
But it was too late. And while he acknowledged at the deepest level
that marrying Erin might possibly be the biggest mistake of his life, he just
couldn't abandon her. After all, when he left New Jersey to pursue his
dreams, they'd both felt the intense pain of separation. Yet Erin actively
sought to remedy the situation by diligently working with a head hunter to
secure a good position in Miami. Unlike Maddy, she'd placed no
geographical restrictions on love.
Unfortunately, their live-in arrangement soon revealed significant
differences-impediments that Ken hoped would either dissolve entirely,
or at least mitigate once they were united in the bonds of marriage. In
hindsight of course, he'd realized the folly of his thinking. That while he
truly did love Erin, it had been utterly foolish to believe they could
actually go the distance with her relentless insecurities, self-centeredness
and proclivity towards distrust inflicting slow, steady and ultimately-
unfixable, damage to their union.
Every female, whether Ken's boss, co-worker or fellow college
student, provoked Erin's pervasive jealousy. On more than one occasion
he recalled knock-down, drag-out arguments with her over innocuous
incidents, from a study session in broad daylight over coffee at Starbucks,
to mandatory after-hours socializing with the sales and operations teams
at a company-sponsored event.
A respectful guy by nature, Ken despised fighting with his wife,
particularly when the altercations had no basis in reality. Oftentimes, he'd
simply retreat to the golf course or the beach when things deteriorated at
home. And once they'd had both children, prompting Erin to set up her
own business out of the spare bedroom, Ken found himself even less
eager to engage her unfounded accusations. He didn't want his innocent
kids to suffer the consequences of their parents ill-advised decision to tie
the knot, so he took great pains to avoid raising his voice around their
mother-an effort that demanded a tremendous amount of restraint.
Then there was the negative influence of the Boca Raton culture.
While an exceedingly beautiful city and desirable place to live, Boca's
downside was the extreme superficiality of many of its residents, some of
whom held positions of power within the community, from the local
paper's society page writer to the plethora of ambitious millionaires that
populated upscale neighborhoods like Broken Sound, Royal Palm and the
Sanctuary. While Ken envied no one, content to focus on his own goals,
Erin got caught up in the web of botox, breast enhancements and
liposuction that characterized the activities of the city's wealthiest females.
And as her business thrived, so did her vanity, leading her to undergo
a seemingly endless parade of plastic surgeries, all to assuage her fears of
growing older and help her keep pace with the women with whom she
networked for both business and social purposes. After almost thirteen
years of marriage, Ken didn't even recognize her-or was it perhaps more
accurate to say that he was just beginning to?
Looking back down at Madeline's delicate handwriting, he re-read her
line about how no man before or after him had ever treated her with the
same amount of respect, affection and concern. These words both thrilled
and saddened him. On the one hand, he sensed a golden opportunity to
rectify the mistakes of the past; on the other, it pained him that someone
as wonderful as Madeline Rose had failed to find the true love and
commitment she so richly deserved. What was wrong with some of these guys
anyway? Didn't they recognize quality when they saw it?
Ken folded the writing paper back into the note card before sliding it
into the envelope. To think, just a few hours ago, he'd left her a message
assuming her letter had been nothing more than a birthday greeting.
Somehow, Madeline always did find a way to surprise him. Flipping open
his cell phone, Ken checked the time and realized Brian's baseball practice
was about to end. He raced out of the front door and into his white Lexus
sedan. And as he drove past the flowering yellow trees that adorned the
traffic islands separating eastbound and westbound traffic on Palmetto
Park Road, for the first time in an eternity, he began to feel alive again.