Chapter 3 #3
“Then what’s the problem? And remember, you can have an affair with your job just as much as you can with another woman.” Henry started walking toward the pavilion which was close to the steps leading up to the ruins.
“Then I guess I did.” Vince kept in step with Henry. “I work long hours, and there always seems to be a business dinner that doesn’t include her.”
“Why don’t those dinners include your wife?” Henry kept pace with him.
“Mother usually sets them up, makes the reservations, and does all the work, and she…” Vince stammered.
“Doesn’t want to spend that much time with your wife, does she?” Henry chuckled. “Sounds to me like you got a decision to make, son. It’s either your marriage or your job, and your wife or your mama. You can’t have both in either instance. Is your wife hard to live with? Do you love her?”
“No, she is not, and yes, I love her, but I’m not so sure that she loves me anymore. I would never abuse her, but the way I’ve put her at the end of the line when it comes to time with her would tax any woman’s love.”
“Well, I’d say that you have recognized the problem. What are you going to do about it?”
“I have no idea. Got any suggestions?” Vince couldn’t believe he was asking a person he’d only met a couple of days ago for advice.
“Yep, talk to her,” Henry answered. “Until you do that, you’ll be even more miserable than you are right now.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Oh, yeah,” Henry said with a nod. “I’m going to get one of those big, old slushy drinks and sit under the pavilion while you go up and look at the ruins. There’s Sookie. Maybe I can get a little visit with her.”
***
“Fate has blessed us today,” Sookie said. “I had hoped that Vince would come on this trip. I’m glad I opted to sit with y’all and send her up alone. She needs time to think, and there’s no better place to realize that your problems aren’t as big as they seem than up there on that cliff.”
“Or for her to talk to Vince, either,” Minnie said.
“Maybe this will be the beginning of a beautiful love affair.” Dotty sighed.
Henry came over to their side of the pavilion and sat down beside Sookie. “Is your new matchmaking project already up at the ruins?”
“Yes, she is,” Sookie said, “and don’t you go spilling the beans about what we’re doing!”
“Hey, don’t be all sassy with me.” Henry took a long drink of his frozen cherry drink. “I’ve been helping you all I can up to now, but I can stop if you’re going to bite at me every time we get close together.”
“What do you mean helping us?” Minnie glared at him through narrowed eyes.
“I help you with every one of your little games. When you pick out a guy, I get close to him and get him to talking to me about what he wants out of life, what kind of woman and all that, and then I make sure he’s wherever y’all are with your lady,” Henry said.
“We sure enough failed last time, but this time, I want things to work out. Those two kids belong together, and he’s so in love with her that it makes my heart hurt.
He knows he’s made mistakes, and I believe he’s willing to try to fix them, if it isn’t too late. ”
“And we thought all this time that you were just flirting with Sookie,” Dotty said.
“I have been, but not for a romantic relationship. I want to be in on the matchmaking scheme y’all got going.
It sounds exciting and fun. I’m not wanting a serious relationship at my age, but I would like some friends,” Henry admitted.
“Maybe for a game of tennis, or to have dinner with, or even just to talk about the good old days. These young whippersnappers today don’t know what life was all about back before there was technology like cell phones and computers. ”
“Amen to that,” Sookie agreed and thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to let Henry into their little circle part of the time—as long as he wasn’t looking for something serious.
***
Vince exercised regularly in the gym at the office, but he was still out of breath when he reached the top of the crude stairway.
He leaned against the rough, rocky wall of one of the buildings and stared out over the cliff toward the horizon.
Waves lapped up on the sandy beach below him, and out there in the distance, birds dotted the sky.
Everything seemed so vast and his troubles suddenly took on a new perspective.
Henry had been right. He had choices to make, and right now he would give up everything he owned to have a life with Ava.
His mother would probably disown him, and he might even be looking for a job elsewhere.
She’d been so excited when Ava moved out.
Staying with his wife would mean he could lose his job and possibly even his inheritance.
He could very well see his mother influencing his father to cut him out of the will.
His grandfather had set up a healthy trust fund for him.
He loved his job at the firm, and the people he worked with were great, but he loved Ava more.
“Hello, Vince.” Ava appeared out of nowhere and sat down on the stairs leading up to a massive building not far from where he was standing.
“This place kind of says the same thing that our marriage did, doesn’t it?
It was a beautiful thing at one time. Something to be revered and treasured, and now it’s just a bunch of ruins on top of a cliff. ”
“I was thinking about how hard it must have been for all those people to even get the stones up from the bottom of the cliff to this place to build these massive houses,” he said without looking at her, knowing that she would be able to tell that he was lying if he did.
“It took teamwork,” she said. “When we were first married, we worked together to make our home a place that was filled with peace and love. We had a future and talked about how in a year we would go somewhere other than Texas, and then it all just faded away.”
“Had?” He held his breath so long that his chest ached.
“We had something special, but…” She shrugged.
“Do we still have a few pebbles left of what was there?” He sat down beside her.
“I don’t know,” she said after a long sigh. “You tell me. I love you, Vince, and probably always will, but I can’t go on living like we are. You’ve become a stranger to me.”
“What would it take for you to move back home?” he asked.
“You know the answer to that, so why even discuss it? Do you want a divorce?”
“No, but…”
She shook her head. “It’s just yes or no.
There are no buts. I know what you’ll be giving up if you say yes.
I’m not sure I even want to be the one to blame for causing that decision.
You’d resent me in a few months or years for asking you to walk away from what you have.
You like what you do or you wouldn’t be doing it. ”
“I wish I’d had sisters and brothers,” he said. “The responsibility that comes with being the only child in a family like mine is overwhelming.”
“I understand that, and like I said, I don’t want to ever have you hate me for forcing you to make this decision,” she told him, “but something has to change.”
“I still love you,” he whispered.
She laid a hand on his arm. “And I will always love you.”
Sparks danced all around them, like a million stars falling from the sky.
He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. He kissed every knuckle and then laced his fingers in hers. “Ava, why can’t that love carry us until I get a hold on everything I’ll have to know to run the company?”
“Because we only get one day at a time.” She pulled her hand free.
“We can’t depend on tomorrow, because it might never come.
I want to be a part of your life every day.
That’s what marriage is. It’s not money or power or owning big companies.
It’s sharing life. You decide what you want, and then we can talk about whether we feel like hauling big rocks up from wherever they have fallen to repair our marriage, or if what we had is in ruins like this place.
I’m not asking you to give up your job or family.
I just want to be a part of your life, to share time with you instead of sitting at home alone, night after night.
I’d also like to go back to teaching or at least have a job. ”
She paused for a moment and then went on.
“After the first few months of our marriage, we became nothing more than two ships passing in the night. Your mother managed to schedule something every evening that did not include me. Do you want to be married to your job or to me? That’s the question.
You have to figure out the answer before we can talk about our future as a married couple,” she said as she stood up and walked away, leaving nothing but a hint of her perfume in her wake.
“I can fix that,” Vince said with a smile.