CHAPTER 8

 

THE WAY BACK

 

 

May 27, 2001

Ellicott City, MD

 

 

 

Michael approached the stairway to the family room below. The lights were on; she would be waiting. He hesitated and started down.

Awake since three forty-five A.M., he had yet to see her. In spite of his fatigue, Michael’s six-foot frame, crisp khakis, and blue-and-white checkered sports shirt conveyed a sense of energy.

He spotted her halfway down the staircase, sitting on the couch, knees under her chin, arms wrapped around her legs. Cinnamon, their Yellow Lab, snuggled against her.

No matter how desperate things got, Michael found her alluring. The blond hair, soft blue eyes, and trim figure were as inviting as ever.

He reached the family room and stopped, a laptop suspended from his left hand, a briefcase from his right. His luggage, loaded the night before, waited in the car.

Michael aimed his intense blue eyes at the woman who had been his partner for so long.

“Honey, you didn’t have to get up. Go back to bed and I’ll call when I arrive in American Samoa. Everything will be fine. My itinerary’s on the kitchen counter. I’ll be back in two weeks and we can focus on us again.”

She didn’t move, looking past him.

“When you return, we’re going to sit down and talk about our future,” she told him. “I don’t think I want to live with you anymore.”

Tears fell from her eyes. Her left hand found its way to Cinnamon’s head and she began rubbing their pal.

Her words crushed his confidence, creating a painful space in the pit of his stomach, but it was too late, they had gone over it a hundred times.

“I love you,” he said.

Then, he walked out into the garage, got in the car, and drove away.

 

***

Michael sat in an aisle seat of a DC-10 headed for Honolulu. He remembered Thursday night’s dinner on their covered front porch. Karen’s words refused to leave him.

“How can you risk your health and our future? I researched American Samoa this afternoon. Damn it, Samoa’s water is polluted with animal urine. There are no real medical facilities. There are drug-crazed hoodlums known to slit the throats of visitors who wander into the wrong neighborhoods. What are you thinking? If something happens, if you wreck your only daughter’s wedding, I’ll never forgive you.”

For several years Michael suppressed the realization that all was not well with their marriage. For long stretches, Karen seemed bored with life, just going through the motions. At times he would have to argue just to get her to go out with him. Once out, she would remain silent for the entire evening.

Karen’s job as a high school psychologist kept her working late at night, so involved in student problems she had no emotions left for their life as a couple. When Michael complained, she delivered long recitations con-cerning the sad state of her students’ lives and how only she had the chance to make things right.

Michael’s strategy centered on working toward retirement. Once they could leave their careers behind, they would renew their passion. Now, it looked as if their marriage wouldn’t survive that long. He told her that government economists traveled to Samoa for years with no problems, but she refused to listen.

The pressure of her threat, the exhaustion brought on by sleepless nights, and the worry about the public hearings he would administer in Samoa was too much weight. In the air or airport terminals for more than eleven hours, he was completely drained.

Needing to escape, he called for a flight attendant and ordered a double. He poured the vodka from both bottles into his glass and gulped it down.