Work. Perhaps he was banging his secretary, but his real mistress was work.
“I didn’t know I’d be done so soon.” I stood, not liking the feeling I was being interrogated. I took off my jewelry as I didn’t usually wear it unless I was going out. Raising kids was messy work, so I didn’t dress nice or wear jewelry in my everyday life.
“Now I’ll have to stay late. My wife gets annoyed when I work late.”
I hated when he talked to me in third person. “Yes, heaven forbid she would want her husband home to have dinner with her and the kids.” I closed my jewelry box.
“What’s this?”
I looked at him through the reflection of the mirror over my dresser. He was holding the letter from the lawyer. For a moment, I had a feeling of panic, but then I figured there was nothing to hide. Maybe he’d be relieved.
He frowned as he looked toward me. “You want a divorce?”
I turned toward him, noting that he still looked pissed, but not upset or worried as I might have hoped his reaction would be to my consulting with a lawyer. Of course, divorce was out of the question now.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then what’s this?” He waved the letter at me.
“I thought about it—”
“This looks like you’ve done more than think about it. You’ve retained a lawyer.”
“I’m not going through with it.”
He studied me. “So, you don’t love me anymore.”
“I never said that.” That was the tragedy in all this. I still loved him. But we were too broken to fix. I wasn’t even sure he would want us to be fixed.
He didn’t respond.
“Are you relieved or annoyed that I’m not going to follow through,” I asked, genuinely curious.
“I’m wondering what happened to you.”
I laughed derisively. “Me? It’s not just me. It’s us, Brayden.”
“I work my ass off to make you and kids happy, but you’re impossible to please.”
He did work his ass off, but it wasn’t about me. That’s the excuse he told him himself to justify the long hours. No, he worked for him.
“Well, perhaps you’ll get lucky and you won’t have to put up with me anymore,” I said.
“So, you are leaving me?”
I shrugged and, for a moment, I wondered if he’d be happier if the cancer that was growing in my breast killed me as it had my mother.
1 Brayden – Friday – Two Weeks Earlier
I stood at the head of the boardroom table looking over the executives of Burrow Data Tech. In eight years, we had gone from a two-person operation to a full-scale global company. As we’d grown and expanded, other larger tech firms sought to buy the company, but we’d said no to the multi-million dollar offers and built our vision. The company now made the Fortune 500 list. We were a success. Too bad the motivational gurus didn’t mention the sacrifices that had to be made.
I didn’t mind the long hours, but my wife Terra did. She’d been a part of launching the company, but she wasn’t at the table today as we reviewed current financial data. She’d made the choice to stay home when we had children. It was a decision I supported, but it seemed wrong that she wasn’t here to see our profits; another quarter of great growth.
“You’re all an integral part of what makes Burrow Data Tech a success,” I said to the table of men and woman. “We’re larger now than we used to be, but I like to think we’ve been able to maintain a sense of closeness and camaraderie, not just between us, but with those that work to make the company a success.”
Heads nodded at my statement.
“Keep this up through the end of next quarter and you’ll see some nice holiday bonuses.”
“I’ll be able to pay my kids' college,” Stan Gaynor said.
“A semester, anyway,” Janis Tobin said jokingly.
I’d started a college fund for each of my kids the moment I’d learned they were conceived. After I’d grown up with a single mom who struggled to put food on the table, when we had a table, and worked two jobs through college (still ending up with exorbitant student loans), I’d vowed that I would never be financially strapped again. Nor would my family feel the strains of worrying about whether they’d be able to sleep in a bed as opposed to a car or alley.
Work had been my salvation. The business and the financial success of it was my reward. If only my wife, Terra, understood that. She wanted me to be home more and to spend some of the hard-earned money to enjoy life. Sure we had the money, but the economy and financial security were both fickle. I couldn’t sit back on my laurels and expect that the money would always be there.
“I’m going to Vegas,” JT Long said. He was our newest VP of digital marketing. At only twenty-six, he reminded me of me when I was that age and living life to the fullest.
I laughed. “Ah, to be young and single without a mortgage.”
“Someone has to party,” he grinned.
“Take pictures so we can live vicariously through you,” Stan said.
I finished the meeting and then sent them off to their departments hoping they’d share the news of our continued growth and probable bonuses if the trend continued to the rest of the staff.
I checked my watch as I headed back into my office. I decided I’d head home and have dinner with my family for once. Terra deserved to hear the good news.
I powered off my laptop and pulled out my case.
“Bray, you got a minute?”
I looked up to see Kyle Doss, my right-hand man and confident.
“A minute. I was thinking I might actually have dinner with Terra and the kids.”
“Oh, well this can wait until Monday.”
I waved him into my office. “No, I’ve got a minute. What’s up?”
“I wanted to show you the update on the new
