Among the Ducklings (14 page)

##

Rebecca
could not understand why Isabel was doing this.
 
Isabel had been the only mother she really knew.
 
She was young when her mother died. If it
wasn't for seeing her mother's pictures in the house, Rebecca would never have
remembered what her mother looked like, as her memories of her had faded over
time. Rebecca loved Isabel and she decided that she was not going to sit by and
let her make this mistake and throw her life with Richard away. Maybe now was
the time for Rebecca to be the big sister that Isabel never had, the big sister
who would protect Isabel before Isabel hurt herself. Isabel might not
understand now, but she would thank her later. Rebecca then got up, changed her
clothes, picked up her purse and her car keys.
 
She needed to go out to make a call.
 
She could not call from the house because she didn't want Isabel to hear
her talking to Richard.

##

Richard was
on his way from the store to a house in an exclusive Orlando neighborhood when
one of his cell phones rang. It was the Miami cell phone. In Orlando, the Miami
cell phone was on only when he was alone in his car. Otherwise, it was off, and
in his glove compartment.
 
He slowed the
car down to the shoulder of the road and picked up the phone.

“Richard?”

“Rebecca.
You sound worried. Are you and Isabel OK?” Richard asked.

“I am. But
it's Isabel that I am worried about.”

“What is
it?” Richard asked, in a hurried tone.

“She
invited a man to have dinner with her. I mean with us tomorrow night at the
house.”

“Why?”

“I think
she is dating him.”

“Are you
sure?” Richard asked.

“Well, yes.
I talked to her about it and told her that I disagreed with it,” Rebecca said.

“Who is
he?” Richard asked.

“His name
is Phil. He is one of Tia Marcia's patients.”

Richard was shocked.
 
He didn't expect this.
 
He remembered meeting Phil. During all of his
years with Isabel, he would never have believed something like this could
happen. But again, life is ironic. Sooner or later, he had to pay for what he
had done to Isabel, and he felt that Isabel was slipping away.
 
He loved Isabel and knew that he would never
give her up without a fight.

“I have met
him,” Richard said. “Does Isabel know that you are calling me?”

“No. I
think she is making a mistake and I don't want her to throw her life away. I
know that you love her.”

“I do,”
Richard said.
 
He now knew why Isabel had
been avoiding returning his calls.

“I won't be
able to come back until early next week. But don’t
worry,
I will take care of it.”

“Don't tell
her that I called you,” Rebecca implored. “Isabel would be really upset.”

“Don't
worry.
 
Isabel won't know.
Thanks for telling me about this, Rebecca.
 
Isabel and I are grateful to have you in our lives.”

“I've got
to go now. I don't want her to suspect that I called you.
 
I'm just worried,” Rebecca said.

“Everything
will be fine. Isabel is going through a tough time right now and that Phil guy
is trying to take advantage of her,” Richard said.

“Come back
soon. Don't let everything drag too long, OK?”

“OK, I
promise,” Richard said to Rebecca before hanging up the Miami cell phone.

##

Rebecca's
phone call made Richard think of the saying “What goes around, comes
around.”
 
He didn't mean to hide things
from Isabel, but it was just that he didn't have a choice.
 
He grew up in Orlando, the son of a police
officer and a high school English teacher.
 
While in high school, he was a very popular football player.
 
All of the cheerleaders wanted to date him,
including Kristin, the only daughter of a prominent wealthy condominium
developer.
 
The two became the hottest
item in town, and the day after their high school graduation, they eloped to
Las Vegas, infuriating both families.

“My father
always wished he had a son to pass his construction business on to him,”
Kristin would tell Richard. Kristin was strong willed and would not bend to her
father's wishes.

“Father
wants me to go to the University of Florida in Gainesville to study
engineering. He thinks he can make me forget you. I won't go anywhere. I love
you,” Kristin would tell Richard.

After
their wedding, Kristin's father ultimately gave up trying to keep them
apart.
 
He bought them a house and hired
and taught Richard the construction business.
 
When Richard's parents later decided to move to Arizona due to a job
offer that Richard's father received from another police force, Richard stayed
with Kristin in Orlando, and got his contractor's license. Richard was so busy
overseeing his father-in-law's construction projects that he was almost never
home, causing his marriage to fall apart, several years later.

“We are
like two strangers in the same house,” he had said to Kristin one day.

“You are
not trying hard to make the marriage work,” Kristin had replied. “I still love
you and I want our marriage to work.”

“We don't
have any marriage anymore, Kristin,” Richard had said. A few weeks later, he
moved out of their house, bought a condo for
himself
to stay in and eventually filed for divorce. Soon afterward, Richard opened his
own construction business. However, he couldn't get the big construction
contracts because no one wanted to betray Kristin's father, who was angry at
Richard for leaving the family. It was during his separation that he met
Isabel.
 
He never told Isabel that he was
married because Isabel would have never gone out with him, and to him, it
didn't matter because he would soon be divorced.

Richard
then learned the hard way how difficult and laborious it was to divorce the
daughter of a powerful man.
 
Kristin's
father would hire powerful attorneys and use his connections to ensure that
Richard didn't earn a living, which infuriated Richard, causing Richard to have
his attorney make all kinds of monetary demands against Kristin in response.

When
Richard proposed to Isabel, he was hoping that his divorce would be final in a
couple of weeks.
 
However, a few days
after his engagement, he received a call from Kristin who was crying
uncontrollably.

“What is
it, Kristin?” he asked.

“It's my
parents.
 
They have been shot.”

“By
whom?”

“There was
a robbery at the house.”

“Are they
OK?”

“No. I just
left the hospital. They didn't make it,” Kristin said. Richard dropped
everything and flew immediately to Orlando to help Kristin arrange for the
funerals.
 
He canceled the divorce
proceedings, which would have been unconscionable at a time like that.
 
Kristin's father had left everything to
Kristin in his will. However, most of the money Kristin would receive could
only be disbursed three years after her parents' deaths.
 
In essence, Kristin was a wealthy woman in
waiting.
  
 

If Richard
waited with Kristin, Richard could become a wealthy man as well.
 
It was then that he realized that it would be
a mistake to divorce Kristin. He decided to stay and help Kristin manage the
construction business.
 
It was during
that time that Richard and Kristin started sleeping with each other again.
Kristin out of love for Richard, Richard, on the other hand, felt sorry for
Kristin and wanted to help Kristin overcome her grief. One day, he had just
left Isabel when his phone rang. It was Kristin telling him that she was
pregnant.
 

Now
as Richard looked back, he was not sure what he could have done
differently.
 
In six months, Kristin
would receive her father's inheritance and had promised to give Richard a large
share, which would allow Richard to bolster his construction business, and pay
off his company’s numerous debts.
 
Once
his own business recovered, Richard would no longer be dependent on Kristin's
money and would be able to get a divorce and marry Isabel.
 
However, he was here in Orlando this week
because Kristin was in the hospital having their baby, a girl named Paris.
Richard knew that he would have to eventually come clean with Isabel.
 
He could not do it now, while they were still
engaged. It would be easier for Isabel to forgive him if they were married to
each other.
 
He loved Isabel.
 
He couldn't wait to make her his wife.
 
He couldn't wait to confront Phil.

Chapter
Ten

The
following morning when Phil got up, it was already close to 10:00 am. He went
to the kitchen and found a note on the refrigerator from Jeremy. Jeremy was
going to be out in meetings and would be back to the house in the early
afternoon.
 
Thinking about the evening,
Phil was ecstatic.
 
He couldn't wait to
see Isabel again.

When he
called the Center to cancel his therapy session for the afternoon, he learned
from Marcia that Isabel had done hers in the morning and would not be there in
the afternoon. Last night, he did wonder how Isabel was going to have time to
do her afternoon therapy sessions and get everything ready for dinner.
 
Knowing that Isabel had gone in the morning,
he wished he had done the same instead of missing his therapy session at the
Center altogether. He felt guilty for not doing his exercises and so he spent
the next two hours on the floor of his living room trying to exercise his
ankle. When Phil got to the office, it was already past 1:00 pm.

“Hi boss,”
Myra said as he entered.

“Hi
Myra, anything urgent?”

“Not
really.
 
I sent out the reports that were
due this morning to the attorneys.”

“Thanks,”
Phil said.

“How is
your ankle?”

“It's
getting better.
 
How is your work going
with Stacy?” Phil asked, hoping to learn what Stacy was up to.

“Ok, I
guess,” Myra answered.

“What do
you do for her?”

“Nothing
in particular.
 
I spent most of my time returning calls to
actors and helping her to choose gifts for her friends back in LA.”

“It sounds
like interesting work,” Phil said.

“Yes, it is
and we spent a lot of time talking about you too.”

“Me?” Phil
asked, surprised.

“Yes,” Myra
answered.
 
“When Stacy left, everyone in
the office knew and blamed her because she never came back here anymore and
there were all of these stories in the paper about her.
 
Now that she is here, and knowing what she
went through after the miscarriage, it puts everything in perspective.”

“What
miscarriage?”

“If you
talk to her, don't tell her I told you.
 
She told me not to tell you,” Myra said.

“I promise.
What is it?”

“When she
left,” Myra said, “she was pregnant with your baby.
 
She fell in one of her photo shoots and
miscarried.
 
That’s why she could not
return. She could not face you. She loved you and she said she was depressed
for months.” Phil couldn't believe it. Stacy was carrying his child. He knew
Stacy would not make up a story like that.
 
But he asked, “What happened to the actor she married?”

“Stacy
talked about that too. She met him at one of her therapy sessions for the
depression. She was alone by herself and he was helping her when they got
married.
 
As soon that she got better,
she divorced him because she said she never stopped loving you.
 
Phil felt his legs trembling. He now felt
guilty for his own selfishness.
 
When he
didn't hear from Stacy, and Stacy would not return his calls, he was upset and
hurt and saw Stacy as just another actress who went in and out of relationships
like a person changed clothes.
 
Except he was not a pair of jeans or a blouse.
 
He had feelings that had been discarded.
  
Now that he knew what happened, he regretted
that he hadn't been there for Stacy.
 
Maybe if he had traveled to the photo shoots, she would not have fallen
and he would have had a son or a daughter today.
  
He now felt foolish for avoiding Stacy. Maybe
Stacy's new extravagance was masking a very deep pain. He felt that he owed it
to the son or daughter that they almost had, to talk to Stacy and help her deal
with the pain that she was going through now with the loss.