The screen door squeaked when Mia pushed it open. Then, with a glass of Merlot in hand, she moved from her tiny deck to her favorite place in the world, her little garden.
Every plant and seedling had been lovingly nurtured by her. Meticulous rows of tubular onions and tomatoes on vines were planted adjacent to each other, along with a few other plants and herbs that she used for cooking. Her garden also had a lone oak tree, and a substantial part of it spread out of her garden; perks of having an apartment on the ground floor. Her apartment may be small, but she loved it.
She sipped the wine before kicking off her shoe and trailed her toe in the mud. Nothing in the world calmed her more than this little slice of heaven.
No one could disturb her here—not a husband gone AWOL, not mountains of student debt or her familial responsibilities.
Okay, one thing could.
"Come on! I'm starving! Can you please hang out in your garden later?" Violet, with her mop of curly, red hair, poked her head out from the screen door.
She gave her fiery best friend a wry grin and followed her inside. Since college, they had been tight, sharing this very same apartment, but Violet recently moved out to live on the other side of the town with her architect boyfriend. So that room was vacant now, and Mia still hadn't decided whether she should lease it out or turn it into a study slash guest room.
The girls didn't hang out as often as they used to but still were close. Violet was the one who pushed her to meet Damian. Her exact words were, 'Grab the bull by its proverbial horns, and stop being so passive, dammit!'.
At dinner, Mia watched in amusement as a voraciously hungry Violet dug into her meal of buttermilk biscuits and chicken marsala. After eating some of it, she pushed away her own plate, but Violet was still sopping the sauce with her biscuits. Mia picked up her wine, not caring that it was her third glass. She was enjoying the pleasant buzz it afforded after the meeting with her husband.
"Oh man, your food!" Violet messily licked the sauce off her fingers. "Had I been a man, I would've married you."
"Poor Steve would've been so heartbroken." Steve was Violet's boyfriend, they had been dating since college. Her friend acknowledged with a wry grin as she got up to place her plate in the sink and wiped her hands on the washcloth before turning towards her.
"So, speaking of Steve, I believe I have some news." Violet's tone dipped low. "Our first date's anniversary is coming up, and, based on Steve's secretive behavior, I think he's going to, well...," she danced a little jig, "pop the question!"
The kitchen exploded with loud squeals from both of them.
"That's so wonderful! I'm so happy for you! You're my favorite person, and I love you!"
"Right back at you, girl!" They hugged each other, raised the wine glasses, and sipped.
"So," Mia leaned in, feeling exuberant and carefree. Violet was surely going to be happy for her as well. "I've news for you, too. Which means we both have two good news today! Or should it be too good news?"
Violet laughed. "Professor, you're wasted!"
"Probably," she giggled. "Well, I deserve a celebratory drink. I did it today, Violet! I finally met with Damian!"
Stunned silence met her declaration, which was broken by Mia's loud hiccup.
Yep, she was drunk.
"Oh my God! That's great! You did it? You met him? In his office?"
When Mia nodded, Violet let out a low whistle. "Wow, I'm proud of you! Oh my God! Finally!"
"Ye-ep." another hiccup.
"So, tell me, how does he look? Balding? Fat?" Violet made hand gestures with her question, and they burst into peals of laughter. Life wasn't so sucky anymore. In fact, she thought, the whole marriage thing was quite funny, actually.
At twenty-one, she got married and hadn't seen her husband for three years. Hi-la-ri-ous!
"Oh no, he's quite handsome." She had been agonizing over the meeting for a couple of weeks, and now that it was finally over, she felt relieved. She removed her eyeglasses and placed them on the dining table. Feeling battle-weary, she rubbed two fingers on her eyes and set her arm on the table, laying her head on it. The face of a teenage Damian, laughing and watching her with mischief on his face, swam into her vision as she closed her eyes.
She had been so crazy about him a lifetime ago.
She frowned as the face of an older Damian, furious, driven, and unsmiling, took over the vision from her past fantasies. He had the same features, the same aristocratic nose, the same tawny golden eyes, but something had changed.
"Ahh, well," Violet started putting a halt to her wool gathering. "So? How was it?"
"Oh, not bad at all. I asked him for a divorce." The side effects from the meeting and the warmth from the wine started kicking in. The past came crashing down on her, and she felt lost and alone again. Tears sprang into her eyes, taking her by surprise. Her eyes were still squeezed shut, but two fat tears escaped out of the corner of her eyes.
Unfortunately, Violet noticed them. "Shit! Are you crying?"
She gave an exaggerated sigh, not able to voice her thoughts.
"Aww, come on! You don't need to waste any of your tears on the douchebag who married you and then left you hanging for almost three years! He doesn't deserve your tears."
"Yes, of course. I'm not crying." She hurriedly wiped her eyes and put on her glasses as her friend's concerned face swam into focus. Violet gave her a disbelieving snort.
"Well, you better hope that I never meet him in person." Violet twisted the washcloth in her hand for dramatic effect.
Mia chuckled at her friend's sass. "Well, I don't think he wants to hash this out any longer than I do."
Violet snorted again and refilled her wine glass. She only murmured thanks. "Okay. So, what exactly happened?"
Mia took a deep breath to control her emotions and answered in a small voice, "Well, not much. I gave him my contact details and asked him to draw up the divorce papers."
Violet's brow creased. "Did he... uh, apologize for leaving you hanging? What the hell was he doing in South Africa?"
"N-No. He said he was about to call me. He didn't say when. He said we should talk over dinner, but I turned him down."
Violet was looking at her slack-jawed, and then she burst into laughter. "Oh, I wish I'd been there to see his face!"
She returned a weak smile. Violet wanted her to hate him, but her conscience wouldn't allow it. "He's not so bad. He married me for the sake of my family; he didn't have to, but he still did it as a favor to us. There was nothing in it for him."
"And was he still doing you a favor when he left for South Africa without a word?"
She kept silent, conceding to Violet's point. Her friend pressed on, "So, you end up getting married to this guy, who, believe it or not, is your sister's ex, and he leaves you without a goodbye for almost three years! Also, he doesn't even call you when he's back," Violet scoffed in disbelief. "And you still don't hate him?"
She put her elbows on the table to rest her pounding head. This wasn't how her life was supposed to pan out. But, the shock of seeing him after so long, his callousness and devil-may-care attitude, was slowly seeping into her, replacing the glow from the alcohol.
"I don't know him enough to hate him," she said in a weak whisper. "He was my sister Sharon's friend. I mean, we hung out with each other as kids, but we weren't really in touch before we got married. So, how can I hate him for leaving me when he didn't make any promises to stay with me?" She dare not add to her mortification by confessing about her stupid childhood crush on him. That laughing, carefree boy seemed to have long gone.
Her friend caught on that she was hiding something and pressed her lips together in disapproval, but said nothing.
***
Damian drove to his penthouse apartment in downtown Dallas. Today had been a long day, and it was good for his business. He hoped to justify his uncle's faith in him. Uncle Henry and Aunt Maria were the ones who helped him get back on his feet. They had stood by him, rock-solid when he needed the support most. He looked up to them and cared for them. They meant more to him than his own parents.
Not that his real parents cared. He would rather eat nails than speak to them again. His father disowned him right after his marriage, and he hadn't spoken to his mom after the wedding either, ignoring her calls and messages.
Childish maybe, but he needed space and time.
Still, he doubted his mother would leave him in peace once she got wind of the fact that he was back in Texas. She would know soon enough. And he was not looking forward to that encounter.
As he let himself into his home, the first thought that came to his mind was about Mia. He wondered whether she would approve of this place? His living space was utilitarian, a living room with an attached balcony and a study on the lower floor. The upper floor had a couple of bedrooms with a shared balcony. He had freshened up the living area with some paintings.
Not much, he supposed, but not too shabby, considering he hadn't spent much time on it. He hadn't been back for a month yet, and he was insanely busy at work.
Seeing her today had brought back a lot of memories, many of which he would rather forget.
Not that he regretted the decisions he made. He didn't care that his father had disowned him for his act of rebellion. But it brought back the uncomfortable questions and waves of guilt.
Will the guilt ever leave him?
He shifted focus to Mia.
His wife.
The words felt strange to him. If circumstances had been different, he wouldn't ever have gotten married at twenty-six and didn't think he would have run into Mia ever again.
Mia wasn't like any of the girls he had dated before. She was beautiful, her face was open, totally guileless, and her sharp gray eyes with the librarian glasses were certainly appealing. Her figure was pleasing. She had lovely curves, which he noticed much sooner in a woman. But, she seemed innocent, or it could just be that his conscience was guilty.
She had been a victim of fate but still agreed to marry him without fuss and put up with his high-handedness for far too long. A young girl like her, so focused on her studies, should have run away from the idea of marriage. But she had been calm and composed, both things that he lacked majorly.
Had he even talked to her after they were married? He didn't think so. After all, he was overwhelmed by shock and guilt. After handing over the signed papers to her father, he high-tailed to Joburg like a whipped puppy. He knew that was the only place he would find some peace, though it had taken a long time coming.
Damian shared his contact details with Mr. West when he left, but hadn't bothered to call Mia with a simple 'How are you?'. Not on birthdays, Christmas, or the two fake anniversaries of their farcical marriage.
It was Mia who called him up a few months after their marriage and tried to make small talk.
Damian supposed he shouldn't have come across as a douchebag and cut the poor girl some slack. But he'd been a dick, gave vague non-committal responses till she had stopped calling. Pain and guilt had all but blinded him, and he turned into a selfish asshole to everyone around him.
More than one doctor had diagnosed him with depression, and he flipped them off, drowning his sorrows in whiskey.
Now that he was sober, he stayed away from alcohol and didn't want to go back to that hell-hole at any cost.
Guilt and melancholy harbored indecision, and he had taken his own sweet time to come to terms with his hasty marriage. He hadn't planned to be away for so long, though he supposed they both knew it would be a temporary arrangement.
So why...? he thought as he rubbed a hand across his scratchy, stubbled mouth, was he so shocked when she insisted on a divorce?
He was stupidly staring at the door for a full minute after Mia left, too shocked to believe she did not want to even talk to him.
Had he lost his golden touch with the ladies? He'd certainly been out of practice for far too long.
Acting so flippant around her had been a dick move, but he felt so inadequate around her, that false bravado sprung up from nowhere.
He stared at himself in the mirror above his fireplace. His eyes were ringed with black circles from working overtime and poor sleep. His beard was uneven, fading to gray in several places. He looked old and tired, more like sixty-nine than twenty-nine.
It was time to clean up his act, starting with a clean shave and a neat haircut. Next, he would mend fences with Mia, asking her for one chance to redeem himself in her eyes. Even if they divorced, he didn't want her to hate him.
He really did care for Mia. Even if he wasn'tprepared to answer her questions.