Laura's Big Win (3 page)

Ryan and Mary returned to their
beautiful house, with a full time nurse, and a lot of prayers. Mary
often sat up in the recliner when she had the strength, watching
the beauty of the wildlife around the house, and she would not let
Ryan hang around but made him continue functioning. Even joking
about it, she chided him that he might even have to learn how to
run the washing machine after all, something he actually could do,
but avoided when at all possible. Thoughts of children were gone.
And then one evening, while Ryan held her hand and watched her as
she slept, Mary’s spirit left, and with it a sizeable piece of
everything he had come to care about.

Ryan awoke with a start. His mind told
him he had just heard Mary talking to him, saying “I have to go
now, my time here is over. Remember that I will always love you.
Please don’t live your life alone; you’re a good man, the best, and
somewhere there is a good woman who needs you very badly. Do this
for me, my love. Goodbye.” For a long time he would be unsure if
what he thought he heard was real or not, but he did know Mary was
gone and he was in severe pain. She would be laid to rest three
days later after a procession of mourners had filed by and stayed
near for hours, maybe not so many in numbers, but a multitude in
the outpouring of emotional loss. One of the things they had
discovered in building the house was a small private cemetery on
the grounds in an adjacent clearing; there Mary would rest in the
sunlight, with an American Beauty rose at the headstone, for she
truly was that. For his part, Ryan kept himself contained as was
his nature, but he moved back into the apartment and ordered the
house closed with no one to go there; the hedge was allowed to grow
until it all but obscured the house from his sight. Work became his
refuge, and as the staff grew at Windmere, he traveled more and
more, trying to escape the memory.

Chapter 3 – Laura, In The
Beginning

Laura Scott rather liked numbers and
the way they seemed to explain things and made them work, even in
grade school. She was less interested in pure math than in story
problems, which pretty well explained her later interest in
business accounting and in information systems. Although she dated
some in high school, she did not have the outgoing personality type
of two-years-younger sister, Nancy; Laura tended to look a little
farther down the road than Saturday night at the movies or a house
party. College was a must for her long range plans. Although she
did not rule out husband and family, it was more of a mirage in the
distance with little substance and given little thought.

After two years at the local junior
college, Laura transferred to State as a Junior, and looked forward
to graduation in two years. Her summers were spent in a variety of
odd jobs, everything from a stint as a cook in a sandwich shop to a
job weighing trucks at a concrete batch plant. She had fond
memories of the batch plant job, and even fonder memories of the
revenue it produced. The plant was involved in a continuous pour
for nighttime highway construction work, and she frequently worked
the twelve hour overnight shift; the shift differential plus
overtime pay made for a really nice paycheck every week and she was
pretty well set financially for the fall session to start. Then too
there was the driver banter on the radios, although they were very
careful about their language in an effort to impress this beautiful
young woman at the scale house window. Laura wasn’t interested in
them but was always friendly and polite; most were married with
children anyway, but she was a bright spot in their world otherwise
filled with screaming engines, diesel exhaust, and cement dust. She
would look back in a few years and marvel at the simplicity of it
all.

Her Senior year was just as demanding
time wise as the other years, but she was getting better at
budgeting her time, and now and then found time for recreation. On
a late September night after a varsity football game, she found
herself in a large group of partiers, including some MBA candidates
from the grad school. She remembered that sometime during the night
she was introduced to Richard Nessing, a tall, handsome MBA
candidate several years her senior. She remembered being impressed
with his directness, and how he seemed to know everyone and always
be on top of every situation. And she remembered him walking her
home afterwards, collecting one small kiss for the evening, and a
promise he would call. Call he did and called again, until she
promised to go out with him the next weekend. After that first real
date, it just somehow seemed automatic that they would be together
and she didn’t think much more about it. Richard was not pressing
her for anything she was unwilling to do, but she found her
willingness horizons stretching further by the day. Even at that,
she often found he seemed a little reluctant to engage in any heavy
romantic activity with her, probably, she thought, because he
respects me and knows my boundaries. She didn’t look down at or
condemn her sisters who were sleeping with someone; that was their
business, accidents and all, but neither did she want to become one
of them. That didn’t seem likely with Richard, for which she was
grateful. Still, as things between them developed, she sensed that
her interest in him ran deeper than his in her; perhaps, she
thought, it was because his time was so limited. He had left a
promising career in underwriting commercial/industrial insurance to
come back to school, and he still kept a hand in with the business
when he could. He maintained a high profile on campus, and a grade
point average nearly as high as hers. One brighter spot was that he
actively encouraged her to excel in her studies, even encouraging
her to take more difficult classes although it would limit their
time together; he said there was togetherness time later, that her
education had to come first. What Laura would learn later was why
he really wanted her very well educated. Then there was that other
little issue that nagged at her a tiny bit; Richard liked to
gamble, on almost anything. That was the down side. The up side was
that he was good at it and he won a lot more than he lost. He even
said it was just an extension of the insurance business, “You
know,” he said, “Win some, lose some; I just don’t plan to lose in
the insurance business.”

And so, while it was not really visible
on her radar screen, it was no big surprise when he asked her to
marry him after graduation. They agreed she could initiate her own
career in accounting and information systems wherever they were
located, and that she could work out of their home on a limited
basis after the children were born. It was a pleasant if not
particularly memorable wedding day, and Laura looked forward to
discovering that night what some of the other girls had been
talking about. That too was not particularly memorable. If
anything, Richard seemed almost reluctant to initiate any activity
and once active seemed anxious to get it over with, not at all what
she had expected. Or maybe, she thought, this just took practice
and things would get better with time. Maybe men really weren’t
preoccupied with sex, or that driven, or maybe she needed to learn
some things or do some things differently. Maybe that really was
all there was to it. Maybe. But the thought nagged her that
something was missing, and she felt neither fulfilled, nor
satisfied, with the way things had gone. Still, she was now a
married woman, and any thought of seeking answers elsewhere was out
of the question. Richard was it, and she would have to deal with
the reality, like it or not. She had accepted his proposal without
giving it the thought she would have applied to an accounting
problem; she had to live with the consequences.

Within a week they were relocated to
where his previous position had been, and Richard was back at work
full time, leaving Laura pretty much to her own devices. She did
find a job after a little looking around, although it was a temp
job that moved her around as different companies called for
assistance. A few months of that, and one company liked her
production well enough to bring her on full time. Between that, and
her return to night school to just sort of keep up with the
evolving technology, her days were filled with activity. The nights
remained pretty much unchanged, except that Richard was now back
out on the road some overnights, and even when he could, he didn’t
make any effort to drive the extra hour to come home. By the end of
the first year, he decided to split from his company and while he
would rep for them, he would be on his own and could drive his
business as he saw fit. About the same time, he encouraged Laura to
stop any birth control she may have been using, although he seemed
not to know or care if she had been doing so, and said they should
have a child in their home now, that it was time. And, he said they
needed to find a three bedroom house in a nice suburb, one that he
could bring clients to for dinner now and then. She realized this
was all part of a plan to grow his business, and since it was also
related to her well being and security, supported it
fully.

The next few months found her newly
pregnant, working full time, and house hunting. Richard didn’t seem
to have any interest in houses at all until she had narrowed the
field to three or four she thought would do nicely and were within
their means. He did devote an entire Saturday, but only because all
of his potential clients were closed for the weekend. They were
soon comfortably settled like thousands of other couples and Laura
was developing some new friends. They seemed to be happy enough,
and she often longed to just talk about all the little things that
seemed to be missing in her life, but she just couldn’t bring
herself to initiate the conversation. On the other hand, she sensed
that maybe things were mostly her fault, and she admitted to
herself that maybe she didn’t want to know that either. Things
weren’t all that bad, really, and Richard was working hard at
building his practice. And he did make it home in time when Jackson
“Jack” Nessing made his appearance in the world, right on schedule.
The tiniest thought occurred to Laura as she and her new son were
getting better acquainted: “I wonder what would have happened if
the doctor had been off time on this delivery. Would Richard have
been here?” Not that it mattered a great deal. Her sister had flown
in for the delivery since she was one child ahead already and
therefore “experienced” and all that. Nancy went into the birthing
room with Laura since Richard had declined the offer to attend. Two
days later Laura and Jack went home and started a new chapter in
her life.

For three months Richard didn’t come
near her in the bedroom, although they shared a bed. He worked late
and rose early, and the baby was hers to tend to at night. Then
almost as if some specific goal had been reached, he announced that
they should have a second child soon because things would be easier
for her with children closer in age. His logic seemed sound to her,
although he had more announced it to her than discussed it with
her. Anyway, it had its effect. And with a three month old on her
hip, she began expanding with Amanda. The only real difference with
this pregnancy was that Richard seemed to be very anxious about the
sex of the baby, even to the point of asking her to get an
ultrasound as soon as it was feasible. Not that he went with her,
of course; he was far too busy for that. She even toyed with the
idea of not telling him for a while that she had gone, but he’d see
the bill anyway so she told him they would be welcoming a girl this
time. That seemed to relieve whatever was on his mind, even to the
point of his insisting they go out to dinner that night, something
not usually permitted in his budget process. That was the other
thing that seemed strange to her, Richard claiming they would have
to be on a strict budget, but at the same time wanting the expense
of another child; it didn’t make sense, but he was being successful
and she realized maybe she didn’t understand everything that he had
to deal with. It was also a little strange that she maintained all
of his company books, handled the invoicing, recorded all the
insured property and things like that, but never saw any of the
money. He insisted on direct deposit, which most companies were
happy to do, and he held the check book at all times. There was no
real issue since any time she had a bill that needed paid, she
simply gave it to him and it was paid, and he did provide some cash
to her for the smaller expenses. Most of what she needed was
handled on a debit card, and it simply didn’t occur to her to go to
the card issuing bank and ask for a deposit record. It all seemed
to be working. And there was the trickle of income from her part
time activities she continued to find a little time to conduct for
a few clients; Richard never asked about that at all, and when she
mentioned it, he seemed to dismiss it as unimportant to their
life.

Amanda was born nine months to the day,
if Laura had been accurate at all, but Richard had to be out of
town and Laura’s sister again stood in for him. The birth went
well, and in the typical two days later, Laura and Amanda went home
to continue their new relationship, and for Jack to meet his new
sister. Richard managed to arrive home three days later, apologetic
to the maximum as usual but with no real meaning in his voice. He
could voice all the usual platitudes and make things sound good,
just as when they were still dating, but Laura slowly came to
realize it was his salesman’s facade she was seeingeHe. He was
delivering a pitch to his wife and kids; it just seemed to her that
there was no need for him to do that, unless there was something
she was not able to see.