[Ramesh_Rocky]

She stared at me as if she was seeing me for the first time.
“What happened to you, Bill? Jesus Christ, what happened? I never thought I’d hear words like that come out of your mouth again. I figured I’d have to wait years and years before we could even be civil to each other.”
“I saw us from another angle, Deb. You remember that old Jimmy Stewart movie that we loved - ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’? He saw what life would have been like if he hadn’t been around, and I saw what our lives might have been like....if we had been very, very unlucky. I saw just how lucky we were that we’re the people we are. It could have ended up so much worse for both of us.”
“What are you talking about, Bill?”
I told her about Paul and Paula Donnally. When I told her what had happened with Dave Brandon I said, “This can’t ever go out of this room, Deb. I’d probably be in trouble for what I did, but I don’t care about that. I can take care of myself, but it would destroy Dave, and his wife, and their marriage.”
She just gave me an innocent look and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never heard anything.”
I told her everything, except the end of my meeting with Paula Donnally. It made me feel dirty. It didn’t help that I’d jerked off twice since then remembering her touch. I had never checked the number she had left for me. I knew I wasn’t going to call her, ever, but it felt like a viper had sunk its fangs in me and the poison lingered.
“I can’t help believing they loved each other once upon a time. Maybe as much as we did. Now, I heard the expression somewhere about two scorpions trapped in a bottle, and that’s what I think about when I remember them. I’m afraid she’ll kill him or he’ll kill her or they’ll kill each other. They’ve lost each other and everything they ever had, and they’ll never have anything together again.
“I decided I couldn’t let that happen to us. You hurt me, I hurt you, but we’ll get past that. Their story is over and it will never get a second chapter. Our story is over, but we can have a Second Act.”
She gave me a troubled look.
“Bill - I don’t know. God, I am so glad that you are finally talking to me. I miss what we had, but the problems we had, I don’t know if we can...”
I shook my head.
“Not a Second Act for us – together. A Second Act and a second chance to find people we can build new lives with. I want you to find someone you can love and make a life with, someone who’ll be a good and caring stepfather to BJ and Kelly. I don’t know what will happen to me. I don’t know if this thing - with Myra that doesn’t seem like it will ever get a fair chance - has a chance to develop. Maybe it won’t be her, but I hope that there will be somebody out there


that I can build a life with. It won’t be like what we had. Maybe it will never be as good as what we had, but it will give us both a chance to find happiness again. I don’t want to think of you being alone, and I know I don’t want to stay alone.
Now the tears came.
“Why are you doing this, Bill? Could I feel any shittier about the way I treated you? I didn’t think so.”
“Debbie, I know it was never going to work with Doug. Your mother said he was a fling and I know now he was. Apparently, Clint Abbott left you, but there are other decent guys out there. On the Bonne Chance, I met a guy, an insurance guy, and we got to talking. He told me something I haven’t forgotten. He said you’ll never know when you’ll walk into an office or around a corner and you’ll meet someone and you have to be willing to take the chance. As long as we’re alive, there’s a chance of walking around that corner and changing your life. You’re too hot to stay alone.”
This time she got up and walked away from me. She walked behind her desk, head down and then she looked up and stared ten years into the past. She moved her gaze from our younger selves on the Hawaiian cruise and turned back to me. She did something I couldn’t put my finger on that drew my eyes to her fantastic chest. Myra might be bigger, but Debbie was a wonder in her own right.
“That night in the den, if you had made a move, if you had touched me, you would have gotten lucky. Did you know that? I looked at you and realized that no other man I’ve ever known loved me the way you did. You risked your life for me 20 years ago, and you’d give up your soul for me after the way I treated you – with Doug. Why the hell did I ever give up on you?”
I had to take a deep breath.

“That’s the other reason I’m here, Deb. I want to keep you in my life. Being back in the – in our – house for the first time in six months - it all came back to me, my life came back to me. Even after our marriage turned to shit and I wouldn’t recognize it, it was still a good life, because I had you and the kids in it. “When I was lying on the couch that night after you walked out - it was as if

the last six months never happened. It felt like I’d had a bad dream - a terrible dream - but it was all ending and I was going to wake up back with you.

“But... ”

I looked at the woman I’d always known was going to tear my heart out and I felt a sadness so deep, so bone-aching cold that I didn’t know if I could make myself say the words.
“But.  it wasn’t a dream. The last six months were real. They happened. You
took that bastard’s side against me at UNF - you walked away from me. You lay with him....and you fucked him...while I was dying in that shitty little condo. I met Aline, and I fell – at least a little – in love with her. I found out that I wasn’t


really as terrible a lover and as miserable a man in bed as you’d made me think I was for years.”
There was a time when I would have loved, eaten up, the expression on her face, but I didn’t enjoy it now.
“What I felt when I went back to the house that used to be ours, what I felt laying on the couch and remembering our lives - that was the dream. The reality is that I’m learning to live without you. I’m better now than I was three months ago, and in a year, it won’t hurt at all.....or much. A part of me will always love you - but I’m moving on like you told me to.”
She smiled at me through tears running down her face.
“I guess....we always get what we deserve. Don’t we.  ?”
I walked over to her desk and picked up the manila envelope I’d placed on it, opened the clasp and handed it to her.

“What... ?”

“Just give it a quick glance, before I go.”

She pulled the paperwork out and wiped her face, then sat behind the desk.

She started reading, looking up again and again as she read further.

“Oh, God, don’t tell me that there’s something really wrong? What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’m not dying and I don’t know anything about the Cartel’s plans but, what’s happened, what could happen, convinced me to do this. I made a fair amount of money by selling a few stories to television when I was up in New York and for some articles. I used the money to buy an annuity that should run for the next 10 to 20 years. More than long enough.”
“A million dollar life insurance policy?”
“You can buy a million dollar term life insurance policy with no riders if you’re willing to pay enough, and I had enough to pay the premiums for 15 or 20 years and after that you and the kids wouldn’t need it. They’ll be grown and I’m sure you’ll be remarried and have a wealthy husband. However, in the meantime, you and they won’t have any money worries.”
She shook her head. “Bill. ”
‘I’m not a big spender, Deb. What do I need the extra money for? I sold the rights and the interviews to provide for you and the kids. I’ll be fine and I won’t be worrying about you, or them.”
“But. how can you-?”