He was an average, hardworking, middle class man. He had a nine to five desk job where he had been religiously going every day for the past twenty eight years. His wife, Becky also worked in an office as a receptionist. He always considered himself a lucky man who married his high school girlfriend at twenty one and fathered three loving children with her. His thirty years old daughter was settled in a cozy marriage with two kids. His grandchildren were the highlight of his life. His twenty eight years old son lived in another State, and was currently enjoying the temporary status of bachelorhood after a recent breakup.
The youngest son, twenty six was doing really well at the law firm where he started work a year ago and seemed to be on the right track with talks of marriage on the horizon with the girl he had been living in for the past three years.
He and Becky had worked hard to lay the foundations of this neat family. Becky had been his life partner in every sense of the word. Eight years ago their life underwent a drastic change when their youngest son left home for college and they both experienced the empty nest phase of life. Initially, the house seemed haunted without all that teenage music and blaring television noise but soon he and Becky got accustomed to the quiet and routine. He actually looked forward to a relaxed evening after work each day. Becky and he were so used to each other that they need not interfere in each other's ways. They knew each other like the back of one's hand. Or so he thought!
He looked once again at the note in his trembling hands and tried to make sense of it.
He had left home this morning as usual while Becky was still getting ready. Her office started half an hour later than his and his commute was fifteen minutes longer than hers. This forty five minutes difference meant that they never got to see much of each other in the mornings during week days. In the evenings, she always returned home about an hour or so after him, so he was not surprised when he did not find her at home, but when he did not hear from her for almost two hours, he decided to call her cell phone. He was about to make the phone call when he noticed the note on the kitchen table. He had probably not paid attention to it since he had barely glanced around in the kitchen while gulping down the burger he had grabbed from the deli on the way home.
He suspected that she must have scribbled that she was going out for dinner with her friends when he opened the note. Nothing had prepared him for what was written on that piece of paper! Becky had written that she cared for him deeply but had discovered herself in the recent past. She wrote that she had met someone and found her true love. She was leaving him to spend the rest of her life, freely and according to her heart's desires, with her love.
He read one more time. He had no idea what he was going to do or how was he going to explain it all to his kids!
How in the world could he tell them and the world that his fifty two years old wife of past thirty one years, mother of his children and grandmother of two grand kids had left him, not for a man, but for a woman!
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