Prologue

Kittery Point, Maine
August, 2004


She got up early to clear her head. Thoughts running through her head kept her from sleeping well almost every night since she arrived at the house at Kittery Point.

Dressing quickly, she looked forward to her morning walks along the beach. She liked the solitude the crisp late summer mornings afforded her. Since she would be at the house by herself for a few days before her husband arrived from the city, she had the time to think about the events that led up to this point in time.

She walked out onto the beach and skirted the water's edge. The gulls screamed overhead as they searched for tasty morsels in the waters below. They paid the solitary figure on the shore no mind.

Pulling her light sweater closer around her body, Coley walked down the beach to the small café she and her husband discovered shortly after they purchased the house on the beach. The shop served the best gourmet coffee she'd ever tasted, and the bear claws were to die for. She hadn't had any that good since her teenage years in Orange County, California. At least the café's owner knew what a bear claw was. Maybe they were from California, too. She never thought to ask.

"You're here early today," said the woman behind the counter as she got Coley's order. "Can't sleep?"

"Nah," Coley said. "Just haven't settled into a definite sleep pattern here. You'd think I would have with the ocean outside my door every night."

"How's hubby?" the woman asked. "He going to join you here?"

"He's doing well, thanks," Coley said. "He'll be here at the end of the week. Had some business at home that couldn't wait."

"Yes, I know how that is," the woman said.

Coley took her coffee and her bear claw and sat at a table outside, staring off at the ocean. The thought about how her life was now, compared to what it was like only three short years ago. If anyone had told her that her life would change this much, she wouldn't have believed it.

And, at times, she still didn't believe it.



After an hour, she returned to the house. It was so quiet, save for the sound of the ocean outside, one could hear the water dripping in the sink.

When she turned on the light in the living room, she disturbed the slumber of the big tomcat that apparently came with the house. He slept on the hearth, and now gave a big yawn. Coley had grown fond of him, but had yet to give him a name. She just called him Mistah Cat.

She sat down on the couch and Mistah Cat jumped up on her lap and laid down. Coley petted him and he purred contentedly. He reminded her of the cat she had when her kids were young, and how sad she was when he had to have the 16 year old cat put down last year.

"Sorry," she told the cat when she got up. She went into the kitchen and stared out the window at the beach beyond. So many changes, she thought, and I can't believe that it's all happened so fast. I can't remember the last time I was this happy.

Beats where she was four years before…





Finally, he was getting the final details worked out for his transfer to his new state of residence. It'd been a long time since he looked forward to moving to a new place. He'd lived in Massachusetts his entire life, and going to a new state was a little daunting, but it was still close enough to everything he knew to be a good thing.

And, the problem that was his former live in love was in his past at last. She'd pulled some dirty tricks on him in the last year, but not even she could dampen his future with his new love. Nice try, sweetie, he thought with some disdain, but your little plot backfired on you. He hoped that she and her child could somehow be happy, but he couldn't help but wonder what kind of mother she would be. Any woman who used a child to get revenge was the lowest kind of person. He truly felt sorry for the 16 month old boy. His mother would never be happy with anything he did, simply because his father wasn't the man she hoped he was.

He looked to the immediate future, and liked what he saw. Recently married to a kind, caring, and patient woman, he wondered why it took him so long to see what was in front of him the whole time.

She was waiting for him at their new house on the beach. She loved the beach, and he loved her. He'd do anything to make her happy, because she deserved to be happy after all she'd been through in the last few years.

He walked out to his car, and with a final glance at the home he'd lived in for close to twenty years, he drove off to his new life with the woman he loved.





He sat in his hospital room at Lawrence General and stared out the window. He couldn't believe that he'd had a heart attack. He thought he was invincible to the ravages of advancing age.

He thought about the woman he had loved, now married to another man. How he had disappointed her again and again, and for what? To satisfy his ego. Yeah. And look where it got him.

He knew that she saw through his charade long before he'd admitted it to himself. Again with my ego, he thought bitterly. I drove her away because I couldn't admit that I wasn't the man I thought I was.

His thoughts were interrupted yet again by a nurse looking to take his vital stats. She made small talk as she checked his heart monitor, took his blood pressure, and made sure he took his medication. He, as usual, wasn't listening.

And that was his whole problem. He wasn't listening, even when the signs were as loud as a train whistle in a tornado. He wasn't listening when his lost lady love told him all the reasons she didn't love him anymore, and he wasn't listening when his body told him to take care of himself or he'd end up in the hospital or in a box in the ground.

I hope you're happy, wherever you are, he thought. You deserved better and I wasn't it.

Great, he thought, now I admit I wasn't right for her. Why couldn't I just do that a year ago when she told me we were over?

Lost chances, lost opportunities, lost youth. He knew he had to concentrate on getting out of this damned hospital and getting healthy, or the next trip may be to the cemetery in a fancy box.

"Gotta get my affairs in order," he said aloud to no one, as the nurse had long since left the room.

Alone again. He had one chance to be happy, and he blew it. And it was all his own damned fault.




Mistah Cat was sunning himself on the windowsill. Coley busied herself in the kitchen preparing yet another dinner for one. Her husband wasn't expected for a couple more days, so it would be just her and the cat.

"It's like this, Mistah Cat," Coley began, as if the big, long-haired cat was actually listening, "All this began with what I thought was an innocent dinner date with a friend…"