A Special Relationship

ONE

Robert Kincaid drove onto the horseshoe driveway of his big, brick, colonial-style home expecting to find some much needed peace and quiet after a grueling day of work.
 
What he found, instead, was an unfamiliar SUV parked at his front door, and as he entered his home, a handsome set of all too familiar
luggage
parked in his foyer.
 
His wife Gloria and daughter Ashley were bounding down the spiral staircase as soon as he stepped into the house, their long, blonde hair golden and healthy. And as an added bonus, a family friend from Maryland, Dr. Paul Hathaway, another blonde, came out of the kitchen chomping on a sandwich.

Robert was senior vice president of the Dyson Corporation, one of the largest tech firms in Florida, and it was his job to expect the unexpected.
 
But when his wife stood in that foyer and announced her intentions to divorce him, and the family friend placed his arm around her as if she was
his
, no job in this world could have prepared him for this.

 
He stared at Gloria, at that regally beautiful woman who stole his heart nineteen years ago and still held it captive, and no manner of words could have expressed his downright shock.
 

 
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said bitterly as she put on her pantsuit jacket, her perfectly proportioned frame still able to get her husband’s attention.
 
“It’s been a long time coming, Robert, I don’t know why you’re acting so surprised.
 
But of course how would you know what was coming, right?
 
You’re always working, always too busy to pay any attention to something as trivial as your family.
 
You’re Mister Vice President after all.
 
You’re Mister Fix It, Mister Everything for Dyson.”
 
She said this and then calmed herself, to avoid an emotional outburst.
 

 
“What’s remarkable to me,” she continued, this time in a measured voice, “is that you can fix problems all around the world, from Singapore to Madrid, but none in your own home.”
 
Then she frowned, as if the entire matter was too pointless to even discuss.
 
She looked at Paul.
 
“Let’s just go,” she said to him.

 
“Go?” Robert finally said, astonished.
 
“What are you talking about, Gloria?
 
Where do you think you’re going?”
 
His stern face was now unable to conceal his charring dismay.
 
This was his wife, the woman he’d known and loved for all those years, and she was behaving as if she hardly knew him.
 
Or owed him any kind of explanation.
 
“Gloria!”