Unsuitable Obsession - Part One (32 page)

“How do you spell that?”

Eduardo rolled his eyes, “You’re kidding right?
S-A-N-C-H-E-Z,” he said sarcastically gazing down at her name tag
that shouted the last name “RODRIGUEZ”.

“Um-yes, she’s...oh my...just a second, I’ll have a
nurse escort you, mister...”

“Sanchez,” Eduardo stated, not looking directly at
her.

The Assistant continued to gape at him. “It’ll just
be a second Mr. Sanchez; a nurse will be here shortly to take you
to see your wife.”

Eduardo now eyed the medical Assistant who was still
staring at him. He doesn’t bother to correct her. Felt weak within
for not making Amber his wife years ago.

Thirty minutes later, a nurse led Eduardo to another
section of the hospice. A silent quarter. You could hear a pin drop
in this wing it was so quite. The nurse opened up the door to a
three-part room partitioned off by two thin curtains. She strode
over to the last section and pointed to Amber’s expired body.

Eduardo choked back tears.
Good God!
She
looked asleep, but she wasn’t.
Wherever
she was he wanted to
be with her. “I want her out of here today, do you hear me?”
Eduardo demanded, caressing Amber’s unresponsive hand.

The nurse stepped back, “Yes sir, I’ll inform the
administrator.”

“Do it now,” he ordered. He couldn’t take his eyes
off Amber. He waited until the nurse was out of his peripheral view
when he let the tears advance. “Oh...God,” he sobbed, wrapping his
arms around Amber’s body, crying on her chest. He rubbed her body
down; smoothed out the hospital sheet that barely covered her waist
and chest. “Amber, please don’t leave me…I love you... oh
God...please come back, I’m so sorry...I get it now, I should have
agreed to leave her…I’ll take care of you Amber, I promise,
please...please honey wake up, please wake up.”

While Eduardo continued to shell out emotion atop
Amber’s insensate person, he recalled the past several weeks. He
finally told his wife. Sat her down and disclosed the whole affair.
He was back to his ole self that day, the detached and heartless
Eduardo Sanchez, trying to let down another clinging female with
his not so subtle lack of sympathy. ..

“…How could you do this to me?”

Yes, how could he? How could he not? It wasn’t
really a temptation, how could he explain it? With Amber he found
his soul mate, the love of his life. With Leticia he felt like her
roommate, a prisoner contracted to a piece of paper and a stupid
band of metal.

“I’ve been the ideal wife for you,” Leticia related
heartbroken. “You don’t touch me for several months at a time and
I’m OK with it.”

“Haven’t you ever wondered why?”

Leticia stood defeated. “We look similar except for
my...except for my,” she expressed looking down at her upper body,
“I’ll get breast implants if that’s what you like.”

Eduardo could not believe the insensitivity in his
own voice, but he honestly never loved this woman. “If you think
that I’m that superficial just proves you never really knew
me.”

“And I suppose she knows you more than I?” Leticia
screamed back at him. “When I’m the one who’s cooked and cleaned
your house, washed your clothes and taken care of your child all
these years?”

“It’s over Leticia; listen to you, you sound like
you could have been my maid.”

“That’s what a wife does for her husband when she
loves him!”

“Face it,” he heartlessly testified, “You were just
a substitute and a device to further my career. You were a buffer
with my family and a reason to get closer to her.”

“...But you love me.”

“I’ve never loved you. We got pregnant. I asked you
to get an abortion, but you cried that I compromised you and forced
me into a marriage I never wanted in the first place!”

“You never wanted to get married?”

“No. What the hell ever made you think that I was
the marrying type? I loved being single! I loved playing the field
and meeting new women.”

“But you gave in.”

“My heart always belonged somewhere else, Leticia.
You were just a replacement.”

“But when we make love,” Leticia rationalized, “The
tenderness that I feel from you, that can’t possibly be
fabricated.”

Eduardo scratched his head, “Gee, another item I’m
good at, simulating compassion.”

“You heartless bastard!” Leticia shrieked.

“That’s right, I am a bastard and a conceited one,
and spoiled rotten. I know what I want, and what I want is not
you.”

Leticia fell to the ground weeping, her last chance
to win him back. “I was going to tell you next week, but you’d
better know now—we’re having another baby.”

Eduardo felt a lump in his throat. “You’re
not
pregnant.”

“And I’ll tell your mother,” Leticia voiced,
noticing her husband’s body questioning. “She’ll make sure you
don’t leave while I’m expecting.”

Knowing women as well as he did, there was something
about Leticia’s posture that wasn’t quite right. She was either
telling the truth or she was an incredible liar. “You’re not
pregnant Leticia,” Eduardo continued to deny. “How could you be? I
haven’t touched you in several months, and even then, we don’t have
sex unless I wear—”

“I took a sewing needle to all your condoms,”
Leticia disproved. “It was only a matter of time...I am Eddie…and
since I don’t sleep around, you are the father.”

Eduardo wasn’t scared of her threats. Worse than
that, he definitely didn’t like being placed in a vulnerable
situation especially by someone he barely tolerated. “I’m still not
staying,” he explained, trying to bring himself back to monopoly.
“Don’t worry; I’ll take care of the child. I always take care of
what’s mine.”

Leticia was crushed. She loved her husband with all
her heart! All her hopes and dreams discarded in a matter of
moments. “Please Eddie, please, I love you, I’ll do anything for
you, anything you want, please don’t leave me...please leave
her.”

Please leave her.

Please leave her…

That same exact instrumental statement was the
catalyst of Amber’s repercussion. Those words were more potent to
him than a judge’s proclamation of ‘
you’re in contempt’
affected him more.

“By the way it’s
Eduardo
and I want a
divorce,” he soullessly uttered to her. “If you are pregnant, then
you’ll begin to show in the next few months.” Eduardo then watched
her expressionless as she crumbled back to the floor. He grabbed
his suitcases already by the door and shoved them outside in the
rain. “Your crying just proves my theory,” he grinned, patronizing.
“I want to see my daughter every other weekend, I won’t fight you
on physical custody, I know she’s better off with her mother than
an unstable father like me right now. You’ll be hearing from my
attorney soon.” And then he shut the door. The next thing he heard
was glass shattering from a vase being thrown at the door behind
him. But he loved his daughter, doted on her constantly, and
treated her with respect; he just never loved the mother.

Two days later, Eduardo went to talk to Victor. But
Victor would have nothing to do with him. He came out of the house
swinging a baseball bat in his hands. Eduardo made every attempt at
trying to calm his brother down, but the scene was so overwhelming
he felt he almost needed to be thrashed.

“You stupid asshole—fucker, son-of-a-bitch, you
betrayed me!” Victor shouted, swinging the bat aimlessly. “You can
get every fuckin woman practically alive
,
but that just
wasn’t enough for you was it? You had to see if you could get mine!
You stupid mother-fucker!” Victor swung the bat, missing Eduardo’s
face by inches.

“Victor let me explain,” Eduardo pleaded, his hands
up in the air admitting defeat. What the hell could he possibly
say? He knew deep down it was nonetheless, unexplainable.

“There’s no explanation for what you did Eduardo, no
excuse for it,” Victor bellowed, taking a swing at Eduardo’s head.
“You took my wife dammit! I thought if she weren’t a blonde, at
least I’d have a chance. But noooo...you took my wife’s attention
away from me
,
from our kids, she tried to commit
suicide because of you!” He took another swing at his brother’s
head.

Eduardo’s reaction was quick enough to duck, but
just barely. He felt the wind of the bat graze against his back
shoulder. “Victor please, stop swinging that bat before you kill
me!”

“That’s my intention you fuckin’ wife stealer!”
Victor swung again, only this time got Eduardo in his knee. Eduardo
chopped down to the ground in ear-splitting agony.

Victor was his brother, he really truly loved his
little brother. “Victor no more,” Eduardo cried in pain, flinching
on the ground from the sight of Victor up above him ready to take
aim at his other leg. “Victor, please—I’m in love with her!”

Victor hesitated having had the realization sink in.
He lowered the bat and choked back furthering tears. “You better
be,” he demanded pointing the bat to his face. “Because if I
ever
find out that you were just...you were just,” he
expressed disheartened, fully crying now, “...
using her to feed
your ego
—Oh God, I’m coming back and bashing your fuckin face
in!”

So many fond memories dashed inside Eduardo’s mind
when Victor spoke to him for the very last time. “You’re no longer
my family Eduardo, mi hermano...you’re no longer my brother!”

That declaration injured Eduardo mentally, rolling
over on the lawn, he wanted to die.

Eduardo was already separated from his parents for
quite some time, going to college, getting his degree; he became
independent from their emotions a long time ago. If it wasn’t for
Amber and wanting to be near her
,
he would have
never spent so much time with his family and at their house. His
mother was the matriarch of the family, and when Rosalba called for
Eduardo during the middle of business hours, did he wait until his
work was done? Oh, hell no! He ran to the Sanchez house so fast his
co-workers saw his exit as a blur. Rosalba wanted to hear with her
own ears from her son’s mouth that he had had an affair with his
sister-in-law.

The moment they see each other, he fell to her feet
and cried at the base of her legs. Rosalba’s heart broke at the
sight of her son in such torment, she loved her little boy and
caressed his hair as he continued to shed his heart-felt tears.

“Mehiò...so it is true.”

“Sí Mama, lo siento. I’m sorry,” Eduardo confessed,
looking up at her.

“Do you know what this is doing to your brother?”
She asked, holding his head in the palm of her hand.

“Hago...I do know Mama.”

“And you did it anyway?” Rosalba asked; disbelieving
the conversation even existed.

“I fell in love with her, yo la adoro.”

“Eduardo mehiò...you could have any woman. You had
Leticia, a loving companion. El compañerismo y adora. Why her? Why
your brother’s wife?” Rosalba pulled her hand away and wiped away
her own tears that were falling down her face.

Eduardo stood up, took a seat next to her and
grabbed her hands within his, “I didn’t know I was in love with her
until she married Victor. I tried to make my feelings for her
subside, but they wouldn’t go away. Era tan duro, it was torture
for me every time I saw her. I tried to forget her with another
woman, hide my feelings, live my life, but she still kept haunting
me...
ah Mamá de dios
, she’s the
other half
of me.
Tell me who can turn away from that? I thought I was a strong man
Mama, I’ve always been arrogant, always knew what women wanted, but
Good God Mama, I never knew she felt the same. All those years I
wished she had met me first, Amber adoróme también.”

“Ah mi hijo pobre, Victor,” she cried for her other
son. Rosalba wanted to sympathize with him—she really did—but she
couldn’t get passed the reality of Eduardo hurting Victor. It was
son physically harming son, and Rosalba was in deep distress.

Would he ever be allowed to come to family events
again? Only time will tell. He was given a life sentence, only
allowed visitation rights on good behavior. So was it all worth it?
Alienating his brother, parents and Leticia? Worth all the torment,
the lies, the deceit, just so that he could continue to be with the
woman he loved? He was determined to find out. He wasn’t going to
go through all the heartache and not receive a reward.

Eduardo was signing paperwork in the administration
office. Amber would be relocated to the Palm Desert Treatment
Center as soon as possible. Eduardo was going to pay for her care.
He wanted to keep her from further harm and the Palm Desert
Treatment Center came highly recommended.

He was just finishing up the formalities when his
cell phone rang. He grabbed his crutches and dismissed himself from
the office for a moment and hopped outside to the hallway to answer
it. The administrator followed him and reminded him that he needed
to “shut his phone off immediately.” Eduardo shrugged the fellow
off and the cell phone rang again and Eduardo had no other choice
but to hobble outside the hospital to answer the call. It was
Aldridge & Watson, they needed his assistance there. He needed
to go back to work as soon as he was done. He had to go back to
Century City or else. Or else what? As soon as they heard that
Amber tried to commit suicide (and that Eduardo and Amber had an
affair) Philip Aldridge put Eduardo on probation so fast his head
spun. Eduardo created his own reputation and reserved his own good
character as the city’s top litigator, so if they were going to
threaten him with being fired, then they would have a lengthy
wrongful termination lawsuit on their hands, no doubt about
that.

Eduardo was determined to see that Amber was
transferred safely. He didn’t want to leave, but had no other
choice. He gave instructions to the hospital administrator one last
time and went back up to Amber’s room to say his goodbye.