Contrasts

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the publishers. For information contact: Pink Flamingo Publications P.O. Box 632 Richland, MI 49083 USA Email Comments: comments@pinkflamingo.com “We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment from contrast and very little from the state of things.” -Sigmund Freud Introduction THIS ACCOUNT OF ANN GARDNER’S JOURNEY WILL BE TOLD BY TWO NARRATORS, MYSELF AND ANN’S HUSBAND PAUL. THROUGHOUT THE EVENTS DESCRIBED HERE, PAUL, HAS BEEN KEEPING A JOURNAL. I BELIEVE IT IS AN HONEST ONE, OR AS HONEST AS POSSIBLE UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES. IT SEEMED TO ME THAT HIS JOURNAL ENTRIES WOULD ADD INTEREST TO THE TELLING OF WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY BOTH HIS STORY AND HERS. WE BEGIN WITH A JOURNAL ENTRY PAUL MADE NEAR THE END OF THEIR JOURNEY. Journal Entry My name is Paul Gardner. I’m forty-six years old. Now that it is over and the debt has been paid, I’m sitting here wondering how it all began. Not that it matters. I guess, in time, we are able to re-imagine the past in ways that make our actions less reprehensible, but the past remains the past and in our hearts we know the truth of it. I’ve been playing the “What If” game. What if Ann’s parents hadn’t been killed in an auto accident when she was four years old? What if she hadn’t been raised by her grandparents? What if her Irish Catholic grandparents hadn’t sent her to schools for Catholic girls and to a Catholic University? What if during her formative years Ann hadn’t spent countless hours studying the lives of the Saints and more countless hours on her knees worshipping Jesus? What if Ann hadn’t been so innocent, so good, so pure, so compassionate, and so empathetic? What if all of these admirable qualities hadn’t been initiated by fear and nurtured by guilt? She said she signed the first contract because of her love for me. That, I believe, might have been a small part of the reason, but it was guilt and fear that guided her trembling hand as she wrote her name first to the business documents I persuaded her to sign and later to the unimaginably depraved contract. “What If” one of my trucks hadn’t been involved in an accident with the car her grandfather was driving? What if my driver hadn’t taken a cell phone photo of the grandfather and the incredibly beautiful young woman who had been in the passenger seat? What if, although the accident was clearly the old man’s fault, I hadn’t personally visited him and his granddaughter to see that they weren’t injured and to write a generous check to cover the damage to his car and another check for the stress the accident caused to both of them? “What If” I hadn’t fallen immediately and hopelessly in love with the stunningly beautiful, impossibly innocent young Irish Catholic woman? “What If” her only other relationship with a male had been a college boy her own age? It ended after two weeks when he felt her breast after an evening at the movies. “What If” Ann’s degree hadn’t been in Education and she hadn’t received certification to teach history in the state of New York at the time when her relatively poor grandparents were in failing health? “What If” I hadn’t been born with a small p***s given to premature ejaculations? And perhaps the biggest “What If” I hadn’t become addicted to gambling? I could list hundreds of other “What If’s” to support my argument that we definitely are not “The masters of our fate” or “the captains of our souls”. Our lives are controlled by Chance, Circumstance, and Accidents over which we have no control. In the end you either slit your wrists or shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, it is what it is.” Or while the memories are still fresh you might spend a number of sleepless nights making, however painful, a record of what happened in an effort to understand it, or to prove to yourself there was no way you could have prevented it from happening I have set down here an account of the direction our marriage took around the end of the second year. I was privileged or cursed to witness or hear much of what happened to Ann. There are digicams that bring videos to your computer and even to your big screen TV in real time. There are iPhones that send instant pictures. There’s text messaging. There are webcams that send images to multiple computers, iPods, iPads, and television sets. There’s conference calling and voice mail. Internet connections. I became acquainted with all of them. Certainly not always, but quite often Ann was in sight even when I wasn’t with her. One more thing. This has been a voyage of discovery for both of us. Ann’s voyage might have been more dramatic, but mine has been more profound, more life changing. I know who and what I am. I’m not at all the person I believed myself to be.