Prodigal Son

He was a desirable young man. The girls said he was handsome, but I could never see that.  He was privileged though, and maybe that had something to do with it.  His father was an architect of some reputation and had made a lot of money.  

And so the young man grew up with aplomb and developed a casual, easy manner.  He laughed much and seemed very happy.  Life looked good on him.  

After college, he travelled, going to the exotic places to see the world.  Traveling through Central America, he got very sick and was hospitalized.  Afterwards, he was very weak and had to rest for months.  He had the adventurer's disease.  The girls were thrilled.  It was all very romantic.  

Some time later, after he had decided to use some of his father's money to begin developing real estate, he took up with one of the women who had admired him for so long, part of a group of a group of girls who had helped to mythologize him.  I had known the girl since she was young, the daughter of one of my friends.  Her father had been an architect, too, but had gotten divorced from her mother and had moved away to another state where he remarried, had two children by his new wife, and had prematurely died.  My friend's daughter had followed in her father's footsteps, though, and had recently graduated from an architectural college.  She was working in a firm and studying to take her board exams when she and Bo started dating.  Her mother was ecstatic--he was a catch.  She would coo and purr when she spoke of him.  It was what every mother wanted for her daughter.  

The two of them moved in together in a house not far from me. They got a dog, a big, yellow lab, and I would see them walking him in the evenings, a handsome young couple and their dog.  Occasionally they would stop by for drinks, and I'd ask Bo about his travels while she looked on happy and admiring.  

They decided to get married and moved into one of his properties, an older wooden house with a big wide porch in one of the up and coming neighborhoods in town, and I did not see them much.  One day, however, I stopped by with a mutual friend.  They had been married a while, and talking to them there on that wonderful old porch, I thought that they did not seem happy.  Domestic life, being what it is, had brought a calm to his life.  They had both put on weight, she more than him who was genetically thin.  He had not travelled much since they had gotten married, and he did not seem as casual or carefree, but just then he was making plans to sail with some friends to Micronesia.  He would be gone awhile, and she would fly over to meet him when he arrived they said over a very good Pinot Noir.  But when she spoke, there was a tension in her eyes.  "Would you like some cheese," she asked me passing a silver plate.  "It is from Spain."  

A month or so later, he left on the long voyage, heroic, or nearly so, again.  But when he finally arrived, she did not fly out to see him.  There had been some change of plans, she said, and the boat was going to sail around the islands for awhile.  She wasn't certain when he would be back.  

When he did come back, he seemed his old self again.  Everyone wanted to hear about his trip, and he would tell it with the familiar demure grin of one who knows more than he says while she sat to the side to listen to his tale told one more time.  Eventually, I guess, she quit listening.  

One afternoon, I saw her in the grocery store and asked her how things were going.  She told me that she and Bo had separated, but they were going to a marriage counselor and hoped to work things out.  A few months later, they were divorced.  

That is when she got razor thin.  With her shock of brilliant red hair and her almost blue eyes, she was magnificent.  The sadness of the divorce was still with her, of course, but work was going well and she still had the dog.  And then she met a man.  He was from Eastern Europe and was a very nice fellow if a bit odd in his looks.  But he was in love with her and she with him and before long, they were married.  She got pregnant right away and had a difficult pregnancy that kept her in bed for the last part, but both mother and son came through wonderfully.  Her husband had been very attentive.

I saw the prodigal son yesterday walking down one of our city's fashionable streets and leaned out my window to wave.  He had changed, of course, as we all do.  His hair was now cut short and beginning to gray.  He was dressed as if for business, expensive worsted wool trousers, matching leather belt and shoes, a tasteful pinstripe shirt open at the collar.  When he smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were visible.  The smile was automatic.  He seemed in a hurry, perhaps late for a meeting.  I watched him as he walked away, the stiff, quick stride, and laughed quietly to myself.  I was happy in a guilty way.  I think I was always a little jealous.