Already Gone

I was listening to the radio one day and just burst into tears. There was a band I had vaguely heard of called the Eagles. One of their lead singers, a guy named Glenn Frey was singing a song called Already Gone. It told a story that was so similar to my life that I cried. The nonsense that Mark had been saying or singing to me the day he dumped me with his pre-emptive strike had been taken directly from that song.

My life was all about drudgery. I worked six days a week cleaning hotel rooms with my mother. A lot of our guests reminded me of the way I used to live. I had always taken the things that I had for granted. I always believed that I was entitled to more.

But after a few days of working for a living, I began to regret the way I had treated my husband. It galled me to remember that I used to spend more on make-up than my current rent.

I also knew that at forty three years old my prospects were limited. The one thing that was weird was that after three years of bad food and almost no exercise other than working, I had put on a few pounds. I had also stopped dying my hair.

When I got home one day there was an invitation waiting for me. I was being invited to a local cafe the next day. The invitation was unsigned, but I knew it was from Mark. Suddenly his clue made sense. Mark could have emptied our accounts, but he'd left a weird amount of money. He'd left three dollars and eleven cents.

It was now three years one month and one week since he left me. This was it, my sentence was complete. My penance was over. Shit, I wished that I'd figured it out sooner. I could have gone on a diet and got my body back.

Then I realized that it didn't matter, Mark had always loved me. The blond hair and big boobs had been my idea. As I tried to make myself look my best something occurred to me. I suddenly remembered the last line of the song Mark had quoted to me before he beat me to the punch and walked out on me before I could divorce him.

The line was, "So oftentimes it happens that we live our lives in chains. That we never even know we have the key."

The invitation had a message in it. It said that we'd come full circle. I was sure that meant that he was ready to have me back in his life.

It suddenly hit me that I had been a fool. I had always been the one in control. I had sat on my ass day after day, while Mark went out and worked his ass off to buy me anything and everything I asked for.

The only times he had ever balked at any of my requests was when I tried to put something over on him. And when I tried to divorce him, when I tried to walk out on him, he had taken it personally. He as usual had given me what I wanted. He walked out first.

The peculiar thing was that I had spent the past three years dreading the day that the inevitable would happen. I was sure that sooner or later the divorce papers would arrive. But they had never come. I was pretty sure that I now knew why. Mark still loved me. I was looking forward to seeing him again.

I got to the bar a bit early. There was a seedy looking bar tender, who'd drank too much and had that ruddy skin condition that is a sure sign of an alcoholic.

He came over to my table. "Damn you got fat," he said. "How many donuts did you eat over the past three years?"

"Did you drink enough to make yourself forget how tiny your dick is?" I asked. "What are you doing here CJ?"

"I still work here," he said. "What are you doing here?"

"I got an invitation to lunch in the little outdoor cafe across the street," I said. I came in here to get a drink to bolster my courage."

"That's bizarre," he said. "It's too big of a fucking coincidence."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I got one too," he said. "Hey did yours have a weird riddle on it?"

"I wouldn't call it a riddle," I said. "It was Mark's way of telling me that he wants me back."

"What did it say exactly?" he asked.

"If you must know," I told him. "It read, "We've come full circle. I'm ready to give you what you want."

"You're right," he said. "Yours is different from mine. That redhead always did have a screw loose. Mine was a question. "Why does a squirrel hide its nest?"

"I have no clue of what that means," I said.

"I think it means that Shannon wants me back, too," he said. "A squirrel hides its nest to keep birds out of it. Get it? The English call women birds. It's Shannon's way of telling me she doesn't want any other women to have me. I think they worked together and decided to take us back after a predetermined amount of time. They wanted us to suffer and be willing to take them back on their terms."

"Fuck that," I said. My anger made me forget everything I had learned over the past three years. If Mark wanted me back he was going to have to be the one kissing some ass this time.

I left the bar with a full head of steam and headed across the street to the cafe. I sat at a small table and looked around. I actually saw CJ walk into the cafe. He sat down at a small table on the sidewalk near where a couple of college guys were playing hacky sack. As soon as CJ sat down I thought about his riddle and realized that he'd been wrong about it. I waved at him frantically but he was too distracted by the kids.

Then he saw me. He waved at me and shook his head, but I didn't get his message.

The boys near him lost control of the small sack. It flew towards CJ and knocked his drink over. He jumped up angrily just as the small sack fell off of the table and landed right in front of him. One of the kids came up and it looked like he was trying to skillfully kick the sack back into the air to restart the game. He swung his leg wildly and missed the sack completely. At least he missed the hacky sack.

His foot flew full force into CJ's crotch. CJ's scream was so loud that I was sure he was heard a mile away. I ran over to him just as the waiters tried to help him. All they could do was to try to help him to his feet. Not a single one of them wanted to try to examine the site of his injury.

I got to him just as the ambulance took him away. "Your answer was wrong," I said. He looked at me through a haze of pain.

"Whah?" he grunted.

"She didn't want you back," I said. "It has nothing to do with birds. A squirrel hides its nest to ... Protect its nuts!"

"No shit!" he grumbled. He started to say something else but he was cut off by the arrival of what looked like a college girl.

She was tall and blond, like I used to be. Her hair was a truly glorious shade of blond and it was her real hair color. Her boobs were almost as big as mine are and judging by the way they moved they were real. She was carrying a briefcase and chewing gum.

"Are you Anne Clayton?" she asked.

"Of course, I am," I sat angrily. She handed me a stack of papers.

"What are these?" I asked. "His list of demands?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" she spat. I looked around the cafe and saw him. I suddenly understood my riddle too. Coming full circle did mean that I got what I wanted. But it didn't mean that I got Mark back. It meant that I got what I wanted at the time that Mark left me. I got a divorce.

The problem was that it was no longer what I wanted. I had talked about the life I once had and had lost but to be truthful, I had gotten used to not having much money. The thing I wanted back most was Mark himself.

I spotted him then. He looked good. He looked even better than he had when we broke up. He looked happy. But he wasn't alone. There was a woman with him. She was a redhead. She was young, really pretty and really pregnant.

Between them clutching each of their hands was a little girl who was the perfect melding of both of their features. She had Mark's hair color and her mother's luminous green eyes. She ... that tiny little girl, looked at me with the same peculiar little smile that Mark had. Maybe it was genetic. Or maybe she somehow knew what was going on and what it all meant, just as I did.

I knew as soon as I saw them together that it was over. There was no chance that I would ever get Mark back. Emotionally, he was out of reach. There was no point in my fighting to regain his heart. That redhead would never give up on him. She had given him her heart, her love and clearly her body. She had given him children as well.

I looked over the divorce papers and saw Mark's revenge against me. I had schemed to take my husband's money by using the court system. I wanted the man's money without the man.

I ended up with neither. He'd divorced me on the grounds of abandonment. That meant that he walked away with all of his money and his wonderful life intact. And I just walked away. I looked up from the papers for a final glimpse of the man I had lost, but I was too late. He was already gone.

The End