Dream Me Home (eBook)

Chapter Two

Growing up, I wasn’t always rich, but I prefer to tuck memories of more difficult times away forever. My mother named me Margaret Elizabeth, because she thought it sounded like royalty, as if bestowing a royal name would bring the fame and fortune wished for me. In the end, she was right. Though she was still alive to witness my marriage to Dr. Robert Prescott, the money arrived after the early years of his internship and residency. The fame only came yesterday, and not in the way my mother could have imagined. To our friends, all wealthy as well, we are simply Peggy and Rob, a loving couple, married twenty-five years, and living in the Florida Keys. As it turns out, I have taken up another name, and residence, but that story will have to come later.

Rob and I met in Boston, a thriving metropolis of culture and grit, of sensitivity and toughness, a place I loved, a place where our story began. In my opinion, if we had remained there, perhaps we might have continued to be happy, but Rob had other plans. Rob made most of our decisions. No, that’s not accurate. The truth is, Rob made all of our decisions, and I allowed it. Our relationship strangled me with his opinions, drowning me in his narcissistic neediness. I will take responsibility for marrying a man who borrowed my heart, but never owned it. There’s enough blame to go around, but certainly the realtor who seduced him toward the path of no return should be held somewhat accountable. To hear Rob tell it, she made an incredible sales pitch, and one that he fell for. Before her, we were happily residing in Massachusetts, braving the winter cold, basking in the summer heat, marveling at the spring blossoms and raking the fall leaves. That’s when Rob decided to take a continuing education seminar in the Florida Keys. To be fair, the Keys is like a mistress who will flirt with a man until he finds himself begging for more, and Rob did.

The conference was held in an historic hotel located only steps from the Atlantic Ocean, and Rob got more than an education in Facial Reconstruction. After only three days, while he basked in the sun and walked the beach, never giving a moment’s thought to how I was faring, nursing our two young daughters back to health, one with a cold, the other with a stomach bug, he was a changed man. It is doubtful that he attended the conference at all, but he certainly found the time to accompany the realtor on house tours, complete with her depiction of what his future could hold, what he deserved after long days in the operating room. She loaded him with Chamber of Commerce brochures to dream about while he slept after a day of swimming and room service, and before he knew it, he had put money down on a home in a gated community, safe enough to leave your doors unlocked. At least that was the headline on the brochure of Sunny Isles Community, situated on an eighteen-hole golf course, less than a mile from the beach. Anyone might have fallen for the beautiful pictures of turquoise waters and brilliant orange sunsets, laced with happy couples strolling the boardwalk, tanned bodies, stress-free faces. The residents of Sunny Isles consisted of the independently wealthy, professional golfers, and physicians with wives and young children who certainly weren’t employed. There was a clubhouse for fine dining, an Olympic-sized community pool, tennis courts, pickleball courts and racquetball courts. There was a playground for the young children nestled far enough away from the homes that even the loudest crying would not be heard. The brochure’s greatest moment was its finale, located on the back cover, which simply stated, “Sunny Isles, why would you want to live anywhere else?” Whatever the advertising agency was paid, should have been doubled, because in less than two months Rob returned home to pack us up, secure a moving van, and move me and the children to our new, sight unseen home.

I never saw it coming. I knew that Rob was tired of the harsh winters and dreary Boston scenery, as well as our drafty two-story walk-up that served us well, until the children came along. But lately, he was forever complaining about the cramped quarters, tripping over highchairs and playpens, and boxes of disposable diapers stacked high. It simply became too frustrating for a man who viewed himself as worth more than just making do. That’s when he sat me down, and said, “I’ve had enough.”

I thought he meant that he had enough of the rattling windowpanes in winter nor-easters, and the dampness of days of freezing rain, of stained carpets left over from previous tenants, and the screaming of profanities through the apartment walls from our inebriated neighbors. Looking back, I wonder if he meant that he’s had enough of us, me and the children, or to be more specific, the chains that accompanied a growing family. I was too busy making formula and changing dirty diapers to notice the chaos that comes with two toddlers and a tired wife, but in hindsight, he wasn’t wrong. His hours in the operating room were followed by a family in daily crisis, with teething, rashes, fevers, and temper tantrums, both the children’s and mine. So, I couldn’t imagine the possibility that life would be easier in Florida, with no snow to shovel, and picture-perfect sunsets. I couldn’t have known the degree to which I would resent him for pulling me away from a city I loved, from the quaintness of the cobblestone streets and history that Boston held. I always imagined that when Rob was finally making a decent salary, and there was money building in our bank accounts, we would enjoy a babysitter and elegant dinners before the theatre, not pulling up stakes and leaving our home. That move was eventually going to become the line that divided us, although you might be surmising that I could have resisted his unilateral decision, but there is something you should know about me. I have a fear of controversy and great powers of denial, the degree to which probably border on psychopathology. Some, those who didn’t dig deeper, might say I was an eternal optimist, but they would have underestimated me. Everything in due time.

Sunny Isles was exactly as it sounds, a posh, planned community of homes, large and well-manicured, on winding roads that are all named after fruit. We lived on Orange Blossom Lane. The residents were alerted through the neighborhood newsletter of our arrival, complete with family pictures and biographies of our status. We were greeted by a group of neighbors, all of whom took it upon themselves to latch onto Rob and me, hugging us as if we were long-lost friends. That’s the thing I noticed first about Florida. No one is considered a stranger, and no one is entitled to any personal space. Hugging is not only reserved for close friends and family, but also, down-home hospitality from which there is no escape. My insecurities about voicing any displeasure, and therefore perhaps presenting an image of snobbishness, brought me into the fold immediately. This desire to please people has not only made me quite popular, but it has also robbed me of myself. In a city such as Boston, people tend to keep to themselves, or in close-knit groups of friends, but in the warm and sunny Florida Keys, there is no anonymity and therefore, any secrets one has, must remain unspoken.

Rob became an instant celebrity in Sunny Isles, and at the Keys Memorial Hospital. His biography and the gossip about his surgical expertise made us the new, must-know couple. There was no doubt that he was a talented physician, but what others could not have guessed was that his real talent was his ability to manipulate others so skillfully that they were often unaware how quickly they became aligned with his every thought and action. He fooled most people by his charitable endeavors, but he never fooled my mother, from the day she laid eyes on him. “He will rule your life,” she said, “and your own voice will be silenced.” She made lots of profound statements depicting his character, most of which I chose to ignore when I married him, but in her declining years, she didn’t do much talking. We moved her down here with us and placed her in an expensive, decorator-showcase nursing facility, which, if she was able to think clearly, she would have despised. Money was never her master, nor was it mine. I married him because I loved him, pushing away other haunting thoughts that had no place in our marriage.

Rob’s entire life was successfully laid out, his attributes taking center stage, his accolades only a few seconds shy of the next brilliant offer, and the next rave review. Our family life seemed happy, at least from the outside looking in, and why wouldn’t it? I was the dutiful little housewife, he was the brilliant plastic surgeon, and his daughters closed the circle of the perfect family. When he was gone, working late, patching people up, consulting on emergencies, with the children long asleep, I would often stare at myself in the mirror, and wonder how my life had gotten so far left of where I was once headed. My face, without makeup, was burdened with secrets, lines that threatened to one day reveal themselves like a roadmap of my unhappiness. But for all Rob’s planning, he couldn’t have anticipated that on the second day of August, at 5:45 a.m., his life was about to become completely and forever irreparably changed.

Rob’s daily routine never wavered, not even on weekends when he didn’t have to make rounds, or see his patients. There were two other plastic surgeons working at Keys Memorial, but none that compared to Rob’s gifted hands, although they were reasonably talented men who shared calls and rounds. Still, on his days off, even without an alarm clock,...