My Son David
I want to tell you about my son David. He was my weakest son. His mother was Myomya, a woman I met while I was living in Fiji. When David was young, he had a bad cold and a runny nose. Because oranges were in season and orange juice was cheap, I decided to buy him a few bottles to help him get rid of it. I had no idea that he would get worse. He got really sick. I decided to take a few days off from work to keep an eye on him. I was afraid it would become so serious that I would need to take him to the hospital. I stayed up all night and was going crazy with worry. I just couldn’t find out what was wrong with him. But David wasn’t worried. He looked at me and said, “Take it easy, father. You don’t have to give up hope yet. I’ll be OK. At the moment this sickness is in charge and I can’t do anything about it, but I will beat it, don’t worry.” In all my life, I had never heard anything so well put. David was still young, but he was a pro at sickbed speeches.
I went to the drug store and bought up all the medicine. I was willing to try anything. I decided to put off everything until my son was well. As I drove home, tears were in my eyes. I thought about David’s mother. It was a hot summer day when I asked her to marry me. She didn’t turn me down. Maybe it was because she was already nine months pregnant. We had nothing in common except for one thing, our mutual love of our baby David. That love kept us together. Sometimes I would think that if it wasn’t for David, I would be a lot better off. I would have been able to finish my degree on time, and I would have been a doctor like my father, a man I had always looked up to…..Suddenly the sound of my engine dying woke me from my daydream.
“It figures,” I said out loud to myself. “I ran out of gas.” Why had I been so absentminded? I should have double checked after I left the drug store.
I thought about walking back to town to the gas station, but on second thought I decided to hitchhike. Hitchhiking is a stupid and dangerous thing to do, but once in awhile you just have to do it. A beautiful blonde woman picked me up. She was crying and when I asked her why, she told me that she didn’t want to go into it. I persisted with my questions until she finally told me her story. Her husband was in a car accident. At first she had thought he was just speeding to show off his new sports car, but the police had told her that it wasn’t an accident. He had killed himself on purpose.
“You probably know who he was,” she said. “He was going to run for mayor and everyone knew him. He was behind in the race, but everyone thought he had a good chance to catch up to the other candidate.”
It was the mayor’s wife. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and I knew her name from seeing it in the papers. Her name was Meezee. She was an M woman. I told Meezee about my wonderful son David. I told her that I needed to get back to him as fast as possible to give him the medicine. His life was in danger.
“Can’t I talk you out of it?” Her hand slowly slid along my thigh. I just sold my house and although I didn’t make a profit, I did break even and I made enough for us to get out of this town and far away where no one will know us. We could be happy together.”
“I’m not going to live on a woman’s money,” I said.
“Don’t worry, we can go 50-50,” she replied. I thought about it for a moment. I had a sick child waiting for me at home. David needed me. But here was a beautiful woman with her hand on my thigh. So I said yes.
Meezee and I moved to Hawaii. I sent Myomya an email asking her about David. It took Myomya three weeks to reply. She told me that David was dead. She told me he had died two days after I left. She told me when I didn’t return with the medicine, David had lost the will to live.
I felt terrible. I had abandoned my son. Every morning I would go out to the beach to watch the sunrise and cry. I thought I would never forget David. It was my fault he was dead. But Meezee helped me get over the pain. She taught me how to surf. We had three great years together living on the beach. Life with Meezee was like living in paradise with the woman of your dreams. She was so beautiful that all my thoughts were drowned in her body. Every night we made love under the stars.
But one day Meezee went out with her surfboard for her morning run and she never came back. They never found her body. I loved Hawaii but after Meezee disappeared I had to leave. Both Meezee and David were dead. What could I do? My search for an M woman had to continue.
