Questionable Hearts
Louisa Smith’s head hung low after passing by a couple locked in hands on the shores of downtown Savannah, GA. The feelings of loving someone again held captive in fear after her third marriage dissolved.
In her first marriage, her husband killed in a car wreck by a 21-year-old woman who drove and texted at the same time somewhere on Highway 17. The second one was more dismal. He was shot and killed in his office on a Friday. Louisa traveled to a Mary Kay cosmetic convention in Valdosta, just three hours away.
Other peers threw accusations of murder for hire at her because he was an orthodontist, a high paying job, but she was vindicated.
Her last husband? No death surfaced this time, but he fell out of love for her. Ricardo was his name. A naïve 27-year-old man from Mexico who had nothing when he came to this country. She was 39.
One night, she attempted to close her tab at the bar in Red Lobster when she dropped the pen to sign her receipt. He picked it up and smiled. Love blossomed. They got married. She thought it was eternal bliss, but three months into the marriage, she noticed he was cold, distant even.
She tried calling him, went straight to voicemail. He went missing for weeks. A knock on her door came suddenly. On the other side was a pudgy man attired in an orange Hawaiian Polo shirt and blue jeans.
“You’ve been served,” he announced. Then he walked away.
In bold letters. Divorce. From that moment on, it dawned on her that she was a pawn for Ricardo to get a green card.
Almost 20 miles from Savannah stood Tybee Island where I was walking underneath a peach twilight. An attractive woman adorned with a tied midriff shirt and frayed denim low shorts strolled across the sand.
“Hi,” I said.
She ignored me.
My head hung low.
It felt like a little needle puncturing me inside because it riled up all the illusions of love I still own in my forties. Waves of water crashed into my ankles for a remedy.
And there was another woman.
“I don’t know who you are, but I know that look,” Louisa said.