The Resurrection of Howard Stein
Molly Shaffer
The Resurrection of Howard Stein
Published by Malyndi Shaffer at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 by Malyndi Shaffer
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, photographic including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
I have been a successful advertisement executive for twenty years, and a damn good one at that. I can sweet talk with the best of them, bring competitors to their knees with one lift of my brow, and my smile can seal a deal faster than the destruction of a California earth quake. I am a marketing genius, but where does one go when riding on the crest of a wave for twenty years? Crash is inevitable. And crash I did.
I knew the price that I paid daily for choosing my career over anything else in my life. Family was secondary; clients reigned supreme. There was never a choice between my daughter’s ballet recital and dinner with a consumer. The buyer won every time. I never saw a single ballet performance until the day when the job that I had dedicated my life to bit me in the ass. A dog should never bite the hand that feeds him, but my company must not have received the memo on such idealistic idioms. Who was I kidding? I knew that once I became dispensable I would be discarded like a steaming pile of compost. No one wants the stench of failure to ruin the fresh linen smell of success.
My wife is amazing, have I told you that yet? She waited nightly for approval from a mindless minion who delved deeper into the pit of despair that was his job. I stopped talking to her way before the birth of our second daughter. She was clueless to the real world, and nagged me incessantly—or so I thought. How can someone nag you, when you’re never there to listen? Yet she stayed by my side for twenty years, faithfully—even though I never was. What caused her to be so loyal? Why did she love me through all of my pompous self-indulgent admiration? God only knows.
I have always been over confident. After all, it is charisma that draws them in. People like to see self-security—it attracts them like electricity to a static charge. I soared at the top. I conquered. Like King Midas, everything I touched turned to gold-- everything that is except for my family. I tried to buy their affection—it’s easier than putting in actual time. My daughters always had the latest technology before it was accessible to the public. My wife never lacked a thing—except for devotion. We were the wealthy elite… were being the operative word.
The day that I lost my job, was the day when suicide sounded like my only plan. I went into my bosses’ office expecting to get a new promotion and walked out a broken fool. I placed my neck inside of a hungry lion’s mouth expecting a hickey! I never dreamed that I would lose everything…that I would be poor. How could I explain to my family that I was incapable of sustaining our life style any longer? How could I expect them to stand by my side when I never was at theirs’? All that I could offer them was my love, and I did not know how to do that. Suddenly death sounded nice—a quick escape.
The only thing stopping me was the thought of leaving my wife alone to clean up my mess. Swiftly I realized that she was what I yearned for. I desired to hold her in my arms and have her soothe away the many years of self-destruction. I longed for her whispering words of encouragement—her smile that believed that I was indestructible. Was it too late? Had I mutilated my one pure love to the point that I could not correct its damage?
I could not get home fast enough. I raced through the labyrinth of city streets wishing that I had the powers of Moses to split the sea of cars that lay before me. The urgency to rush to my wife burned inside of me like the filament of a light bulb. I needed her to tell me that we would make it through—that she would remain my devoted partner. Fear rushed into my thoughts. What if she laughed at my misfortune? What if she spurned my embrace? What if she returned the loneliness that I have been so gracious to give to her for eighteen years? I knew I should not think such things. I had to have faith in something—anything—or else I would fall prey to the lion’s jaws.
I sat in front of the house, the cavernous castle that was destined for foreclosure. I could not bring myself to walk up the drive and end everyone’s picturesque dreams. My confidence weaned and I wept. Broken and beaten the tears flooded my steering wheel as my head collapsed into oblivion--a tap on the car window. I looked into the face of pure angelic concern.
“Howard, what’s wrong?” My wife’s compassion was unfathomable.
I opened the car door and collapsed into her arms. I lacked the energy to speak. I melted into her soul with every broken tear. I was vulnerable. For the first time I saw that she was always the strong one. She was the glue to this family… my check book had never been. I told her everything. I apologized for the years that I had shunned her. I asked for her forgiveness, and ultimately for her acceptance. Her eyes told the story of her heart, and I realized that the first step had been taken to rebuild the many years of neglect. She would always be my back bone. She was, and still remains, my strength.
That was the beginning of the longest year in our lives. We struggled for months trying to refinance the house, to little avail. Friends that once invited our brood to dinner suddenly forgot our names. We realized quickly how superficial their camaraderie was.
My daughters had the most trouble once they understood that we could no longer afford to send them to the private school they adored. Their college funds dwindled to nothing, and my manly hood sunk to record depths. With every drop into poverty, my wife’s reassurance comforted the blow. We renewed our long lost love, and with my newly open schedule, we remembered what life had been like before million dollar deals. We learned to laugh once more, and relished in the simple pleasures of cuddling on the couch. Life began to have a new rhythm, and our hearts beat as one again.
Today our reality is different. We no longer belong to the privileged few; in fact we live quite modestly in a two bedroom apartment. I am the manager of the apartment complex…which takes care of our rent every month. We struggle to make ends meet, but we have something now that we never had before—faith. Our family has endured the loss of everything that we once worshiped; our worlds crumbled and revealed an invaluable indisputability from within.
My daughters continue to tussle with my new found interest in their lives—they also miss their shopping sprees and notoriety. I have a lot to make up to them. I am sure that some of my failures will not be forgiven easily, but I will strive daily to prove that my love for them is worth more than all of the money in this world.
Once I was an advertisement executive with friends in the highest of places and a picture perfect life, but that picture was an illusion. Now I am penniless but cherished. My wife is my heart’s treasure, and my family is my entire existence. Many may feel that I am the definition of tragedy, but I sincerely believe that my life has just begun.