Reasons

Midnight. Somewhere out west where a small house clings to cliff face jutting out over the pacific ocean. All is quiet as he roams the hallways. He checks on the children. Sleeping in their cocoons, protected from the outside world by their parents love. A cover tucked in here; a brow brushed there, and then he leaves them to dream in peace.

He crosses to the master bedroom where she sleeps. Her face softened by the moonlight hardly resembles the mask she has come to wear. When did she become so bitter, he wonders. What chains were holding her heart in place preventing her from soaring amongst the clouds like she once did?

Once upon a time, or so the story goes, he possessed the key to the chest that shielded all of her thoughts. Now that chest was protected by a fire breathing dragon, whose fire scalded him whenever he drew to close.

Leaving the house he sat in his favorite chair letting the cool sea breeze calm the storm in his soul. He searched his memory for a remnant of the love he felt for her. But it was lost like a raindrop in a hurricane.

In the darkness he could hear the crashing surf erasing the debris left behind by today's swarm of tourists. He longed for the simplicity of sitting in the sand, salt water tickling his toes while he sipped an ice-cold beer.

Those days were gone though. The weight of his broken marriage was drowning his soul in self-pity. He had a choice. He could leave a note climb in his car and disappear into the northwest. No one would be the wiser.

However, he was anchored here by three very important reasons. His three children. They were the light of his life, his reason for living. The flame of love for his wife may have been reduced to embers but he would keep those embers alive for them and for yesterdays memories.