A Short Story

     A beautiful blonde haired, blue-eyed Puerto Rican Princess sat on her balcony and stared out over this tropical paradise wondering why. How one person’s words could change her whole life. She was happy here in Fajardo, where she was born, had grown up and went to school. She was happy with her married life, her husband, and his prominent family, and their three sons, the oldest was eighteen, the middle son was seventeen and the youngest was twelve. The family owned the only movie theater in Fajardo, the drugstore with the soda fountain, and the pharmacy. They had a very good life. When she wanted to go to San Juan to shop, the chauffeur would take her. This chauffeur would be the one who changed her life, her destiny, and her fate. The words he would say to her would change her life forever. It would be the beginning of a whole new life, one that would bring heart break, and pain and tragedy to her and her family. She wished the chauffeur had never spoken those words to her. She asked him, “Why?” “But why did you have to tell me this, I did not need to know, I did not want to know.” “You have ruined my life”, she said. 

     A few unthoughtful words can ruin many lives. It can change everything in a few seconds. Words that cause so much pain. Telling someone something they did not know, or did not want to know, or maybe did not need to know. It was a crying shame, she had to hear those words. If only people were not so cruel, to speak the unspeakable. But yet, it was said. It was brought out in the open, for all to see. And yes, it would change many lives forever, and take all involved down a different road. An unforeseen road. One must wonder what path these lives would have taken had these words not been spoken.

     Yes, her life had been a happy one. She had lived a life of poetry and violins. A life of fun and laughter, until that day those words were spoken, that day she was told by the chauffer that her husband was having an affair. He even told her who the other woman was. She was devastated, to say the least. Once those words are spoken, you can not take them back. Did the chauffeur realize the pain and suffering he was going to cause a whole family by telling her this, that his words would change their lives forever? Their destiny was interrupted and taken in another direction, never to look back. She took her oldest and youngest sons to New York City to stay with family, leaving the middle son in Puerto Rico with her husband to finish high school. This decision would come to haunt her later in life. Her middle son and his father did not get along in Puerto Rico, what he had to endure was tragic and he was very unhappy living with just his father and missed his mother and brothers terribly. This experience would stay with him for the rest of his life.

     After a year or so her middle son graduated from high school, the family reunited in New York. Things were not the same in Puerto Rico for her husband. His family frowned upon what had happened. He wanted to get his family back and try to make it in New York, so he took the middle son and left Puerto Rico for good, where he became an accountant. But, during their separation she had met another man. When her husband found out, he took a pair of scissors to all of her clothes. On that day she left their home in New York, never to return.  


     So, now you have a man, a husband and a father whose life was destroyed because he made a bad decision, and someone told on him. Three sons whose lives had changed drastically because of it, and a woman, wife and mother who had no choice but to leave her country, her life, her home. Everything was turned upside down. Her sons were affected terribly by this event. Everyone was. It was so tragic, and so devastating that everyone’s lives changed. Her oldest son had to leave medical school, they no longer had the funds. Her middle son was tainted by the suffering and unhappiness he had to endure while living with his father in Puerto Rico for a year or so, alone without his mother and two brothers. And the youngest would now grow up in New York.

     Time passed and eventually she and her new partner left New York and moved into a condo by the beach in Florida. She was happy again. Her sons were grown. The oldest was drafted into the Army, went to Korea, came back and became a ballroom dance instructor and a pretty good classical pianist. Her middle son worked on Wall Street. Her youngest became an engineer, married and had four children. The brothers and their father all stayed in New York, and at some point ended up living in a very large house together. 

     The years passed. The father was getting older and was not well. The middle son was the one who ended up having to care for him. One day the middle son, having had some resentment from his teenage years with his father in Puerto Rico, decided he had enough and took a gun and shot his father in the head and then shot himself. The father did not die right away, however the middle son did. The father was in the hospital for a month, before he died of his injury, so he knew that his middle son had tried to kill him.  When this attempted murder and suicide occurred, the oldest son told the family not to tell her, that he would go to Florida to tell her personally. Did they listen to him? No. The youngest son’s wife called on the phone and told her partner what happened. Her partner was now older and partially blind. When he was told what happened he knew he had not choice but to tell her the tragic news. When he told her she became hysterical. She was screaming, and he was so sad and felt so bad for her that it caused him to have a heart attack and die. Now she had lost her son, her ex-husband and her loving partner, all in a matter of days. 


     How she survived this, no one knows.

     Another person’s words changed her life once again. 


     Words that changed her destiny. 


     Just words…..