Chapter 2 THE ILLUSION OF ACCEPTANCE

Jennifer and Edward kept carrying out their exercises of intimacy and romance up until Jennifer's graduation from college. Her mother was barely home too, because she had always had a love affair with whiskey since the loss of her husband years ago. She managed some side jobs during the day to raise her only child, Jennifer, but had become even more sober since Jennifer started working for this wealthy family she knew nothing about.

The wealthy family's son had come over to visit severally but since she was always out drinking, she never saw him. But she was glad that she didn't have any fees to pay as her daughter was taking care of all the bills now, including money for her routine drugs, which had converted to money for placing bets and gaming and drinking.

A few months after graduation, Jennifer and Edward got married, and she was promoted from being a home staff member to the Resource Manager in Edward's own section of the company. Edward, being very hardworking, had expanded his father's business and was fully in charge now, thanks to the divorce between his parents and his father's will that had him as the heir to inherit most of his father's properties.

After getting married to Jennifer, he decided to move to America from South Africa, where he lived with his mother to man one of his father's companies there. He decided to relocate to be free from the torture and memories of his parent's divorce.

He had been married to Jenifer for ten years now, but things were not as lovey-dovey as it was between them before they got married. He didn't know what it was in particular that made him less attracted to the once-agile, carefree and brilliant Jennifer he had met a long time ago.

"I guess I take after my father after all" he thought to himself one day as he sat soberly, drinking from his bottle of Château Margaux, his favorite brand from France. That evening, he had just finished from a meeting with their family lawyer who was filing the divorce papers for him against his wife.

He and his wife, Jennifer, have been involved in a lot of bickering and nagging for years now. And sometimes too, it resulted in blows that landed her in the hospital battling for her life and, of course, miscarriages too, or him behind bars and pulling strings to be bailed hours later.

Was it the fact that she was excelling better in their field than him, or the fact that her late mother had been after his life before she finally passed on, or the fact that he only just realized he was never really in love with her as much as he had thought back then in his young and exorbitant days. He had met much more beautiful women now and realized Jennifer had nothing to offer to his tastes for women. Or so he thought.

Jennifer, on her own part, was filled with bitterness that her once-obsessed husband paid no attention to her anymore. She noticed his withdrawal long ago when her mother was still alive. She always wondered why her mother had such wild episodes whenever she visited.

Yes, it was true her mother had dementia, but she couldn't understand a thing from the warnings the old woman blurted out. And so on the day after another episode, Edward lost it and never visited her mother again until her passing. He made rude statements about her mother occasionally and was now deep into alcohol that she couldn't control.

Some nights, he would drink so much and force her to bed with him. She lived with him, only fulfilling his sexual desires and nothing else. She got pregnant with him too, but on more than one occasion he turned her into his punching bag and she miscarried.

They were no longer fond teammates and partners in their field of engineering. Their love for each other had gone sour. Or rather, his love for her had gone sour because, for all she knew, she was still madly in love with the young, handsome, muscular man with a bright mind that she had met years ago.

She had seen him go out with women of all kinds and class. She had tried to be herself all these years because that was all Edward whispered in her ears, "I love you just as you are". But it is obvious now that it was said from the seat of yearning and lust.

She loved him. She had always loved him, but she couldn't see any light at the end of this very dark tunnel called marriage, especially now that he had filed for a divorce. She had long-lost touch with her skills at work. She was always sickly and depressed with no hope. No mother, father or sibling around to advise her. No friends either. All these years, the only friends that she had were friends and associates of her business with Edward.

She was like an idle tree fighting to survive, a lone tree in the middle of a desert. Up till now, she wasn't sure where the hatred and irritation Edward showed came from, but she was ready to give it all up for freedom.

Since the issue of their divorce was in view, she thought deeply about life. Now she would be free from the burden of a surname-Bliss. All her siblings and relatives made her feel that she wasn't living up to the family name. The name Bliss was very peculiar to this great family of classy and wealthy business tycoons. But there she was, trying to build a life. She thought that wealth wasn't about money, but about strength and perseverance and the ability to soar above one's circumstances.

Edward tried to fight for her to fit in, but there was always still a stark difference between her and everyone in that family.

Will the divorce bring her the freedom she had wished for years now? Will she really survive life without the impact of that name Bliss?