We stayed in on Sunday. Enjoying the newness of our budding relationship. Richard had reached out to me a couple more times, but I had grown tired of reading is repetitive complaints and his new tactless accusations. By Wednesday of the following week, he must have been getting desperate as he showed up at Scarlets apartment. He knocked and Scarlet answered. We had ordered Italian, and it was supposed to be arriving, so she put on her robe and ran to grab it.
"I see. It all makes sense now you shameless slut," I heard the scream echoing through the apartment. I rushed to check on Scarlet.
"Gwyn, lock yourself in the bathroom. He's crazy," Scarlet yelled at me and I ran toward her instinctually. She hugged me and stroked my hair, "Worst survival instincts ever. Love you," she said as Richard approached. I pecked her cheek stood up and kick my ex in his nuts and he dropped to the ground like his legs were over cooked pasta. I pulled Scarlet to her feet, and we bolted together to the bathroom we locked the door and called 911.
Richard realizing this fight was over stormed out of the apartment. I heard the door slam, but we stayed huddled together until we heard the pounding on the door, "Police open up or we'll breach the door."
Scarlet got up and I followed behind her we went to open the door. All to happy not to see Richard in the apartment. We went with the police and filled out a report for the assault and breaking and entering. The police didn't look to motivated to deal with it.
Two days later I seen Richard signing a new deal. So clearly, I was right. The cops had considered this a domestic issue not worth their time so Scarlet and I hired security. Both to follow us and for the apartment. Meanwhile, I smiled thinking about the trouble Richard and gotten himself into. I had written the deal he had just side and used a friend of Scarlets to deliver it to Richard. It looked like a lifeline on the surface, but it was layered with impossible deadlines and ridiculous clauses he would have never accepted if he hadn't been desperate. With laser procession a month later his company folded.
Scarlet's friend had acquired the company for pennies on the dollar and gave it to us as a wedding gift. Which we were in the middle of celebrating as the news of Richards fate played on a t.v. above the bar where we were drinking. It was a low-key affair, but neither of us felt the need for anything big. The world of finance was too big and overbearing for me. I was capable, but both me and Scarlet wanted to be able to step back in a way that wasn't possible if you wanted to be successful in this world of endless deals. We sold my company and liquidated Richard's. We invested our money a crossed the board. Real estate, star-ups, franchises, and even cd's and 401k's anything everyday people would have access to.
Then we started traveling. I never knew there was so much of the world I wanted to see; until I was looking at it with Scarlet. It started as a one-month tour with five stops. All in Europe and all tourist traps. As it came time to leave, we had added twelve stops and four more months. We were in Italy, and the list had become a map of places we had been and places we wanted to see. We finally decided to let go of our home and admit the truth. Our business didn't need us and traveling the world felt more like home then any place we had ever lived. We were traveling for just over two years when we bumped into Richard again. It was in Vegas on the strip; he was selling bottled water on the street. We teased him, but we each bought a bottle and gave him a fifty-dollar bill. Not to be generous, but to make sure he knew that we had not suffered in his absence. He did not take it well. Troughing the bin of ice and water on the ground he rushed toward Scarlet.
"You bitch. If you hadn't told her everything and stolen her. I made her the perfect woman, and you broke her."
I lost my cool, "Dick," I called and he froze. In all the years we had been together no one had ever dared to call him that, but we were done, and I couldn't be bothered with his preferences, "Do you really believe it's that simple? Scarlet kept your dirty secret. Until that night at the bar, when I heard everything, you said. I was already leaving so Scarlet told me everything she knew. With or without Scarlet this was your end," I told Richard. I knew in my heart without Scarlet I would have never achieved such a total victory over Richard, but the point had to be emphasized. He made me leave. He was cruel and calculating and, in the end, careless.
He broke down crying and we left. Not the city, just where he was standing on the strip. We still enjoyed another two months in different hotels. There was so much to see, and do we spend longer there then we had anywhere else in our journeys. It was less than six months later we got news Richard had died. He had left everything to me. Though to be honest it wasn't much. I couldn't be bothered to interrupt to claim it, so I let the state of Nevada keep it.
We did finally settle down I was almost sixty. Decades of memories beside the woman I loved, but travel was becoming hard on us, and we were ready to take our twilight years at a more passive pace. We adopted a daughter who was twelve and had been adored by her father until he died and a plane crash. I had read about it in the news one day. He was looking for work. She had no relatives, and he had nothing. We flew to meet her and arranged the adoption in less than a week. She had friends nearby so that is where we settled. Danville was a small historical town In Kentucky, and we couldn't get enough of its charm. We opened a small bed and breakfast. Got Hope a tutor and settled in. Hope wasn't her name when we adopted her, but she was so said she asked us if she could change her name to hope so no matter how dark things got, she'd still have to have hope. We couldn't refuse such silly reasoning and if something as simple as a name change was going to help, I saw no reason to argue.
She did great in school but stopped after high school she ran the bed and breakfast with us and eventually married. She unfortunately took after me and a few years into her marriage I recognized the signs I had learned way back in my youth and me and Scarlet confronted Hope with the truth then we helped her with the divorce and comforted her afterwards. Luckily, she had us and her daughter. She didn't seem that sad about losing her husband I couldn't help but wonder if she had ever loved him or if like me, she had felt the need to choose someone early that seemed like a good fit and a decent man. Regardless of why she was single until her forties. She brought home a man we thought was her son-in-law and introduced her new husband. They had gotten married in Vegas on a drunk dare.
We tried to talk her into an annulment, but she insisted this was different. He helped manage the b&b and me and Scarlet retired.
"We did it right you know," Scarlet said to me one night. She laid down into my lap on the bench on our porch.
"Did what right love?" I asked stroking her hair. She was over ninety now and still as lovely as the day she saved me from Richard.
"Life, all of it. Gwyn, be happy for me ok?" Scarlet said and I started to cry. I don't know how, but I didn't need to look. Scarlet was gone, but I kept stroking her hair. I couldn't bring myself to stop. I stayed like that for what felt like forever, but eventually my grand baby now in her twenties came over and hugged me.
"Grandma Gwyn, I'll take care of everything. I'll stay with you forever too, ok?" She asked, with a desperate pleading tone. I wanted to deny her, to tell her she was too young to give up everything for me, but between her tone and my sadness I nodded meekly instead.
We cremated my wife and then I left town with Little Hope, that's what we called my granddaughter, her name was Hope just like her mom. Me and Little hope toured city I had visited decades ago with Scarlet and in each city, I would drop a teaspoon of her ashes. I wanted her to be part of the world she loved.
Little Hope's POV
Grandma Gwyn had been sad sense Grandma Scarlet passed away, but she got happier as we traveled and her heart seem to get lighter as the urn holding Grandma Scarlet emptied. We had been traveling for eight months, and Grandma Gwyn was back to the lighthearted carefree woman I had known in my childhood. We got back to the hotel one day and she laid down on the bed.
"Little Hope what will you do when Grandma Gwyn passes?" She asked and the question shattered my heart instantly.
"Depends Grandma," I answered honestly, "If you pass before were done, I'll finish your list and add your ashes to Grandma Scarlets. If we're done, I'll take you and return home. Either way I'll return home to my parents eventually and watch over them as I did you. Then one day I'll join you all."
"I'll be waiting," she said and closed her eyes. I called my parents. Then I called the funeral home. I stayed in town until her ashes were ready. The funeral director made a big deal about putting Grandma Gwyn in Grandma Scarlets urn, so I had to let them put her in her own. Back at the hotel I dumped them together. They had been separated long enough, and I had promised Grandma Gwyn.
I finished the list of cities and returned to my parents. I have never gotten married or dated much really nor have I adopted. I just watch over mother and father as I promised.