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For the next few years, by dating Sam I adopted an attitude of complacency and contentment. I had someone to share dinner with every night, dates for special occasions, someone to spend holidays with and take vacations with. These were all good things! It was easy to settle back and forget my main purpose, which was to sell my house and get back to Houston.
Eventually, however, two truths about Sam became unavoidable. 1) He was a man in his 50s who was a determined, lifelong bachelor. I was just the latest in a long string of girlfriends who was never going to change that fact. 2) He had his feet firmly planted in Rockport and had no intention of leaving. His friends were there; he had built a business there. He wasn’t going to pick up sticks and follow any woman—not even me—anywhere. Any future with Sam would be squarely on Sam’s terms.
The other issue I couldn’t continue to ignore was that I was struggling financially in Rockport. My plan of a one-year pitstop had now stretched into four. And Rockport was an expensive place to live. I had to carry three insurance policies on my house—a homeowner’s policy, a flood policy, and the dreaded Texas windstorm policy (our “hurricane” insurance). Utility rates were the highest I’d ever paid, in any city. Most retail establishments were monopolies (including our lone grocery store), so the lack of competition meant crazy prices on everything. My Amazon habit had its beginnings in Rockport, just being desperate to find cheaper alternatives.
The bottom line was, I was an oil-and-gas industry vendor, but none of my potential clients were in Rockport—they were in Houston. I was grateful for the lone nonprofit client who remained loyal to me when I moved to Rockport, but it wasn’t enough to sustain me. I needed to get back to where I could establish some face time with my industry again.
***
By now, my best friends Megan and Mike were oil-industry expats in Cairo. Megan kept pushing hard for me to come for a visit before their assignment was over. But when I looked into it all, I was shell-shocked by the prices. I could no more afford a flight to Egypt, a cruise down the Nile, a tour of the pyramids—than I could afford a trip to the moon. It was so far out of reach for me. When I told her as much, the long silence afterward began a widening gulf between us.
Megan and I had started out in the same place. Two struggling single girls just out of grad school, in the same awful job in Houston, 25 years earlier. We leaned on each other for survival. She’d made a successful marriage and her husband’s career had skyrocketed. My life had gone down a much different path. Now I sensed we were no longer swimming in the same seas.
***
In October 2012, I met with a new realtor and asked again about listing my house for sale. Had the market rebounded yet? Was the time finally right? Of course, no real estate agent was going to turn down an opportunity to take on a new listing, and she reassured me that things were picking up in Rockport.
We decided to set the price at $265,000, the same price I attempted to sell it for back in early 2009. After 6 months when that listing expired with no offers, I relisted with the same agent but we dropped the price to $249,000. We had many showings and signs of interest, but still no offers. Discouraged, when the contract ended in November of 2013, I once again took it off the market rather than continue to reduce the price.
***
After 4 years of dating, Sam and I went our separate ways in September of 2013. There was no blowup, no inciting incident. Just a long, slow slog toward the inevitable.
l had just returned from a 2-week vacation and home exchange in Colorado, a trip that he decided not to join me on. We were settled in front of the TV after cleaning up from dinner one evening, and I asked him to turn off the TV. “We need to talk,” I said.
I asked him, “Are you happy? With the way things are between us?”
He replied testily, “Well, I know you aren’t!”
And with that non-answer, we were off.
Our early years had been times of intense togetherness and lots of excitement, anxiously waiting to hear about each other’s day, eagerly planning birthdays, vacations, and holidays. But gradually, more and more, I’d been camping, hiking, and taking vacations on my own again while he chose to stay at home. That early excitement was now replaced by apathy and indifference. We spent more evenings apart than together, and during those evenings together, we were usually staring at our iPads or the TV.
I pointed this out—that we just weren’t having fun anymore. We didn’t seem to enjoy each other’s company anymore. He reluctantly agreed, but still saw no reason to upset the status quo. I guess it was serving him well. He liked having someone cook for him and having a steady date. He said, “I’m here, I’m showing up, and that should be enough.” For me, it wasn’t enough.
It’s one thing when couples are bored with each other after they’d spent a lifetime together—when they’d been married for several decades, raised kids, had financial entanglements, tolerated each other’s medical issues. It’s understandable that you run out of things to talk about, or things get stale. But we had none of that history, and there was certainly no marital commitment or financial security for me in this relationship.
If after only 4 years, we were already staring at each other with nothing to say…well, I didn’t really see the point anymore. There was no motivation for me to work at this relationship. So I suggested we step back, take a break, reevaluate.
To be fair to Sam, the fact that I was actively trying to sell my house again didn’t bode well for the longevity of our relationship either. Neither of us were fans of long-distance romances. I really, really needed to get out of Rockport.
He left my house upset that night but I don’t think he was particularly surprised. It was more like someone finally said what needed to be said. I felt relieved. I had suggested we take a break, but we both knew it was over.
***
The week before Thanksgiving, I was in the front of my house doing some gardening, and my pups were dozing in the sun nearby. I got a visit from the UPS man, who they loved because he always gave them treats. Rhoda jumped bolt upright from her comatose state the second she heard his truck pull up. She ran up to him, rear end wagging wildly, as she always did. But Frida wasn’t alongside her.
As he bent over to give Rhoda her treat, he asked, “Now where’s Frida? She’s missing her cookie!”
“Good point,” I said. “Where is Frida?”
After he drove off, I hurriedly put Rhoda in the house and made a frantic search in the front of the house, calling Frida’s name. I started walking down the road, scanning the horizon for her. I didn’t have to go far. I spotted something small and tan lying on the side of the road, and I started running. It was Frida lying there, just about two houses down from mine.
I ran up to her and dropped to my knees, trying to figure out what happened. Was she attacked by a larger dog, hit by a car, what? She was still warm; she looked perfect and unharmed on the side that was facing up. I started jostling her and saying, “Frida honey, Frida honey, mama’s here, wake up now.” She’s not dead, she’s just knocked unconscious.
Then I turned her over and saw that the other side of her skull was flattened and crushed by an impact, and blood was oozing out of her nose. I realized a car must have hit her and the impact caused her to flip over. I didn’t hear car brakes, hear her shriek, nothing. And obviously, the car didn’t stop.
I felt so terrible and so responsible, because I must have taken my eyes off them for just a few minutes. And in those few minutes, she wandered off and the worst possible thing happened.
With tears streaming down my face, I carried my baby inside. I couldn’t believe because of my carelessness, my momentary distraction with my gardening and the UPS guy, my baby suffered such a needless tragedy. I couldn’t believe someone would hit a dog and not stop.
And then I was stunned by something else.
I sat down on the floor to give Rhoda a chance to say goodbye. They were two pups who had been inseparable since birth, a closely bonded pair. They slept together in a crate every night, ate together, hiked together, kayaked together, traveled together. They rarely fought with each other. I thought this was going to be devastating for Rhoda.
I had Frida in my lap and I called Rhoda over. She wandered up to me, took one quick look at Frida, one quick sniff, and walked away. Not even a nudge or a whimper. I don’t know what I expected, but boy, it wasn’t that.
I’d never had a pet die before so I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I finally decided I would bury her in the back yard under one of my big trees, a task easier said than done. Finding a spot that wasn’t completely penetrated by shallow roots was a huge challenge. But luckily Frida was tiny, less than 5 pounds, so eventually I made a big-enough hole for an effective burial.
My nerves and my psyche were fairly shattered for the rest of the day. Ironically, Sam stopped by for something in the late afternoon that very same day. The minute he walked into the house and saw my face, he knew something had happened.
“What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.
“Um…this morning…Frida…got killed by a car,” I stammered out. “I f-found her out … just past the pink … h-house.” I covered my face with my hands and burst into tears. He put his arms around me and hugged me, and said, “Oh Gail, why didn’t you call me?” Even though we weren’t a couple anymore, we were still good friends, and I really needed that hug right then.
Later in the day I called Carol, my kayaking buddy, who by this time had moved away from Rockport. She really loved my dogs and I knew she would be crushed to hear the news. She gave me some great advice.
“Gail, whenever that image of Frida lying in the road comes into your head, you can’t dwell on it. You have to force it out of your head and replace it with all those good images you have of her—on the hiking trail, in your kayak, everything else she did that made you happy. Hang on to those memories instead.”
From top/bottom or left/right: At 1 year old, with Frida on the left, Rhoda on the right (2007). Second photo is at 2 years old, with Frida standing and Rhoda laying down (2008). Third photo is at 4 years old and is my favorite portrait I ever took of them, snuggled up on a cold winter’s day (2010). Last photo was taken on Lake Austin, Texas, during a kayaking trip I made with Sam a few months before Frida was killed (2013). Rhoda is in front and Frida is in back. First three photos by the author, fourth photo by Sam. Click to enlarge.
Up next: Chapter 16. For Sale, the Fourth
To catch up on the backstory of A Buzz Kill Named Harvey, read Art and Artifice: A Memoir—A Story of Love, Deception, and Healing on the Texas Gulf Coast
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