Chapter 2

October 2004

It was raining so heavily that night. The hard and brittle rain drops were pounding on the roof. The violent sound it made together with the roar of the thunders woke Emile, though he usually slept like a log. He reached out beside him, expecting to gather Alena against him, only could he find a cool pillow next to him. He gently rubbed his eyes and reached for his glasses on the bedside table. Still quite disoriented from sleep, he shook his head and steadied himself as he got off the bed. He quietly walked down the hall and saw the dim nightlight from Candy's room, while her door stood ajar. He gently opened the door a bit more and peeked inside.

"Alena?" he whispered very quietly, worried any noise would wake up the precious baby.

"Ssh." Alena replied and gestured her hand as if to urge him from entering the room. She continued softly humming the familiar lullaby that she always sang to Candy before bed.

Emile leaned by the door, not knowing what to do. He could stay right where he was and played the role of a supportive husband. Or he could go back to bed and had a full night rest, knowing that Alena would not accept much help from him in this kind of situations anyway.

Since Candy was born, Emile would occasionally find that he was being left alone in the bed in the middle of the night. He sure appreciated that Alena seldom bothered him during sleep and would take care of Candy by herself. But he also missed those nights when he could have Alena all by himself.

Perhaps Candy needed the sleep as much as her parents, she quietly drifted back to sleep when Alena quietly laid her back onto the toddler bed. Alena quickly walked out from the room and pushed Emile out of the way. She gently closed the door behind her and hauled Emile back to their room.

"The storm woke her?" asked Emile when he climbed onto the bed.

"Yea, it is just too noisy tonight." Alena sounded so tired. She had been up for almost half an hour since she heard the first cried through the baby monitor.

She patted her pillow, trying to make it comfortable. "Another sleepless night", she quietly murmured and lied flat on the bed as if every piece of her bones needed to be supported by the mattress. The way she was holding Candy in the rocking chair was not very comfortable. Her back was aching and her arms were sore.

Emile reached over and gathered her against him. "Love you." Closing his eyes, he gently kissed her cheeks and snuggled her tightly. He longed the moments when he could hold her tight through the night, having her all by himself.

"I can't move. You are crushing me. Can you move over?" Alena did not appreciate this bear hug. She needed the space to turn and to toss. She was desperate to get back to sleep. Thinking Candy would probably wake up early the next morning, it just made her more anxious to catch up her sleep.

Emile quietly released his arms and turned away from Alena. He was hurt and felt rejected. He shut his eyes tight and hoped this feeling of hurt would pass. Where was his once sweet and loving wife? The one who made him laugh? The one who made him excited? The one full of surprising insights and could carry out a heated discussion on anything? He missed her. He missed his life partner.

Ever since they met in school, Emile and Alena spent most of their lives together. They went to school together, stayed after school in the library together and spent most of the weekends together. They worked in the same companies throughout their careers. Though they were on different teams in the companies, their circles of friends were the same. Emile always felt that Alena was truly his best friend and lover. She knew him inside and out. Her way to dissect office politics and company problems was not only fascinating, but also fed onto him such that he could develop his views on various situations with more breath.

"Have you noticed how Lucas was glaring at Tom when Marcus introduced them to each other? I think Lucas must be furious about hiring Tom as the Senior VP." Emile remembered one of their office conversations just before Candy was born. She noticed the tension as soon as Tom entered into the room.

"Why? Tom seems to be quite competent. I have heard that he once helped selling a company for $50 million. Everyone should be happy if ours are sold at that price." Emile was surprised by her observation.

"But Lucas is driven by power. He is so vain. He wants to be the one who's going to sell the company. He does not want help. I think there is going to be a cat and dog fight really soon."

Sure enough, not so long after Alena went onto her maternity leave and decided to stay home thereafter, there were several cat and dog fights in the office. Emile smiled a little as he recalled the more recent incidents in the office. He was glad that Alena had prepared his mind for what was coming.

Emile turned towards Alena once again. She was asleep now. In the dark, he could still see her exhausted silhouette. Breathing lightly, one of her arms curved above her head while the other tugged the blanket resting on her chest. He circled his arms on her waist quietly, hoping not to startle her from her sleep. If that was what she could give him now, he would take whatever crumps he could get.

The storm, however, did not ease.

Emile once again found that he was being left alone in bed when he woke up the next morning. The rain had finally stopped. He heard the TV from the playroom and smelled the coffee from the kitchen. He glanced at the clock and it said 7:30am. He vaguely remembered Alena getting up at the crack of dawn, only that he quickly drifted back to sleep. If Candy had taken after his ability to fall asleep easily, Alena's motherhood perhaps could be a lot easier.

"Daddy, look, Candy has rainbow cheerio!" Candy greeted Emile with a big smile, showing him the bowl of colourful oat cereal she was feeding herself.

"Good morning Candy. Can Daddy have some of your cheerio too? I like the purple ones. Can I have the purple ones?" Emile walked towards Alena, who was making the coffee, while keeping his eyes on Candy.

"No. Cheerio for me, Daddy has bread." Candy giggled. Not sure if she had inherited the sense of order from Alena, or it was just the same for all toddlers. Candy had this sense of order that no one could mess with. She was very stubborn when it came to routines. Every morning, she would have her cereal while her parents would have a slice of bread. She had a specific cup for her milk and a specific cup for her juice. Sometimes, this stubbornness had driven Alena up to the walls.

"Don't start with her on that." Alena glared at Emile. "I had enough this morning."

"What happened?" Emile asked as he reached for his coffee on the counter.

"I could not find the milk cup this morning. She just wouldn't to take her milk in another cup. It took me several trips to her room before I finally located it in her bathroom. How it got there was beyond me. What would you like for breakfast?" Alena leaned on the counter and sipped her coffee.

"I'd have a bowl of oatmeal actually. I think the milk will expire in a couple of days. We may as well quickly finish it."

"Do you want Peach n' Cream or Apple Cinnamon?" asked Alena, as she opened the pantry and reached for the quick oak.

"Whatever. Let me quickly check my email first." Emile took the coffee with him and walked into the library.

He drummed on the keyboard with his eyes fixed on the screen. He was an efficient man. He never wasted any minute. He opened his inbox and went through the new ones arrived while he was sleeping. He glanced on those less important ones and quickly filed them away.

"There is a new build of the beta available on the staging server. "

"Microsoft will release their mobile platform in Q3."

"Danny has entered a bug in the bug system."

"The Executive Meeting is rescheduled to 3pm."

This last email caught Emile's attention. He opened the email and it said, "The meeting has to be rescheduled to 3pm, in order to accommodate Ryan from the west coast. Sorry for the late notice." Ryan was one of the board members. He had invested quite some money in the company. Normally he would not attend these meetings. He usually received the company updates during the quarterly board meetings and would not stick his finger in the pot.

"I wonder what's on his agenda." Emile quietly pondered on the meaning of his presence in the meeting. He grabbed his coffee and walked into the kitchen where Alena had got his bowl of oatmeal ready.

"Ryan is conferencing in today's executive meeting." Emile said to Alena. "I wonder if it has anything to do with the Sales forecast for the next quarter. Perhaps he is not very happy that we have lost the Venus Inc. account. That account was very lucrative, you know? Lucas has to adjust the forecast downwards because of that."

"Perhaps, perhaps not. Who knows what he is up to? Hey, listen. I have to take Candy to swimming after her afternoon nap today. I won't be home. So call my cell if you need to reach me. I have to get changed now. Can you watch her for a bit? The school has a toddler field trip today, going to the pumpkin patch. Can you get her splash pants from the closet too?" Alena finished her coffee and went to the bathroom, trying to get ready for the day.

"Ok. What do the splash pants look like?" Emile asked, giving up the conversation he initiated.

"It is the purple plastic looking one with pink flower on the left leg." Alena shouted out from the bathroom.

Emile walked into Candy's room and found the splash pants in the closet. He felt alone in the dark. Not alone in the closet, but alone dealing with all the issues in the office. His sounding board was not available anymore.

Emile walked into the office and was caught by Pierre.

"Hey Emile, I need to speak to you. Do you have a minute?" Pierre was the VP of Business Development. He was responsible to foster different business relationships in the technology field for the company.

"If you've not noticed, I just got in, Pierre." Emile cocked his head and looked at Pierre, while he plugged his notebook with all the cables, getting ready for the day. "Is it urgent?"

"I just want to talk to you about the Venus Inc. account before today's meeting." Pierre appeared to be quite nervous about the meeting. "You know, Ryan will be in the call. I just want to go over some of the account history with you. Just to be prepared so that we don't look like fools, not knowing what we are doing."

"So you think he will come down on us about losing the account?" Emile suggested. He knew he should not give out much of his thoughts, but instead, should gather whatever he could from the others.

"What else can it be? Marcus was furious with Lucas about that. Lucas should have seen it coming. Not only didn't he see it, he was competing with Tom on the Cyber Corp. project. You know, this Lucas and Tom thing is really costing us. I am sure Marcus must have pulled in Ryan, just to set them straight." Pierre poured out his thought as if he needed a sounding board.

Emile saw the bait as well. Pierre wanted to peek through the cracks and had a glimpse of Emile's thought. They both were in this political game as much as the other players, though Emile really had no interest in politics. He just wanted to do his best and drove the company's success to the next level. He co-founded the company with a few investors years ago. He was responsible for the research and development in the company. This company had been his pet project for the last several years. He wanted it to be successful, not political.

"Alright, let's talk over lunch. I have a few meetings to attend this morning." Emile sat and leaned back on his chair, clasping his hands together on his lap. He had to formulate his own view on the situation and came up with his game plan in only a few of hours.

By 4 o'clock in the afternoon, Emile was already in his office, back from the meeting. He looked out to the window and stared at the colourful valley far away. The trees were red, orange, yellow and green. He stared solemnly as if he was trying to solve a fall coloured puzzle in his head. He absently played with the chocolate bar on his desk, which he got from the lunch combo. He saved it for Alena. He knew that was her favourite chocolate bar with honey and almond.

"So it was not about the Venus Inc. account." Emile quietly thought. Ryan was ready to pull up stakes. He wanted a big return in his investment soon.

"This company has been dragging on for far too long. We need to sell it while the market is still open." Emile still remembered the heated debate about the timing of the market in the meeting.

"I wonder what Alena will say about Ryan's plan." Emile pulled his brows together, imagining the once perceptive Alena in his head. But he knew she was beyond reach. Neither had she had a good night sleep, nor had she worked on the unfinished school assignment the night before. Discussing office politics and company strategy probably would not be a high priority for her. Emile dragged both of his hands through his hair as he recalled what happened the night before. She would not be interested to talk about this. Emile huffed out a silent breath.

He reached for his phone in his pocket and punched in Alena's mobile phone number.

"Hello Emile. What's up?" Alena answered the phone as if she was talking to a colleague.

"Alena, I will be a bit late again tonight. Save me dinner though. I am just going to have a drink with Marcus tonight." Emile smiled a little. No matter how stressed out he was, her voice was like an oasis in the desert. Knowing that she was his always made him smile.

"Something's wrong in the meeting?" Alena guessed.

Yes, she remembered he had a meeting today. Emile smiled a bit more, and she seemed to care too. Emile thought.

"Yes and no. Things are changing quite fast here. I need to talk to Marcus to find out what really is driving all these changes. I will fill you in later. By the way, I saved you a chocolate bar from lunch today. It's your favourite one, honey."

"Oh thanks. I'll save you dinner then. Bye. I love you." Alena made a kissing sound and hung up.

Alena appeared to be more relaxed and pleasant that evening when Emile got home. Perhaps it was because the weather was nice, or maybe she knew he got her favourite chocolate bar in his bag.

"Where is my chocolate bar?" Alena's eyes were beaming as Emile walked into the house.

"You are really addicted to chocolate, aren't you? So, no "honey I miss you", "how've been your day?" huh?" Emile teased her with what her words from just the night before. He opened his bag and reached for the chocolate bar.

"O come on, you know that's my favourite. I did not have any chocolate today and was waiting for it all evening". Alena happily grabbed the chocolate bar from Emile and un-wrapped it impatiently. She took a big bite and was very satisfied.

"You know, this chocolate is just of the right texture and taste. Not too sweet, not too bitter. Just the right hardness and with those tiny bits of almond, which make it chewy." Alena made her commentary with her mouth full of chocolate.

Emile mused. This woman sometimes would take him by surprise and be so easily pleased by just a simple a bar of chocolate.

"So, you want to tell me what you and Marcus were discussing tonight and what happened in the meeting?" Alena asked as she put the cold dishes of food in the microwave, reheating them for Emile.

Emile was touched. She did not forget her promise. She still cared. She wanted to know.

Just now, he saw the wife he once knew.