Message From Maui

It was a beautiful day on the island of St. Marrteen and she and her husband had just arrived from the States for their honeymoon in the British West Indies.  They were both exhausted from their travel and disappointed that their trip to Cabo San Lucas had to be cancelled at the last minute due to a Category 5 hurricane bearing down on the West Coast.  They had been thrilled with their wedding gift of a honeymoon in Cabo from her husband's oldest daughter.  But, as the days grew closer to their departure, the weather in Cabo was turning ugly and at the last minute they had to find a different place to travel.  Maui was definitely out of the question as they did not want to travel that far and she'd already spent one  honeymoon in Hawaii. They wanted to go somewhere that had a beautiful beach and a 5 Star facility, with easy access to shopping and great restaurants.  The Maho Beach resort on the Dutch side of the island appeared to be their best second choice.

On the third day of their stay, they decided that a day long cruise taking them to the best snorkeling places on the island would be the thing to do.  They both loved the water and the life underneath it and were excited at the possibility of all they would experience that day.  As the boat set sail and they pulled away from the island they were surprised at how beautiful it appeared.  They had arrived in the evening from the States and were unable to see the lush forests, beautiful mountains and the powder white sand that formed a perfect circle at the water's edge surrounding the island.  They sat on the deck enjoying the view while the crew began serving breakfast to the guests.  They traveled for about an hour until they came to the small island which had been just out of sight from their hotel. The crew pulled the ship ashore and unloaded the snorkeling equipment for the guests to use.  There was not a cloud in the sky and a light breeze whispered around their heads as they looked out into the cobalt blue water.

As they sat on the beach putting on their gear, she noticed something glistening in the water not far from the shore.  She made a mental note to check it out before they left the island.  In the meantime, she and her husband got ready to swim out to the reef and view the beauty of the other world that lived just beneath the surface.  They were not disappointed.  There were hundreds of colorful fish and corral and they took it all in for several hours.  After they had run out of air and energy, they decided to head back to the beach and relax in the sand until it was time to depart.

As they spread their towels out on the sand she glanced out at the ocean and there it was again; something shiny and floating just at the water's edge.  She had already forgotten about seeing it earlier as she had gotten so caught up in the excitement of their snorkeling expedition.  She stood up and started walking out into the water in the direction of the floating object.

As she got closer, and old memory forced its way into the present and she thought about what had happened 10 years earlier. An old Don Henley song, Boys of Summer, started playing in her head and she remembered the line "a little voice inside my head said don't look back, you can never look back." She had been on a different beach, with a different husband, on the island of Maui.  It was their honeymoon but it was not filled with the love and excitement she felt today.  The memories of that time and that relationship made her head hurt and she could feel the knot beginning to rise up in her stomach.  She had married him under pressure from her family and her friends to make their relationship "legal".  These people had no way of knowing the darkness that was hidden just below the surface of their smiling faces and the happy couple they presented to the world.  He was abusive in so many ways but she kept the scars hidden under long sleeves so the bruises wouldn't show and used heavy makeup to cover the marks on her face that were always the result of a "freak" accident, at least that's what she told people.

The last night of their honeymoon he had gotten drunk and angry and took his anger out on her.  She had hoped that marriage would make him secure in their relationship and the anger and abuse would diminish as they share their lives together as husband and wife. That night she learned that her hopes would not be realized.  He had cursed at her for wearing a bathing suit that he thought was too revealing and for talking with the bartender who served them drinks on the beach.  He was jealous beyond reason and as his abuse on her character continued, he took one last drink out of his bottle and then let it fly, colliding squarely
with the bridge of her nose.  She grabbed her purse and headed for the door as he shouted obscenities behind her. 

What had she done? How could she have been so foolish to believe that he would ever change?  Her heart sank at the enormity of being married to this man for the rest of her life, as she walked out to the beach and the water's edge.  She saw a bottle floating just as the waves broke around her ankle's.  She plucked it out of the water, then looked at it and shook her head.  It was one of his bottles, probably from earlier in the day, that he had carelessly thrown out into the ocean. He had no respect for nature and certainly no respect for her.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and wrote the following message:  "I've married the wrong man and if you find this and I am no longer here, please look for him because he is the reason I'm gone."  She scrawled her name, address, and phone number on the bottom of the message before she stuck it in the bottle and sailed it up in the air and out into the dark water.

Now, 10 years later she picked up the bottle and pulled out the piece of paper written earlier by a grief stricken young wife.  She recognized the writing and the words so painfully recorded earlier in another life.  She couldn't believe these were her own words and that they had found their way back to her.  She also couldn't believe the happiness she had finally found with her new husband.  He knew little of the abuse that she had suffered during the time married to her first husband and she planned to keep it that way.  She carefully placed the note back in the bottle, walked back onto the beach and placed the bottle in a garbage can.  The past was over and the life she had dreamed of so long ago was the one that she was living today.

The lyrics played again in her head, "don't look back, you can never look back". . . and that was exactly what she planned to do.
1211 word count