Past Due

Past Due

By Heather Ann Martinez

Brenna woke up suddenly. It was the middle of the night. She went to her bedroom window and looked at the moon. There weren’t any stars. She thought about her childhood and the promises her parents made to her and her four brothers. Her parents promised that there would always be food on the table and a roof over their heads. Her parents would go without if that was necessary. Fortunately, they always managed to find work. They saved as much as they could. They never had fancy clothes or went on luxurious vacations. When Brenna’s older brothers graduated from high school, they all went to trade school. Brenna didn’t have any solid goals for her life after high school. She worked in restaurants, dry cleaners and held numerous temporary positions. It was during one of her temporary jobs that Brenna met the love of her life, Kurt.

Kurt was very tall and handsome. He also came from very humble beginnings. He was an only child, and he wasn’t used to having responsibilities to anyone. Reluctantly, he and Brenna got married. They had two sons they named Mark and Abel. Then one day Brenna was half asleep in bed. She rolled over expecting to fall into Kurt’s arms only to find that he hadn’t warmed his side of the bed for several hours. It was still early. Brenna went downstairs hoping not to wake her sons. She whispered Kurt’s name over and over again as she walked toward the kitchen and the garage. There was no sign of him. His car keys were still on the rack. His car was still in the garage, but he was gone. Brenna tried to call his cell phone but it was out of service. She tried calling Kurt’s best friend. He told her he hadn’t talked with Kurt in over a week. He told Brenna to call him again in a few hours if Kurt hadn’t shown up yet. He reminded her that Kurt sometimes liked to go for early morning runs to clear his head.

Hearing this calmed Brenna immediately. She thought Kurt was on one of his early morning runs. Hours passed. Brenna took her sons to school and she went to work. She worked with a few other people that had been friends with Kurt before she met him. She asked them if any of them had seen Kurt or talked to him. All of them told her not to worry, and they reassured her that Kurt would show up soon. It wasn’t until Brenna filed a missing person’s report that one of Kurt’s friends came clean.

Hinds Watson stood on Brenna’s porch with such a look in his eye. He knew everything and he was about to tell Brenna that her husband walked out of his life. Hinds told her that Kurt had talked with him about obtaining a fake driver’s license and a new identity. Hinds knew people who could arrange fake identification cards and passports from recently deceased individuals. In short, Hinds helped Kurt disappear. Hinds told Brenna he picked up Kurt and took him to the airport. He promised her he didn’t know where Kurt went from there. All he told Hinds was he couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t be a husband and a father any longer. He longed to be alone with his own thoughts. He told Hinds his only moments of freedom were on his infrequent early morning runs. It was the only time Brenna and the boys weren’t nagging him. He didn’t want to give them attention every single time they were looking at him to give them answers. He told Hinds that his mother was very independent. She was an accountant and managed the family finances. Brenna wasn’t gifted in many areas. She didn’t know how to cook or budget or have much interest in the boys’ activities. Kurt told Hinds he had to be both dad and mom, cook, clean, manage the budget, be the little league coach and work full time. Kurt said that on top of everything else, Brenna was always asking him questions that he felt she should know the answer to. She would ask him how much was in their checking account and then their savings. She would invite friends over and overdraw from the checking account to buy additional groceries. Brenna also went over the limit on their credit cards. She would buy new clothes for the boys or for herself.

It was Kurt that received the phone calls and letters from the bank and the credit card companies. He was tired of being embarrassed. He was tired of having to explain that his wife didn’t mean to place all of the online orders that she did. Brenna never agreed to stop spending or return the items that she purchased. She told Kurt all the time that these items were necessary. She would tell Kurt that he should get a better paying job so she could spend more without having to stay in a budget. She didn’t want to be like her parents. As Hinds continued telling Brenna why her husband left, all she thought about is what she was going to do without him. His parents had died years earlier. Her parents were in a retirement community in southern Florida. Her brothers were scattered throughout the United States with families of their own. She had not talked with any of them in several months.

After Hinds left, Brenna called the bank. She discovered Kurt closed their savings account and left a few thousand in their checking account. Over the course of several weeks, Brenna sold Kurt’s car, some of his suits, ski equipment, and signed baseballs. Several neighbors helped Brenna with childcare so she could take on a second job waiting tables. She managed to pay off her credit card debt and taught herself how to budget. One of her neighbors shared some tips on saving money and helped her get back on track. Brenna also decided to go to college and started setting goals for her sons and herself. While some of her bills were still past due, Brenna became more engaged in the lives of her children.  She made the most of every opportunity to spend with them. A year later, Brenna received a letter from a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Valdez, in the country of Belize.

The couple told her that Kurt had been renting a room from them for the past year. They told her they had been encouraging him to go home. Mrs. Valdez reassured Brenna that Kurt was madly in love with her and loved their children. He was just overwhelmed by all of the demands everyone in his life were throwing at him. Mr. Valdez wrote the next paragraph which stated that Kurt contracted pneumonia and he was in the hospital.  They invited Brenna to come and reconcile with Kurt before it was too late. Brenna noticed that the letter had been written two months earlier. Brenna called the phone number on the letter. Mrs. Valdez answered the phone. Mrs. Valdez told Brenna Kurt was out of the hospital and was on his way back to her. She had spoken with him two hours earlier. Brenna’s heart began racing. She turned off her phone and heard the boys running down their driveway. They ran into their father’s arms. It was a reunion that was long past due.