Amanda Grace's Current Location:
Gerehu Hospital Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
**Ethan's Memo**
2016
"Package for you, Doc Amanda!"
I look up and saw Henry, my mailman entering my cubicle with a medium sized brown box. I signaled him to just put it on the floor.
It has been 2 years now that I got settled on my job. I am now a permanent physician of The Doctors without Borders. For this year, I am in Papua New Guinea. I think I am settled now to the life I planned to.
I finished first writing on my patients' charts before I paid attention to the package left on the floor.
Receiving a package this time of the year is not surprising for me. It is June, my birth month. I can tell who the package is from without even looking the card. I know few people who value my significant days. And to send me this when I am on the outskirts part of the world?
Only one person can be this impressively consistent.
My husband, (sort of) Ethan Sawyer.
I was married to him when I was 20 when my sick father forced me into it as his dying wish and Ethan was also forced by his parents, I suppose. This to tighten the business merger our respective families did that year.
On my part, I can marry anyone at that moment as long as it satisfies my father's wishes. His health was deteriorating each day and it crushes me deeply. And if it takes me to marry a stranger, so be it. As long as his sick father will be peaceful on his last days. That is the best I can offer to him.
Ethan and I were unlike other couples. We treat each other like professionals forced into a business. Like getting married was always a part of a job description laid to us when we were born. Maybe, that is why I was never against marrying him. He treats everything like business. I knew he doesn't like me as a woman and that makes me comfortable. In all honesty. Surprisingly, we mutually think this marriage is purely business and in our era, annulment or divorce is a piece of cake.
We never lived together since we got married. I was busy with my studies. Likewise, Ethan is also busy taking up his college degrees abroad to subsequently take over our family businesses. On our third year of "marriage", my father succumbed to his illnesses.
I know one day he will leave me alone, I already know that. He always whispers to me promises of loving me from up above. Promising me he will always be looking after me even if he is not around. I seriously think he readied me to whatever feelings I might experience when that time comes.
And then it came during one dark stormy night.
But no one briefed me the power of grief. He never prepared me to its intensity.
No one told me that however you strengthen your resolve in empowering your well-being, it will all be useless. For grief will creep on you on random times. It will shock you that every time it sneaks, it is just as intense it was on that one dark stormy night.
Maybe that is just how demise works on the bereaved. Life goes on…
I stood up from my chair and squat down to pick up the boring brown box lying still on my floor. I unwrap the box from its endless layers of bubble wrap. After that little struggle, the box turned out to be a gray velvet box with a glittery yellow card on the top portion of it. I opened the card.
Gracie,
Happy Birthday! Wishing you all the best!
May you keep yourself safe, wherever you are.
Sincerely yours,
Ethan
It is only Ethan who calls me Gracie. It is my middle name. Even my parents did not call me Grace or Gracie. I let him since mostly our conversations are on mails, emails or text messages. And for those rare moments we see each other like 4 years ago, on my father's funeral. I never heard him address me as Gracie.
I put back my focus on the gray velvet box. Before I open it, I say a little prayer that this might be a little different from his past gifts. Ethan Sawyer is a lot of things but he needs to know he doesn't have a knack on gift ideas. Last year, he gave me a picture frame. Until now, I cannot find any picture size that can fit in it.
I removed the wax papers delicately covering my 27th birthday gift. I cannot help myself but laugh. He never disappoints me.
Despite the elegant gift wraps, he gave me a ceramic mug. It is in between the color of orange or brown. More like a gradient.
Well honestly, more like mud.
It still amazes me how consistent Ethan is with his sending gifts on my birthday and Christmas day. He never misses a year. His simple card is also consistent.
Maybe, he has his secretary remind him of these days and maybe his secretary also chooses these gifts out of courtesy to his boss' orders.
I will never know
I turned the mug around to inspect it. I don't see any sign of Versace or Chanel. I personally don't use branded materials but knowing our financial status, Ethan Sawyer can absolutely afford hundreds of Versace mugs. I am not secretly hoping for one, it just bugs me why does he keeps sending me mundane gifts.
Maybe, Ethan is a practical person.
I will never know
Last year Christmas, he gave me a heavy silver keychain, heavier than my house keys. Even if they are getting weirder and weirder each year, I find myself using them.
Except for that picture frame.
I sighed and put the ceramic mug on top of my table. I need to acknowledge though, this mug will be useful for me especially how I love drinking anything.
I decided to take a picture of the gift and send my thanks to him. It just took a minute to receive a reply email from him.
As always, his "You are welcome" is as formal as it can be.
Our relationship is always this formal and I admire him for that. We both respect each other's privacy and boundaries. We don't demand personal matters from each other. We are never emotionally involved with our relationship. I find myself acting more professionally when I am dealing with Ethan than to my colleagues. That's the level of consideration we have for each other.
Isn't the most convenient marriage of the decade?
Until now, we busied our lives building up each of our careers but always shadowed with an invisible knot around our backs. Getting heavier, each year.
I never really get to know Ethan in a personal deeper kind of way but he always looks so quiet, reserved and too good to be true whenever I meet him. He always has this easy smile on him like the world is such a happy place. Like he was not pushed into a marriage and deal with the likes of me. He smiled to me looking so ready to serve the world in my plate. It made me feel worse to see him like that. He is naturally kind and it saddens me to see him tied on me when I have no right to offer anything.
Maybe, 7 years was enough now in fulfilling my late father's wishes. I believe my father just want me to have someone who can legally be my guardian when he will not be around. Now that he is gone and years have passed I believe I can stand on my own now. 27 is too grown up to be on the shadows of other's family.
Besides I think maybe it is now time to give Ethan his freedom.
Ethan deserves to meet someone. Maybe he is dating women behind my back. I honestly don't mind because I don't want to be the burden he will forever carry on his shoulders. I want to fully unload myself to his responsibilities. I will be forever grateful to his care on my welfare in these several years.
Maybe he has been waiting for me all this time to open up the divorce. Maybe he was being courteous on my pride as a woman. Just maybe.
I will never know
I picked up my phone and open our previous conversation.
I am the type of person who does things on whim as long as I already put my mind on it. Even it only took me 0.05 second to convince myself. I don't like wasting my time on hesitating. I do things when I decided I want to. I'll just deal on the consequences later. I am not impulsive.
I just decide fast.
Living with that mindset, I came into the decision that this is the right time now.
"Yes it is time." I convinced myself.
And I composed the longest email I have ever written for Ethan.
This must end well.
Maybe.