Fiduciary Duty Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Tim Michaels
I would need that skill again. Later, I had an early dinner at a family-owned restaurant down the block from the hotel. The meal was a pleasant mix of exotic and ordinary: some sort of smoked fish with peas and potatoes and a mango juice to wash it down. Afterwards, I felt completely beat. I went to sleep as soon as the sun went down.
During the night, I had the same dream I always did. In the dream I am at my computer, applying for yet another job. H walks into the room holding Jeremy and says, “I have a couple errands to run. Why don’t we eat the leftover lasagna when I get back?”
I respond, “In restaurants they call it twice baked. They charge extra for it like that.” I grin, thinking of Jeremy’s tendency to end up with strings of tomato sauce-covered cheese hanging from his chin.
H puts Jeremy down, and they walk toward the door. For an instant, before they walk out, both of them turn around and smile at me. Jeremy says, “Bye bye, Daddy.”
I smile back, and say “Bye bye, Jeremy. Bye bye, H.”
In the dream, even as I say “Bye bye” I always feel a sense of foreboding, and I try to warn H but cannot. Every night, at that same point, I would wake up with a feeling of despair pitted in my stomach. But that night was different. The dream felt almost bittersweet, as if I had distant memories of H and Jeremy actually coming back a few hours later and the three of us having lasagna for lunch. In real life, of course, I was at the coroner’s office a few hours later to identify their bodies.
The bittersweet feeling from the dream was still with me when I woke up at the crack of dawn. After puttering around in the bathroom, I found my running shoes and shorts and went out for run. The tour books said there are 92 different beaches in the Ubatuba area and I found a semi-deserted one on which to start my jog. I hadn’t given up jogging since H and Jeremy died, but it had simply become another mindless thing I had to do, like brushing my teeth, shaving or cleaning out the cats’ litter box. Since my late teens, if I didn’t jog and do stomach crunches regularly, I would get excruciating back pains. As long as maintained the regimen and kept my weight below a hundred and seventy pounds, I could usually keep the back pains at bay.
What I hadn’t been doing for the past few months was eating or sleeping properly. As a result, I had lost about ten pounds. That was on top of ten pounds I had lost earlier from stress when I first became unemployed. I was down to the same weight I had in my freshman year in college, but it didn’t feel good.
But that morning, that morning I did feel good. In fact, I was elated. My sense of purpose from the day before was still there, and I had always enjoyed jogging on sand, especially the wet sand at the water’s edge. As I ran along the sand and the occasional rocks and past a lagoon, I kept thinking about how much H would have loved Ubatuba – she thought she loved sunbathing but could never stay out more than twenty minutes before getting too hot– and how much fun Jeremy would have had in the water. Normally, at that point I would have broken down, but not this morning. I realized, as I was having those thoughts, something in me had changed. The bittersweet feeling was still there. I felt like traces of H and Jeremy were with me.
An hour later, I got back, took a shower, and changed into swim trunks and a t-shirt. I went down to the first floor – labeled “T” (for “terreo” or ground) on the elevator, since the first floor to Brazilians is what we Americans call the second. Even modest Brazilian hotels typically have a nice spread for breakfast, and this one was no exception. I enjoyed a hearty meal of fruit, bread, and doce de leite, a milk-based spread exactly like the “dulce de leche” I had eaten so frequently as a child in Argentina and Uruguay. Americans somehow mistake it for caramel, but it is actually made from condensed milk and tastes so much
During the night, I had the same dream I always did. In the dream I am at my computer, applying for yet another job. H walks into the room holding Jeremy and says, “I have a couple errands to run. Why don’t we eat the leftover lasagna when I get back?”
I respond, “In restaurants they call it twice baked. They charge extra for it like that.” I grin, thinking of Jeremy’s tendency to end up with strings of tomato sauce-covered cheese hanging from his chin.
H puts Jeremy down, and they walk toward the door. For an instant, before they walk out, both of them turn around and smile at me. Jeremy says, “Bye bye, Daddy.”
I smile back, and say “Bye bye, Jeremy. Bye bye, H.”
In the dream, even as I say “Bye bye” I always feel a sense of foreboding, and I try to warn H but cannot. Every night, at that same point, I would wake up with a feeling of despair pitted in my stomach. But that night was different. The dream felt almost bittersweet, as if I had distant memories of H and Jeremy actually coming back a few hours later and the three of us having lasagna for lunch. In real life, of course, I was at the coroner’s office a few hours later to identify their bodies.
The bittersweet feeling from the dream was still with me when I woke up at the crack of dawn. After puttering around in the bathroom, I found my running shoes and shorts and went out for run. The tour books said there are 92 different beaches in the Ubatuba area and I found a semi-deserted one on which to start my jog. I hadn’t given up jogging since H and Jeremy died, but it had simply become another mindless thing I had to do, like brushing my teeth, shaving or cleaning out the cats’ litter box. Since my late teens, if I didn’t jog and do stomach crunches regularly, I would get excruciating back pains. As long as maintained the regimen and kept my weight below a hundred and seventy pounds, I could usually keep the back pains at bay.
What I hadn’t been doing for the past few months was eating or sleeping properly. As a result, I had lost about ten pounds. That was on top of ten pounds I had lost earlier from stress when I first became unemployed. I was down to the same weight I had in my freshman year in college, but it didn’t feel good.
But that morning, that morning I did feel good. In fact, I was elated. My sense of purpose from the day before was still there, and I had always enjoyed jogging on sand, especially the wet sand at the water’s edge. As I ran along the sand and the occasional rocks and past a lagoon, I kept thinking about how much H would have loved Ubatuba – she thought she loved sunbathing but could never stay out more than twenty minutes before getting too hot– and how much fun Jeremy would have had in the water. Normally, at that point I would have broken down, but not this morning. I realized, as I was having those thoughts, something in me had changed. The bittersweet feeling was still there. I felt like traces of H and Jeremy were with me.
An hour later, I got back, took a shower, and changed into swim trunks and a t-shirt. I went down to the first floor – labeled “T” (for “terreo” or ground) on the elevator, since the first floor to Brazilians is what we Americans call the second. Even modest Brazilian hotels typically have a nice spread for breakfast, and this one was no exception. I enjoyed a hearty meal of fruit, bread, and doce de leite, a milk-based spread exactly like the “dulce de leche” I had eaten so frequently as a child in Argentina and Uruguay. Americans somehow mistake it for caramel, but it is actually made from condensed milk and tastes so much