Sparks Fly

closed the door again, leaving Will alone with his thoughts.
    He poured himself a glass of neat whiskey from the bar. It was time to stop focusing on doing the “right” thing all the time. Maybe all these years of being responsible simply for the sake of responsibility had been a fool’s game.
    Will reached for the air-phone and called Jerry, his lead counsel, the only man he could trust to carry out his extraordinary decision in a fair, objective fashion.
    It took nearly thirty minutes to outline his plan for stepping down as CEO of PTI and disbursing the bulk of his owner’s shares equitably among the coworkers who had stuck with him through good times and bad.
    He was about to hang up when Jerry said, “I’m proud of you, kid. It’s about time you learned that there’s more to life than running this company. I had to almost lose my family about ten years back to figure it out myself. Mind if I ask you what you’re going to do now that you’re free?”
    Will cleared his throat. “I’m going to get back the woman I love and convince her to marry me, even though I’m an idiot and don’t deserve her.”
    “Ah,” Jerry said, his voice full of memories. “Sounds like true love to me. Beg if you have to, you hear?”
    “I’ll try and remember that.”
    “And one more thing,” Jerry said.
    “What’s that?” Will asked, looking forward to any additional advice the wise older man had to give him.
    “I’ve been thinking about those drawings you were doing. Boy, did they make me laugh. You should let more people see your talent.”

    * * *
    Angelina dropped her bags onto the knotty pine floor of her new home. She breathed a sigh of relief that this lakefront cottage had a clear sense of comfort and wellbeing. Just being inside the house, she felt a small bit of contentment seep into her system.
    In fact, as she walked around admiring the furniture and the artwork, she was reminded to a great degree of being in Will’s mother’s house. Needing to make the cottage seem like hers, even before the truck came with all of her belongings the next day, she wheeled her suitcase into the master bedroom to unpack a few pictures of her family and friends.
    As she walked through the doorway into the large suite, she was stunned by the phenomenal view of the water before her. Still, she saw Will everywhere she looked.
    “Give it some time, Ang,” she told herself, as she bent down to unzip her bag. “One day you’ll be able to make it a whole five minutes without thinking about him.”
    She finished unpacking and decided to go for a walk along the lake. Maybe she’d even get up the nerve to go and see Joyce, she told herself, still unsure how she was going to explain her sudden move.
    “Oh well,” she said as she laced up her tennis shoes. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
    Before she left the house, however, she did the one thing she should have done so many months ago: She went to the Love and Marriage corner of her new rental home and placed a small porcelain statue of a man and woman, entwined in their love for each other.
    Feeling much more centered with just that small Feng Shui touch, she headed off the porch onto the white sandy beach that stretched all around the freshwater lake. She wasn’t too surprised when her feet took her to the left, away from Joyce’s cottage.
    “It seems that my feet are cowards too,” she said, making fun of herself.
    She didn’t know how long she walked before she was standing in front of the Ferris wheel.
    Several kids were outside enjoying the rides. Angelina sat down on the bench she had shared with Will to watch them play.
    She held her hand over her still-flat stomach and whispered, “One day, you’re going to be riding that roller coaster and coming home with pink hands,” to the life growing inside her.

    * * *
    Upon landing at the small airstrip by Wishing Lake, Will headed straight to his mother’s house.
    He strolled in the front door, which he knew would be unlocked, without knocking.
    “Guess who?” he said, hoping to surprise his mother with his presence.
    “So you’re finally here for her, huh?” Joyce replied, unceremoniously, not even bothering to stop the brushstrokes she was adding to her canvas.
    The whole thing was so damn preposterous, he felt like he was on the roller coaster at the carnival. “I stepped down as CEO this morning. It’ll hit the news by tonight.”
    “And?” his mother prodded.
    “And I’m going