The bougainvillea had started to flower again, a deep fuchsia color. It climbed the wall of their patio until it reached the second floor where it clambered around the metal railings on their bedroom window.

Bloom lay in bed looking out of that window, seeing the bougainvillea frame a picture of two golfers at the fifth tee. He wasn't a golfer himself and he often wondered why he had chosen to live in the middle of a golf course. But he had to remind himself that he hadn't made the choice alone. They had made it together. She said that it would be better than living over on the beach or downtown. At least he was closer to the office here and they could use the golf course for their morning walks. Besides, she said it would be nice to be able to look out on the green grass.

Idyllic. That's the way it was supposed to be. Or that's the way she pretended it would be. Here they could forget the past and start over again. But that had been wishful thinking. They couldn't leave the past behind. It was part of them. Where they went, it went too

. "It's your drinking that's destroying us," she said, one afternoon after he'd staggered in at 3 am the night before. They were sitting on the beach near the lighthouse on Key Biscayne, one of the places they went when they wanted to escape from Miami

. "I'm going to stop. I promise," said Bloom.

"How many times have you said that? How many?" The despair in her voice twanged the nerves in his already hung-over head. He wanted to hurt her. He couldn't stop himself.

"Why am I drinking like this? You tell me. Go on, tell me!" Bloom's voice was too hoarse for the scream and the words left his throat in a painful screech.

Meg said nothing. This was old territory. They'd been here before. Too many times. She couldn't take back the past. She couldn't undo the damage. And she had never forgiven herself. Maybe if I'd been able to forgive myself, she thought, then maybe I'd have been able to stop him from trying to destroy himself.

They had met in Paris. Five years ago. He was there on business, glad to be away from the States and the end of a marriage that had never worked. She was living in Paris, working for a French company, and reveling in her romance with the language. But she was on a journey. Fleeing from an abusive relationship and running east. A month later she would have been in Hong Kong. Such is fate.

They were both American but from entirely different backgrounds. She was Boston Irish and he was Brooklyn Jewish. She used to remind him, in those lighthearted days, that one of the most famous Irishmen was Leopold Bloom. They shared a love of literature and the arts, spending hours in the Louvre and afternoons in cafes and bookstores, often losing all sense of time among the shelves of Shakespeare & Co. Evenings on the left bank, chocolate crepes on the street, good wine, and great times in bed. Days of wine and roses. They saw the Lee Remick and Jack Lemmon film and they knew that it could have been them up there on that screen. But work and career saved them from a life of dissolution in Paris. Bloom was posted back to the States. A month later Meg joined him.

Idyllic. Yes, for the first few months in Miami their life was indeed idyllic. A new world, an exotic Latin city in the heart of the South. They explored every inch of it together, preferring to eat where the Cubans ate, on Calle Ocho, and getting away to Key West whenever they could for a long weekend. Hanging out in Sloppy Joe's, Hemingway's bar. Bloom had once had dreams of being a writer. But he had never done anything about it. In Sloppy Joe's he fantasized that Hemingway's muse might strike. It didn't. The only thing that struck him was the massive hang-over the following day from too many margaritas.

They left the lighthouse at Key Biscayne with nothing resolved. How could it be? On the way home Meg fought back the memory of when it had all begun to collapse. Bloom had been gone for a week on business and his very best friend had promised to look after Meg in his absence. Oh, yes, he had looked after me all right, thought Meg. She was vulnerable and lonely and he had taken advantage of that. Great wine and a romantic atmosphere can lead to anything, even to throwing caution to the winds. And Meg had slept with him. In Bloom's close circle there was never going to be a way to keep that secret. And so he found out and confronted her. Maybe she should have lied. But she didn't. She admitted it and asked to be forgiven. Instead Bloom hit the bottle. Real hard. And their life had been going downhill ever since.

Watching the golfers as the balmy Miami breezes wafted through the bedroom window, Bloom realized how tired he felt. No wonder. He'd 'tied one on' last night again. He had no memory of getting home. Another blackout. That scared him. But, in a perverse way, it protected him from embarrassing memories. He looked over at the other side of their king-size bed. Didn't look like Meg had slept there very much last night. He didn't hear her downstairs and he reckoned that she'd probably gone to the beach or the health club. Anything but having to face him. Gradually the tiredness overcame him and sleep closed in.

He was dreaming and, somehow, he knew he was dreaming…. They were having a huge fight. She said she was leaving him. This was the end. No more. He was drunk. He knew he was drunk but he was in a rage. An uncontrollable rage. He knew that too. She ran upstairs and locked herself in the bedroom and refused to let him in. That infuriated him even more. So he charged the door with his shoulder, his feet, and anything that he could lay his hands on. The door fractured around the lock and gave way. He charged into the bedroom and she fled out past him. He turned and rushed towards her, forcing her onto the edge of the stairs. She lost her balance. He reached for her and missed. She tumbled down the stairs, never uttering a word, and lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom. Bloom woke up in a cold sweat. Terrified. He told himself that was it. No more booze. I'm losing my mind.

He decided to get up and head for the shower. On his way there he noticed that the bedroom door seemed off-balance. That's odd, he thought. He tried to close the door and that's when he saw the fracture around the lock. He froze right there.

He picked up the phone and dialed the Miami Dade Police Department. Then he gently placed a duvet over Meg and went out to the patio. He sat down under the bougainvillea and watched the next group of golfers at the fifth tee. And waited.

^