Tragic Renewal Read Online Free Page A

before asking for a divorce. As a military spouse she was guaranteed half his retirement upon their divorce.
    Sometimes there was a small twinge of guilt for taking money he earned, but she always reminded herself that she’d had a great job until they made the last move to Mississippi. She hoped he’d grow out of his wandering ways. That hope blew apart like a watermelon dropped from a skyscraper the day he met Isabella. Pretty, perfect Isabella, with her healthy womb and penchant for military officers. Once Scott met Isabella there was no longer a doubt his marriage to Harper was over. Neither fought the inevitable passing of their doomed union. They let it play out to its inaudible bitter end. All of their fighting and trying had been wasted in the early years, leaving nothing for the finale.
    She rubbed her hand over her barren womb. A traitorous womb unable to fulfill its duty and carry their babies past sixteen weeks, in less than four short months each born into the world too soon to survive. Scott’s refusal to look into adoption and her refusal to look into surrogacy had forced them into a stubborn standstill that spelled the end of their relationship. Scott turned to other women while Harper fell into a deep depression and turned to food and wine to assuage the guilt of childlessness. Neither considered getting professional help to assist them in coping with their losses. It became easier to ignore and pass each day as automatons engaged in a familiar routine.
    Cara became her counselor and helped Harper through the worst of her depression. Hours long late night calls, skyping sessions, and infrequent visits pushed Harper to learn to live with the hand she was dealt. Harper learned to redirect her depression. She now knew how to knit, paint terrible watercolors, create scrapbooks, and make tacky jewelry. Over time, she let the wine go, but continued to turn to food when she was feeling down. As a result she packed fifty extra pounds onto her medium build frame and still carried them around as a testament to her lack of willpower. The weight, a spongy badge of courage, but Harper knew her health and psyche suffered with too many indulgences.
    Treading the stairs to her second floor apartment took her breath and made her heart race. Years ago she would have bounded up the stairs without a noticeable change in breathing and still had the energy to cook a real meal. She no longer cared about eating healthy food or counting the calories that slipped past her lips. With so much wretchedness in her life she had plenty of excuses to continue making poor choices.
    Harper brushed flyaway hairs back from her face. She knew she had to make changes in her life or she would never find a modicum of happy. Unhappiness is like a disease, left untreated it will never get better. She was too old to start over, but too young to give up on living. Her fortieth birthday had come and gone, she was over the hill but not ready to roll down the other side. Too many years wasted on a marriage that died a slow death along with each fetus gone before his time. She reached to rub the necklace locket, with the initials SBC engraved on its surface, a memento of her sons.
    Her mind flashed pictures of what those boys may have looked like had they waited a few more months to enter this world. Dark hair and brown eyes like hers. Cocky attitude and green-eyed gorgeous gaze like Scott. Tall and lanky like Scott or average tending toward round like her.
    Harper shook her head closing the album that never was, locking it away for safe keeping but infrequent use. Too many things had gone wrong in her life to expect everything to turn over after reading a single statement someone had scrawled into a trash chute. Her jaw set in a determined line, she grabbed a sheet of paper and a pencil and hurried out into the hallway.
    With blank paper held over the red metal she turned the pencil sideways and ran the long lead over the indented message. Satisfied it