The Divorce
Sam Pembroke
"What the hell?" he thought as he rubbed his eyes. Last night's partying had gotten to him in an all too familiar way: hangover induced vomit. As he got up from his bed; in reality just a mess of sheets and a blanket he nearly fell over. "God, let this be over with. I can't be like this for my father" he thought to himself again. Suddenly the urge overtook him. He vomited. "Look at your general now"! He yelled in the mirror. Tears began to stream down his cheeks. He cried out in a horrendous sob; "why did you have to leave me Ruth?" For Peter Creedon, crying didn't come naturally, no. For him, emotions were something that had to be kept hidden away from prying eyes; his mother always told him never to show emotion. In his mind, his mother was always there, trying to pry into his private life. He never got these thoughts of his father. Right now was a painful time for him, and he had to get through it…somehow.
When he caught Ruth and Sam walking out of his apartment on Orange Street he was crushed. For the longest time he was suspicious of his wife. Her letters that she constantly wrote made him wonder if she was writing to another man. These suspicions had finally come true, however not in the way he had expected. When he saw the look on Sam's face, Sam realized that he might have broken the trust between them. Sam had been Peter's friend since their academy days. The two worked as a team getting women and going to parties. The "Fabulous Duo" they were called. Sam was with Peter when he met the young Ruth DeWitt in Brattleboro. There had been a party and they were lucky enough not to hit her out in the middle of the road. She was attending a girl's school there, and was quite popular amongst the students. He thought she was attractive, more attractive than her friend Victoria Morrow.
From then on, she was attached to him. She had always liked him, regarded him as her hero, especially from what her father told her. Peter was a charismatic young man at the time, and his leadership in the New England War was absolutely remarkable. From then on, he was a sex symbol, a man that every woman wanted to have; to Ruth this was no exception. From an early age, she drew pictures of him; to her he was always a happy go-lucky man. She couldn't have been further from the truth. Alcohol had found him during the war and by the war's end in 1874 he had been hooked. His addiction wasn't as severe as he claimed it was however. He could function without the aid of drink, and often did it at parties. His friend Sam was similar, however he often drank when he was depressed, and that was something he hid from his father.
Their courtship had been short, almost too short for his liking. Infatuation had never totally let both of them out of its grip, and even still there were things about Ruth that he hadn't known. It took his father, then president at the time to dig some information up about his fiancée; information such as that at age thirteen she was committed to a psychiatric hospital for a month after she struck her stepmother. He didn't hold that against her, especially after meeting the woman. To him, her stepmother was a lot like his mother in many ways; dense, stubborn, and set in her ways. One thing that set her apart from his mother was the fact that she was from England, and after fighting alongside English soldiers in the war he realized that they had a totally different attitude, one that made them seem pompous and arrogant, like they truly owned the world "An island cannot rule the world" is what he always thought.
Now of course that was all behind him, today was the day he would go to the courthouse and file divorce proceedings. They had no children so custody wasn't going to be an issue. He didn't want anything from her. From him, she wanted nothing. This divorce was going to be a painless affair, at least until her family found out, or at least her stepmother found out. Jonathan DeWitt, her father was keen on what was happening he dropped the hint on Peter that something was going on. Edith however was going to be another matter. She had warned Ruth not to do anything stupid; the young girl simply brushed Edith off. Now that Ruth was taken care of, what of Sam? Sam had been his best friend, and now he had betrayed him. "To go behind my back and steal my wife from me. That's pretty low, pretty low indeed." He had thought to himself. What he had to was nearly complete. Now it was time to face his father, and tell him "You were right."