Sour Breakfast

Sour breakfast

I woke up after a whole night of non sleep. I haven’t been able to think about anything else but the news I receive last night from Markus, the younger of my two sons. He has spent the last two years working in the studio of a very prestigious architect. Yesterday, just before dinner, he made a call to tell the family that resigned at work and that, in two weeks time, he would be moving to Costa Rica to work building schools for homeless children, as an active member of a new charity that a friend of him got started few months ago. He has recently gone through a divorce after finding out that his wife was having an affair with a workmate. I have been worried about him for the last three months since the divorce.
I am standing in front of my breakfast that I have had to make myself. Normally Helena, my wife, would be cooking it for me but today she is not here. As usual one egg, one sausage, and two toasts with French butter. On Fridays I will normally add a piece of black pudding that Helena buys in the morning, on the butchers down the road, freshly delivered from the Scottish Highlands. Today is Friday and I don’t have black pudding. It seems, for some reason, Markus is not coping with the situation and all he can think is of running away. I have been working very hard on the education of my two sons. I have taken them to the best schools; I made sure they were accepted on the most important universities of this country, I have prepared their backgrounds so they could be successful men. They have grown up in the strictest family values; I never thought I could miscarry in the job of being the forefather of this family.
While I’m eating my breakfast, I am thinking on a way that I can discourage him of throwing away a whole life of hard work. I could try and persuade him. If he needs some time off from work, I could offer him to spend a few weeks in the country house we own in the French Riviera. Is the perfect place to be alone with your thoughts; At least to reconsider his decision. If what he needs is to keep himself busy, doing something completely different, he might be interested in working for his brother’s newspaper. I move my hand towards the right side of the table to reach my cup of tea. I didn’t make one. Is probably the first time I sat down on the table to eat my breakfast and I don’t have a warm English tea next to me. I have just a little bit of toast left. By now there is no need to make myself a drink.
There must be something I can do to change the course of the events.
What about Mr. Smith’s daughter? They have known each other for years, and had always a great relationship until Markus got married; after that it would not have been appropriate to have a close friendship with another woman besides his own wife. Where is she now? I can get in touch with her father. Why did I not think about it before? A woman, among everything of course, is always the ultimate tool to change man’s fate.