Humpty Dumpty: Piecing Myself Together after an Abusive Relationship
Have you ever experienced a moment in your life when you realize that everything you’ve been working so hard and long for, has finally fallen into place? Well, ten years ago that was me and my life.
I was a reporter at a top newspaper, the Miami Herald. I’d bought a three-bedroom house, been an in-demand foreign correspondent, travelled the world, spoke Spanish and French fluently. I’d built an accomplished life as a career woman and I was the proud mother of a young son. I was the epitome of success.
Early one morning, I received a call in the newsroom from a man named James, a businessman from Chicago who said he had a story about the mob in South Florida. I was intrigued, so I went to meet him at his friend’s mansion where he was staying to discuss the story. In the middle of our conversation, he abruptly asked me out to dinner. Stunned at his directness, I turned him down, saying it would be a conflict of interest since he was a potential source. The truth was I didn’t know if I liked him. Frankly, he was loud and brash, yet he had a rough-hewn charm, a genuineness. Plus, since my divorce six years prior, I hadn’t dated much and my skills were rusty, to say the least.
My editors decided we didn’t have the time or manpower to pursue James’s story, but over the next six…
